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CAPITAL 

A    CEITIQUE    0¥    POLITICAL    ECONOMY 


By  KARL  MARX 


VOLUME  I 

THE  PROCESS  OF  CAPITALIST  PRODUCTION 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  THIRD  OERMAN  EDITION,  BY 
SAMUEL   MOORE   AND   EDWARD   AVELING 


AND  EDITED  BY 

PREDEKICK   ENGELS 


Revised  and  Amplified  According  to  the  Foubth  Gebman  Edition 
BY  Ebnest  Untebmann 


CHICAGO 

CHARLES  H.  KERR  &  COMPANY 

1906 


Copyright,     1906 
Bt  Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company 


80 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Editor's   Note   to   the   First   American    Edition, 7 

Author's    Prefaces — I.    To    the    First    Edition, 11 

II.  To   the    Second    Edition, 16 

Editor's   Preface — To    the    First    English    Translation 27 

Editor's  Preface — To  the   Fourth  German  Edition 32 

PART  I. 

commodities  and  money. 

Chapter   I.- — Commodities, 41 

Section    1. — The    two    Factors    of    a    Commodity;    Use    Value    and    Value    (the 

Substance  of  Value  and  the  Magnitude  of  Value) 41 

Section    2. — The   Twofold    Character    of   the    Labour    embodied   in   Commodities,     48 
Section  3. — The   Form   of  Value,   or  Exchange'  Value, 54 

A.  Elementary   or   Accidental   Form   of    Value 56 

1.  The    two    Poles    of    the    Expression    of    Value:  Relative    Form    and 

Equivalent     Form 56 

The    Relative    Form    of    Value, 57 

(a.)   The   Nature   and    Import  of  this  Form 57 

(fc.)   Quantitative  Determination  of  Relative  Value, 61 

3.  The   Equivalent   Form   of   Value,      . 64 

4.  The    Elementary    Form   of   Value   considered   as   a   Whole,      ...  69 

B.  Total   or    Expanded    Form   of    Value, 72 

1.  The    Expanded    Relative    Form    of    Value 72 

2.  The     Particular     Equivalent     Form 73 

3.  Defects  of  the  Total  or   Expanded  Form  of  Value .74 

C.  The    General    Form    of    Value 75 

1.  The    altered    Character    of    the    Form    of    Value, 75 

2.  The    interdependent    Development   oi    the    Relative    Form   of   Value, 

and    of    the    Equivalent    Form, 78 

3.  Transition    from    the    General    Forro    to   the    Money   Form,     ...  79 

D.  The  Money  form, 80 

Section  4. — The  Fetishism  of  Commodities  and  the  Secret  thereof 81 

Chapter     II. — Exchange, 96 

Chapter  III. — Money,  or  the  Circulation  cf  Commodities 106 

Section    1. — The    Measure    of    Value, 106 

Section    2. — The    Medium    of    Circulatior^, 116 

a.  The    Metamorphosis    of    ■^Tvnmodities, 116 

b.  The   Currency   of   Money, 128 

c.  Coin,  and  symbols  of  Va/uc 140 

Section     3. — Money,  '  .      .      .      .   146 

a.  Hoarding,  146 

b.  Means     of     Payment, 151 

c.  Universal  Money 169 

PART  II. 

the  transformation  of  money  into  capital. 

Chapter    IV.— The    G'Ti»r?'j    ^o'n-Mla    for    Capital 163 

Chapter  V. — Contradictions  in  the  General  Formula  of  Capital 173 

Chapter  V\.~Tne  Buying  and  Selling  of  Labour-Power 186 

3 


I  Contents. 

PART  III. 

TH«   PSODUCTION    OF   ABSOLUTE    SUBPLUS-VALUK. 

FAGB 

Chaptkb   VII. — The    Labour    Process   and    the    Process     of    producing   Surplus- 
Value 197 

Section  1. — The  Labour  Process  or  the  Production  of  -Use- Value, 197 

Section    2. — The    Production    of    Surplus- Value 207 

CiiAPTEB    VIII. — Constant    Capiul    and    Variable    Capital 221 

CiiAPTEB    IX.— The    Rate    of    Surplus-Value 235 

Section  1. — The  Degree  of  Exploitation  of  Labour-Power 236 

Section   2. — The   RcpresenUtion  of  the   Components   of  the  Value   of   the   Pro- 
duct by  corresponding  proportional  Parts  of  the   Product  itself,      .      .      .   244 

Section  3. — Senior's  "  Last  Hour," 248 

Section    4. — Surplus-Produce, 254 

Chapteb  X. — The  Working-Day 255 

Section  1. — The  Limits  of  the  Working-Day 255 

Section  2. — The  Greed  for  Surplus-Labour.  Manufacturer  and  Boyard,  .  .  259 
Section  3. — Branches  of  English  Industry  without  Legal  Limits  to   Exploitation,  268 

Section  4.— Day  and  Night  Work.     The  Relay  System 282 

Section  5. — The   Struggle    for   a   Normal   Working- Day.     Compulsory    Laws    for 
the  Extension  of  the  Working-Day   from  the  Middle  of  the  14th  to  the 

End  of  the  17th  Century 290 

Section   6. — The    Struggle    for  a   Normal   Working-Day.     Compulsory    Limitation 

by  Law  of  the  Working-Time.     The   English   Factory  Acts,  1833  to  1864,  304 
Section  7. — The   Struggle    for   a   Normal    Working-Day.     Re-action    of   the    Eng- 
lish Factory  Acts  on  Other  Countries, 826 

CuAPTEB  XI. — Rate  and  Mass  of  Surplus- Value, 831 

PART  IV. 

PKODUCTION    OP   BELATIVE   SURPLUS-VALtn. 

Chapter   XII. — The   Concept   of    Relative    Surplus-Value 342 

Chapter     XIII. — Co-Operation, 35S 

Chapter  XIV. — Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture, 868 

Section  1. — Twofold  Origin  of  Manufacture, 868 

Section  2. — The   Detail   Labourer  and  his   Implements, 372 

Section  3. — The    two     Fundamental     Forms    of    Manufacture:         Heterogeneous 

Manufacture,    Serial    Manufacture, 375 

Section    4. — Division    of    Labour   in    Manufacture,    and    Division   of   Labour    in 

Society 386 

Section  5. — The    Capitalistic    Character    of    Manufacture, 395 

Chapteb    XV. — Machinery    and    Modern    Industry 405 

Section   1. — The   Development  of   Machinery 405 

Section  2. — The  Value  transferred  by  Machinery  to  the  Product,  ....  422 
Section  3. — ^The  Proximate  Effects  of  Machinery  on  the  Workman,      ....   430 

a.  Appropriation  of  Supplementary   Labour-Power  by  Capital.     The 

Employment    of    Women    and    Children, 431 

b.  Prolongation    of   the    Working-Day 440 

c.  Intensification  of  Labour 447 

Section    4. — The    Factory 467 

Section  5. — The    Strife    between    Workman    and    Machinery, 466 

Section  6. — The  Theory  of  Compensation  as  regards  the  Workpeople   displaced 

by     Machinery 478 

Section  7. — Repulsion    and    Attraction   of   Workpeople   by  the    Factory    System. 

Crises  of  the  Cotton  Trade, 488 


Contents.  $ 


PAGE 

Section  8. — Revolution     effected    in     ^Tanufacture,    Handicrafts,    and    Domestic 

Industry    by    Modern    Industry, 502 

a.  Overthrow   of   Co-Opcration  based  on    Handicraft  and  on   Divi- 

sion    of     Labour 502 

b.  Re-action   of  tbe    I-'actory    System   on   Manufacture   and   Domes- 

tic    Industries,  504 

c.  Modern     Manufacture,  506 

d.  Modern    Domestic    Industry, 509 

e.  Passage    of    Modern    Manufacture    and    Domestic    Industry    into 

Modern  Mechanical  Industry.  The  Hastening  of  this  Revo- 
lution by  the  Application  of  the  Factory  Acts  to  those  In- 
dustries,          514 

Section  9. — The   Factory  Acts.     Sanitary  and   Educational  Clauses  of  the  same. 

Their    general    Extension    in    England, 526 

Section  10. — Modern   Industry   and   Agriculture 653 

PART  V. 

THE    PRODUCTION    OF    ABSOLUTE    AND    RELATIVE    SURPLUS-VALUE. 

Chapter   XVI. — Absolute  and   Relative   Surplus- Value 557 

Chaptkr  XVII. — Changes   of   Magnitude   in  the   Price   of   Labour-Power  and  in 

Surplus- Value,         568 

I.  Length    of    the    Working   Day    and    Intensity    of    Labour   constant.     Pro- 

ductiveness    of     Labour     variable, 569 

II.  Working   Day   constant.     Productiveness   of  Labour  constant.     Intensity 

of     Labor     variable 574 

III.  Productiveness  and  Intensity  of  Labour  constant.     Length  of  the  Work- 
ing    Day     variable, 576 

IV.  Simultaneous    Variations    in    the    Duration,        Productiveness    and    In- 
tensity    of     Labour, 678 

(1.)   Diminishing  Productiveness  of  Labour  with  a  simultaneous  Length- 
ening  of    the    Working    Day 578 

(8.)   Increasing    Intensity    and    Productiveness    of    Labour    with    simul- 
taneous   Shortening    of    the    Working    Day 580 

Chapter  XVIII. — Various  Formlse  for  the  Rate  of  Surplus-Value,     ....  582 

PART  VI. 

wages. 

Chapter  XIX. — The  Transformation  of  the  Value   (and  respectively  the  Price) 

of    Labour-Power    into    Wages, 586 

Chapter  XX. — Time-wages 504 

Chapter  XXI. — Piece-Wages,  603 

Chapter    XXII. — National    Differences    of    Wages, 611 

PART  VII. 

the  accumulation  of  capital. 

Chapter   XXIII. — Simple    Reproduction 619 

Chapter  XXIV. — Conversion     of     Surplus- Value     into     Capital 634 

Section  1. — Capitalist  Production  on  a  progressively  increasing  Scale.  Transi- 
tion of  the  Laws  of  Property  that  characterise  Production  of  Com- 
modities  into   Laws   of   Capitalist   Appropriation, 634 

Section  2. — Erroneous    Conception,    by    Political    Economy,    of    Reproduction    on 

a     progressively     increasing     Scale 644 


6  '  Contents. 

PACK 

Section  3.— Separation  of  Surplus-Value  into  Capital  and  Revenue.  The  Ab- 
stinence   Theory ..'.■■*** 

Section  4.— Circumstances  that,  independently  of  the  proportional  Division  of 
Surplus-Value  into  Capital  and  Revenue,  determine  the  Amount  of  Ac- 
cumulation. Degree  of  Exploitation  of  Labour-Power.  Productivity  of 
Labour.  Growing  Difference  in  Amount  between  Capital  employed  and 
Capital  consumed.     Magnitude  of  Capital  advanced, 656 

Section  5. — The    so-called    Labour    Fund 667 

Chapter  XXV. — The   General    Law   of   Capitalist  Accumulation, 671 

Section  1. — The  increased  Demand  for  Labour-Power  that  accompanies  Accumu- 
lation,  the  Composition  of  Capital  remaii.ing  the  same, 671 

Section  2. — Relative  Diminution  of  the  Variable  Part  of  Capital  simultaneously 
with  the  Progress  of  Accumulation  and  of  the  Concentration  that  ac- 
companies it 681 

Section  3'. — Progressive  Production  of  a  Relative  Surplus-Population,  or  Indus- 
trial    Reserve     Army, 689 

Section  4. — Different   Forms  of   the    Relative   Surplus-Population.     The   General 

Law   of   Capitalistic    Accumulation, 703 

Section  6. — Illustrations  of  the  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation,     .      .  711 

a.  England   from   1846  to  1866 711 

b.  The  badly  paid  Strata  of  the  British  Industrial  Class,     .      .      .  718 

c.  The     Nomad     Population, 728 

d.  Effect  of  Crises  on  the  best  paid  Part  of  the  Working  Class,     .   733 

e.  The    British    Agricultural    Proletariat, 739 

/.  Ireland 767 

PART  VIII. 

THE    SO-CALLED    PRIMITIVE    ACCUIf  1TLATI0N. 

Chapter  XXVI. — The  Secret  of  Primitive  Accumulation 784 

Chapter  XXVII. — Expropriation  of  the  Agricultural  Population  from  the  Land,  788 
Chapter  XXVIII. — Bloody  Legislation   against  the   Expropriated   from   the   End 

of  the  15th  Century.     Forcing  down  of  Wages  by  Acts  of  Parliament,      .   806 

Chapter  XXIX. — Genesis    of    the    Capitalist    Farmer, 814 

Chapter  XXX. — Reaction  of  the  Agricultural  Revolution  on  Industry.  Crea- 
tion  of    the    Home    Market    for    Industrial    Capital 817 

Chapter  XXXI. — Genesis  of  the   Industrial  Capitalist, 822 

Chapter  XXXII. — Historical    Tendency    of    Capitalistic    Accumulation,     .      .      .   834 

Chapter  XX.viII. — The  Modem  Theory  of  Colonization, 838 

Works  and  Authors  quoted  in  "  Capital," 850 

Index. 866 


EDITOE'S  NOTE  TO  THE  FIRST  AMERICAN 
EDITION. 

The  original  plan  of  Marx,  as  outlined  in  his  preface  to 
the  first  German  edition  of  Capital,  in  1867,  was  to  divide 
his  work  into  three  volumes.  Volume  I  was  to  contain  Book 
I,  The  Process  of  'Capitalist  Production.  Volume  II  was 
scheduled  to  comprise  both  Book  II,  The  Process  of  Capi- 
talist Circulation,  and  Book  III,  The  Process  of  Capitalist 
Production  as  a  Whole.  The  work  was  to  close  with  volume 
III,  containing  Book  IV,  A  History  of  Theories  of  Surplus- 
Value. 

When  Marx  proceeded  to  elaborate  his  work  for  publica- 
tion, he  had  the  essential  portions  of  all  three  volumes,  with 
a  few  exceptions,  worked  out  in  their  main  analyses  and  con- 
clusions, but  in  a  very  loose  and  unfinished  form.  Owing  to 
ill  health,  he  completed  only  volume  I.  He. died  on  March 
14,  1883,  just  when  a  third  German  edition  of  this  volume 
was  being  prepared  for  the  printer. 

Frederick  Engels,  the  intimate  friend  and  coroperator  of 
Marx,  stepped  into  the  place  of  his  dead  comrade  and  pro- 
ceeded to  complete  the  work.  In  the  course  of  the  elabora- 
tion of  volume  II  it  was  found  that  it  would  be  wholly  taken 
up  with  Book  II,  The  Process  of  Capitalist  Circulation.  Its 
first  German  edition  did  not  appear  until  May,  1885,  almost 
18  years  after  the  first  volume. 

The  publication  of  the  third  volume  was  delayed  still 
longer.  When  the  second  German  edition  of  volume  II  ap- 
peared, in  July,  1893,  Engels  was  still  working  on  volume 

7 


8  American  Editor's  Note. 

III.  It  was  not  until  October,  1894,  that  the  first  German 
edition  of  volume  III  was  published,  in  two  separate  parts, 
containing  the  subject  matter  of  what  had  been  originally 
planned  as  Book  III  of  volume  II,  and  treating  of  The  Capi- 
talist Process  of  Production  as  a  whole. 

The  reasons  for  the  delay  in  the  publication  of  volumes  II 
and  III,  and  the  difficulties  encountered  in  solving  the 
problem  of  elaborating  the  copious  notes  of  Marx  into  a  fin- 
ished and  connected  presentation  of  his  theories,  have  been 
fully  explained  by  Engels  in  his  various  prefaces  to  these  two 
volumes.  His  great  modesty  led  him  to  belittle  his  own 
share  in  this  fundamental  work.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  large 
portion  of  the  contents  of  Capital  is  as  much  a  creation  of 
Engels  as  though  he  had  written  it  independently  of  Marx. 

Engels  intended  to  issue  the  contents  of  the  manuscripts 
for  Book  IV,  originally  planned  as  volume  III,  in  the  form 
of  a  fourth  volume  of  Capital.  But  on  ihe  6th  of  August, 
1895,  less  than  one  year  after  the  publication  of  volume  III, 
he  followed  his  co-worker  into  the  grave,  still  leaving  tiiis 
work  incompleted. 

However,  some  years  previous  to  his  demise,  and  in  antici- 
pation of  such  an  eventuality,  he  had  appointed  Karl  Kautsky, 
the  editor  of  Die  Neue  Zeit,  the  scientific  organ  of  the  German 
Socialist  Party,  as  his  successor  and  familiarized  him  per- 
sonally with  the  subject  matter  intended  for  volume  IV  of 
this  work.  The  material  proved  to  be  so  voluminous,  that 
Kautsky,  instead  of  making  a  fourth  volume  of  Capital  out 
of  it,  abandoned  the  original  plan  aiid  issued  his  elaboration 
as  a  separate  work  in  three  volumes  imder  the  title  Theories  of 
Surplus-value. 

The  first  English  translation  of  the  first  volume  of  Capital 
was  edited  by  Engels  and  published  in  1886.  Marx  had  in 
the  meantime  made  some  changes  in  the  text  of  the  second 


American  Editor's  Note.  9 

German  edition  and  of  the  French  translation,  both  of  which 
appeared  in  1873,  and  he  had  intended  to  superintend  per- 
sonally the  edition  of  an  English  version.  But  the  state  of 
his  health  interfered  with  this  plan.  Engels  utilised  his 
notes  and  the  text  of  the  French  edition  of  1873  in  the  prep- 
aration of  a  third  German  edition,  and  this  served  as  a  basis 
for  the  first  edition  of  the  English  translation. 

Owing  to  the  fact  that  the  title  page  of  this  English  trans- 
lation (published  by  Swan  Sonnenschein  &  Co.)  did  not  dis- 
tinctly specify  that  this  was  but  volume  I^  it  has  often  been 
mistaken  for  the  complete  work,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
prefaces  of  Marx  and  Engels  clearly  pointed  to  the  actual 
condition  of  the  matter. 

In  1890,  four  years  after  the  publication  of  the  first  Eng- 
lish edition,  Engels  edited  the  proofs  for  a  fourth  German 
edition  of  volume  I  and  enlarged  it  still  more  after  a  re- 
peated comparison  with  the  French  edition  and  with  manu- 
script notes  of  Marx.  But  the  Swan  Sonnenschein  edition 
did  not  adopt  this  new  version  in  its  subsequent  English 
issues. 

This  first  American  edition  will  be  the  first  complete  Eng- 
lish edition  of  the  entire  Marxian  theories  of  Capitalist  Pro- 
duction. It  will  contain  all  three  volumes  of  Capital  in  full. 
The  present  volume,  I,  deals  with  The  Process  of  Capitalist 
Production  in  the  strict  meaning  of  the  term  "  production." 
Volume  II  will  treat  of  The  Process  of  Capitalist  Circulation 
in  the  strict  meaning  of  the,  term  "  circulation."  Volume 
III  will  contain  the  final  analysis  of  The  Process  of  Capitalist 
Production  as  a  Whole,  that  is  of  Production  and  Circulation 
in  their  mutual  interrelations. 

The  Theories  of  Surplus-Value,  Kautsky's  elaboration  of 
the  posthumous  notes  of  Marx  and  Engels,  will  in  due  time 
be  published  in  an  English  translation  as  a  separate  work. 


!  10  American  Editor's  Note. 

I 

This  first  American  edition  of  volume  I  is  based  on  the 

revised  fourth  German  edition.  The  text  of  the  English 
version  of  the  Swan  Sonnenschein  edition  has  been  compared 
page  for  page  with  this  improved  German  edition,  and  about 
.  ten  pages  of  new  text  hitherto  not  rendered  in  English  are 
thus  presented  to  American  readers.  All  the  footnotes  have 
likewise  been  revised  and  brought  up  to  date. 

For  all  further  information  concerning  the  technical  par- 
ticulars of  this  work  I  refer  the  reader  to  the  prefaces  of  Marx 
and  Engels. 

Eknest  Unteemann. 
Orlando,  Ela.,  July  18,  1906. 


AUTHOR'S  PEEFACES. 

I. TO    THE    FIRST    EDITION. 

THE  work,  the  first  volume  of  which  I  now  submit  to  the 
public,  forms  the  continuation  of  mj  "Zur  Kritik  der 
Politischen  Oekonomie"  (A  Contribution  to  the  Critique  of 
Political  Economy)  published  in  1859.  The  long  pause  be- 
tween the  first  part  and  the  continuation  is  due  to  an  illness 
of  many  years'  duration  that  again  and  again  interrupted  my 
work. 

The  substance  of  that  earlier  work  is  summarised  in  the 
first  three  chapters  of  this  volume.  This  is  done  not  merely 
for  the  sake  of  connection  and  completeness.  The  presentation 
of  the  subject-matter  is  improved.  As  far  as  circumstances  in 
any  way  permit,  many  points  only  hinted  at  in  the  earlier 
book  are  here  worked  out  more  fully,  whilst,  conversely,  points 
worked  out  fully  there  are  only  touched  upon  in  this  volume. 
The  sections  on  the  history  of  the  theories  of  value  and  of, 
money  are  now,  of  course,  left  out  altogether.  The  reader 
of  the  earlier  work  will  find,  however,  in  the  notes  to  the  first 
chapter  additional  sources  of  reference  relative  to  the  history 
of  those  theories. 

Every  beginning  is  difficult,  holds  in  all  sciences.  To 
understand  the  first  chapter,  especially  the  section  that  con- 
tains the  analysis  of  commodities,  will,  therefore,  present  the 
greatest  difficulty.  That  which  concerns  more  especially  the 
analysis  of  the  substance  of  value  and  the  magnitude  of  value, 

II 


12  Author's  Prefaces. 

I  have,  as  much  as  it  was  possible,  popularised.*  The  value- 
form,  whose  fully  developed  shape  is  the  money-form,  is  very 
elementary  and  simple.  Nevertheless,  the  human  mind  has 
for  more  than  2000  years  sought  in  vain  to  get  to  the  bottom 
of  it,  whilst  on  the  other  hand,  to  the  successful  analysis  of 
much  more  composite  and  complex  forms,  there  has  been  at 
least  an  approximation.  Why  ?  Because  the  body,  as  an  or- 
ganic whole,  is  more  easy  of  study  than  are  the  cells  of  that 
body.  In  the  analysis  of  economic  forms,  moreover,  neither 
microscopes  nor  chemical  reagents  are  of  use.  The  force  of 
abstraction  must  replace  both.  But  in  bourgeois  society  the 
commodity-form  of  the  product  of  labor — or  the  value-form 
of  the  commodity — is  the  economic  cell-form.  To  the  super^ 
ficial  observer,  the  analysis  of  these  forms  seems  to  turn  upon 
minutiae.  It  does  in  fact  deal  with  minutiae,  but  they  are  oi 
the  same  order  as  those  dealt  with  in  microscopic  anatomy. 

With  the  exception  of  the  section  on  value-form,  therefore, 
this  volume  cannot  stand  accused  on  the  score  of  difficulty.  I 
pre-suppose,  of  course,  a  reader  who  is  willing  to  learn  some- 
thing new  and  therefore  to  think  for  himself. 

The  physicist  either  observes  physical  phenomena  where 
they  occur  in  their  most  typical  form  and  most  free  from 
•disturbing  influence,  or,  wherever  possible,  he  makes  experi- 
ments under  conditions  that  assure  the  occurrence  of  the  phc' 

1  This  is  the  more  necessary,  as  even  the  section  of  Ferdinand  Lassalle'ft 
work  against  Schulze-Delitzsch,  in  which  he  professes  to  give  "the  intel- 
lectual quintessence"  of  my  explanations  on  these  subjects,  contains  im- 
portant mistakes.  If  Ferdinand  Lassalle  has  borrowed  almost  literally 
from  my  writings,  and  without  any  acknowledgment,  all  the  general 
theoretical  propositions  in  his  economic  works,  e.g.,  those  on  the  his- 
torical character  of  capital,  on  the  connection  between  the  conditions  of 
production  and  the  mode  of  production,  &c.,  &c.,  even  to  the  terminology 
created  by  me,  this  may  perhaps  be  due  to  purposes  of  propaganda.  I 
am  here,  of  course,  not  speaking  of  his  detailed  working  out  and  applica- 
tion of  these  propositions,  with  which  I  have  nothing  to  do. 


Author's  Prefaces.  13 

nomenon  in  its  normality.  In  this  work  I  have  to  examine 
the  capitalist  mode  of  production,  and  the  conditions  of  pro- 
duction and  exchange  corresponding  to  that  mode.  Up  to  the 
present  time,  their  classic  ground  is  England.  That  is  the 
reason  why  England  is  used  as  the  chief  illustration  in  the 
development  of  my  theoretical  ideas.  If,  however,  the  Ger- 
man reader  shrugs  his  shoulders  at  the  condition  of  the  Eng- 
lish industrial  and  agricultural  laborers,  or  in  optimist  fash- 
ion comforts  himself  with  the  thought  that  in  Germany  things 
are  not  nearly  so  bad,  I  must  plainly  tell  him,  ''De  te  fabula 
narratur!  " 

Intrinsically,  it  is  not  a  question  of  the  higher  or  lower 
degree  of  development  of  the  social  antagonisms  that  result 
from  the  natural  laws  of  capitalist  production.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion of  these  laws  themselves,  of  these  tendencies  working  with 
iron  necessity  towards  inevitable  results.  The  country  that 
is  more  developed  industrially  only  shows,  to  the  less  de- 
veloped, the  image  of  its  own  future. 

But  apart  from  this.  Where  capitalist  production  is  fully 
naturalised  among  the  Germans  (for  instance,  in  the  factories 
proper)  the  condition  of  things  is  much  worse  than  in  England, 
because  the  counterpoise  of  the  Factory  Acts  is  wanting.  In 
all  other  spheres,  we,  like  all  the  rest  of  Continental  Western 
Europe,  suffer  not  only  from  the  development  of  capitalist 
production,  but  also  from  the  incompleteness  of  that  develop- 
ment. Alongside  of  modern  evils,  a  whole  series  of  inherited 
evils  oppress  us,  arising  from  the  passive  survival  of  anti- 
quated modes  of  production,  with  their  inevitable  train  of 
social  and  political  anachronisms.  We  suffer  not  only  from  the 
living,  but  from  the  dead.     Le  mort  saisit  le  vif! 

The  social  statistics  of  Germany  and  the  rest  of  Continental 
Western  Europe  are,  in  comparison  with  those  of  England, 
wretchedly  compiled.     But  they  raise  the  veil  just  enough 


14  Author's  Prefaces. 

to  let  us  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  Medusa  head  behind  it.  We 
should  be  appalled  at  the  state  of  things  at  home,  if,  as  in 
England,  our  governments  and  parliaments  appointed  period- 
ically commissions  of  enquiry  into  economic  conditions;  if 
these  commissions  were  armed  with  the  same  plenary  powers 
to  get  at  the  truth ;  if  it  was  possible  to  find  for  this  purpose 
men  as  competent,  as  free  from  partisanship  and  respect  of 
persons  as  are  the  English  factory-inspectors,  her  medical  re- 
porters on  public  health,  her  commissioners  of  enquiry  into 
the  exploitation  of  women  and  children,  into  housing  and 
food.  Perseus  wore  a  magic  cap  that  the  monsters  he  hunted 
down  might  not  see  him.  We  draw  the  magic  cap  down  over 
eyes  and  ears  as  a  make-believe  that  there  are  no  monsters. 
Le  us  not  deceive  ourselves  on  this.  As  in  the  18th  century, 
the  American  war  of  independence  sounded  the  tocsin  for  the 
European  middle-class,  so  in  the  19th  century,  the  American 
civil  war  sounded  it  for  the  European  working-class.  In  Eng- 
land the  progress  of  social  disintegration  is  palpable.  When 
it  has  reached  a  certain  point,  it  must  re-act  on  the  continent 
There  it  will  take  a  form  more  brutal  or  more  humane,  accord^ 
ing  to  the  degree  of  development  of  the  working-class  itself. 
Apart  from  higher  motives,  therefore,  their  own  most  impor- 
tant interests  dictate  to  the  classes  that  are  for  the  nonce  the 
ruling  ones,  the  removal  of  all  legally  removable  hindrances 
to  the  free  development  of  the  working-class.  For  this  reason, 
as  well  as  others,  I  have  given  so  large  a  space  in  this  volume 
to  the  history,  the  details,  and  the  results  of  English  factory 
legislation.  One  nation  can  and  should  learn  from  others. 
And  even  when  a  society  has  got  upon  the  right  track  for  the 
discovery  of  the  natural  laws  of  its  movement — and  it  is  the 
ultimate  aim  of  this  work,  to  lay  bare  the  economic  law  of 
motion  of  modem  society — it  can  neither  clear  by  bold  leaps, 
nor  remove  by  legal  enactments,  the  obstacles  offered  by  the 


Author's  Prefaces.  15 

successive  phases  of  its  normal  development.  But  it  can 
shorten  and  lessen  the  birth-pangs. 

To  prevent  possible  misunderstanding,  a  word.  I  paint  the 
capitalist  and  the  landlord  in  no  sense  couleur  de  rose.  But 
here  individuals  are  dealt  v^ith  only  in  so  far  as  they  are  tho 
personifications  of  economic  categories,  embodiments  of  par- 
ticular class-relations  and  class-interests.  My  stand-point, 
from  which  the  evolution  of  the  economic  formation  of  society 
is  viewed  as  a  process  of  natural  history,  can  less  than  any 
other  make  the  individual  responsible  for  relations  whose  crea- 
ture he  socially  remains,  however  much  he  may  subjectively 
raise  himself  above  them. 

In  the  domain  of  Political  Economy,  free  scientific  enquiry 
meets  not  merely  the  same  enemies  as  in  all  other  domains. 
The  peculiar  nature  of  the  material  it  deals  with,  summons  as 
foes  into  the  field  of  battle  the  most  violent,  mean  and  malig- 
nant passions  of  the  human  breast,  the  Furies  of  private  in- 
terest. The  English  Established  Church,  e.g.,  will  more 
readily  pardon  an  attack  on  38  of  its  39  articles  than  on  ^ 
of  its  income.  Now-a-days  atheism  itself  is  culpa  levis,  as 
compared  with  criticism  of  existing  property  relations.  Never- 
theless, there  is  an  unmistakable  advance.  I  refer,  e.g.,  to  the 
bluebook  published  within  the  last  few  weeks :  "  Correspond- 
ence with  Her  Majesty's  Missions  Abroad,  regarding  Indus- 
trial Questions  and  Trades'  Unions."  The  representatives  of 
the  English  Crovni  in  foreign  countries  there  declare  in  so 
many  words  that  in  Germany,  in  Erance,  to  be  brief,  in  all 
the  civilised  states  of  the  European  continent,  a  radical  change 
in  the  existing  relations  between  capital  and  labor  is  as 
evident  and  inevitable  as  in  England.  At  the  same  time,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  Mr.  Wade,  vice-president 
of  the  United  States,  declared  in  public  meetings  that,  after 
the  abolition  of  slavery,  a  radical  change  of  the  relations  of 


l6  Author's  Prefaces. 

capital  and  of  property  in  land  is  next  upon  the  order  of  the 
day.  These  are  signs  of  the  times,  not  to  be  hidden  by  purple 
mantles  or  black  cassocks.  They  do  not  signify  that  to-morrow 
a  miracle  will  happen.  They  show  that,  within  the  ruling- 
classes  themselves,  a  foreboding  is  dawning,  that  the  present 
society  is  no  solid  crystal,  but  an  organism  capable  of  change, 
and  is  constantly  changing. 

The  second  volume  of  this  work  will  treat  of  the  process  of 
the  circulation  of  capital*  (Book  II.),  and  of  the  varied  forms 
assumed  by  capital  in  the  course  of  its  development  (Book 
III.),  the  third  and  last  volume  (Book  IV.),  the  history  of 
the  theory. 

Every  opinion  based  on  scientific  criticism  I  welcome.  As 
to  the  prejudices  of  so-called  public  opinion,  to  which  I  have 
never  made  concessions,  now  as  aforetime  the  maxim  of  the 
great  Florentine  is  mine: 

"Segui  il  tuo  corso,  e  lascia  dir  le  genti." 

KAJtL  MABX. 
London,  July  25,  1867. 

H. TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 

To  the  present  moment  Political  Economy,  in  Germany,  is 
a  foreign  science.  Gustav  von  Giilich  in  his  "Historical  de- 
scription of  Commerce,  Industry,"  &c.,2  especially  in  the  two 
first  volumes  published  in  1830,  has  examined  at  length  the 
historical  circumstances  that  prevented,  in  Germany,  the  de- 
velopment of  the  capitalist  mode  of  production,  and  conse- 
quently the  development,  in  that  country,  of  modem  bourgeois 
society.     Thus  the  soil  whence  Political  Economy  springs  was 

*  On  p.  618  the  author  explains  what  he  comprises  under  this  head. 
2  Geschichtliche  Darstellung  des  Handels,  der  (Jewerbe  und  des  Acker- 
baus,  Ac.,  von  Gustav  von  GQlich.    5  vols.,  Jena,  1830-45. 


Author's  Prefaces.  17 

wanting.  This  "science"  had  to  be  imported  from  England 
and  France  as  a  ready-made  article;  its  German  professors 
remained  schoolboys.  The  theoretical  expression  of  a  foreign 
reality  was  turned,  in  their  hands,  into  a  collection  of  dogmas, 
interpreted  by  theni  in  terms  of  the  petty  trading  world  around 
them,  and  therefore  misinterpreted.  The  feeling  of  scientific 
impotence,  a  feeling  iiot  wholly  to  be  repressed,  and  the  imeasy 
consciousness  of  haviag  to  touch  a  subject  in  reality  foreign  to 
them,  was  but  imperfectly  concealed,  either  under  a  parade 
of  literary  and  historical  erudition,  or  by  an  admixture  of 
extraneous  material,  borrowed  from  the  so-called  "Kameral" 
sciences,  a  medley  of  smatterings,  through  whose  purgatory 
the  hopeless  candidate  for  the  German  bureaucracy  has  to  pass. 

Since  1848  capitalist  production  has  developed  rapidly  in 
Germany,  and  at  the  present  time  it  is  in  the  full  bloom  of 
speculation  and  swindling.  But  fate  is  still  unpropitious  to 
our  professional  economists.  At  the  time  when  they  were 
able  to  deal  with  Political  Economy  in  a  straightforward 
fashion,  modern  economic  conditions  did  not  actually  exist 
in  Germany.  And  as  soon  as  these  conditions  did  come  into 
existence,  they  did  so  under  circumstances  that  no  longer  al- 
lowed of  their  being  really  and  impartially  investigated  within 
the  bounds  of  the  bourgeois  horizon.  In  so  far  as  Political 
Economy  remains  within  that  horizon;  in  so  far,  i.e.,  as  the 
capitalist  regime  is  looked  upon  as  the  absolutely  final  form 
of  social  production,  instead  of  as  a  passing  historical  phase 
of  its  evolution.  Political  Economy  can  remain  a  science  only 
so  long  as  the  class-struggle  is  latent  or  manifests  itself  only 
in  isolated  and  sporadic  phenomena. 

Let  us  take  England.  Its  political  economy  belongs  to  the 
period  in  which  the  class-struggle  was  as  yet  undeveloped. 
Its  last  great  representative,  Ricardo,  in  the  end,  consciously 
makes  the  antagonism  of  class-interests,  of  wages  and  profits. 


l8  Authors  Prefaces. 

of  profits  and  rent,  the  starting-point  of  his  investigations, 
naively  taking  this  antagonism  for  a  social  law  of  nature. 
But  by  this  start  the  science  of  bourgeois  economy  had  reached 
the  limits  beyond  which  it  could  not  pass.  Already  in  the  life- 
time of  Ricardo,  and  in  opposition  to  him,  it  was  met  by  criti- 
cism, in  the  person  of  Sismondi.^ 

The  succeeding  period,  from  1820  to  1830,  was  notable  in 
England  for  scientific  activity  in  the  domain  of  Political 
Economy.  It  was  the  time  as  well  of  the  vulgarising  and 
extending  of  Ricardo's  theory,  as  of  the  contest  of  that  theory 
with  the  old  school.  Splendid  tournaments  were  held.  What 
was  done  then,  is  little  known  to  the  Continent  generally,  be- 
cause the  polemic  is  for  the  most  part  scattered  through  articles 
in  reviews,  occasional  literature  and  pamphlets.  The  un- 
prejudiced character  of  this  polemic — although  the  theory  of 
Ricardo  already  serves,  in  exceptional  cases,  as  a  weapon  of 
attack  upon  bourgeois  economy — is  explained  by  the  circum- 
stances of  the  time.  On  the  one  hand,  modem  industry  itself 
was  only  just  emerging  from  the  age  of  childhood,  as  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  with  the  crisis  of  1825  it  for  the  first  time 
opens  the  periodic  cycle  of  its  modem  life.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  class-struggle  between  capital  and  labor  is  forced 
into  the  background,  politically  by  the  discord  between  the 
governments  and  the  feudal  aristocracy  gathered  around  the 
Holy  Alliance  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  popular  masses,  led 
by  the  bourgeoisie  on  the  other;  economically  by  the  quarrel 
between  industrial  capital  and  aristocratic  landed  property — a 
quarrel  that  in  France  was  concealed  by  the  opposition  between 
small  and  large  landed  properly,  and  that  in  England  broke 
out  openly  after  the  Com  Laws.  The  literature  of  Political 
Economy  in  England  at  this  time  calls  to  mind  the  stormy 
forward  movement  in  France  after  Dr.  Quesnay's  death,  but 
X  See  my  work  "Critique,  &c.,"  p.  70. 


Author's  Prefaces.  19 

only  as  a  Saint  Martin's  summer  reminds  us  of  spring.     With 
the  year  1830  came  the  decisive  crisis. 

In  France  and  in  England  the  bourgeoisie  had  conquered 
political  power.  Thenceforth,  the  class-struggle,  practically 
as  well  as  theoretically,  took  on  more  and  more  outspoken  and 
threatening  forms.  It  sounded  the  knell  of  scientific  bour- 
geois economy.  It  was  thenceforth  no  longer  a  question, 
whether  this  ^theorem  or  that  was  true,  but  whether  it  was 
useful  to  capital  or  harmful,  expedient  or  inexpedient,  polit- 
ically dangerous  or  not.  In  place  of  disinterested  enquirers, 
there  were  hired  prize-fighters;  in  place  of  genuine  scientific 
research,  the  bad  conscience  and  the  evil  intent  of  apologetic. 
Still,  even  the  obtrusive  pamphlets  with  which  the  Anti-Corn 
Law  League,  led  by  the  manufacturers  Cobden  and  Bright, 
deluged  the  world,  have  a  historic  interest,  if  no  scientific  one, 
on  account  of  their  polemic  against  the  landed  aristocracy. 
But  since  then  the  Free  Trade  legislation,  inaugurated  by 
Sir  Robert  Peel,  has  deprived  vulgar  economy  of  this  its  last 
sting. 

The  Continental  revolution  of  1848-9  also  had  its  reaction 
in  England.  Men  who  still  claimed  some  scientific  standing 
and  aspired  to  be  something  more  than  mere  sophists  and  syco-  , 
phants  of  the  ruling-classes,  tried  to  harmonise  the  Political 
Economy  of  capital  with  the  claims,  no  longer  to  be  ignored, 
of  the  proletariat.  Hence  a  shallow  syncretism,  of  which 
John  Stuart  Mill  is  the  best  representative.  It  is  a  declaration 
of  bankruptcy  by  bourgeois  economy,  an  event  on  which  the  » 
great  Russian  scholar  and  critic,  N.  Tschemyschewsky,  has 
thrown  the  light  of  a  master  mind  in  his  "Outlines  of  Political 
Economy  according  to  Mill." 

In  Grermany,  therefore,  the  capitalist  mode  of  production 
came  to  a  head,  after  its  antagonistic  character  had  already, 
in  France  and  England,   shown   itself  in  a  fierce  strife  of 


20  Author's  Prefaces. 

classes.  And  meanwhile,  moreover,  the  Grerman  proletariat 
had  attained  a  much  more  clear  class-consciousness  than  the 
German  bourgeoisie.  Thus,  at  the  very  moment  when  a  bour- 
geois science  of  political  economy  seemed  at  last  possible  in 
Germany,  it  had  in  reality  again  become  impossible. 

Under  these  circumstances  its  professors  fell  into  two  groups. 
The  one  set,  prudent,  practical  business  folk,  flocked  to  the 
banner  of  Bastiat,  the  most  superficial  and  therefore  the  most 
adequate  representative  of  the  apologetic  of  vulgar  economy; 
the  other,  proud  of  the  professorial  dignity  of  their  science, 
followed  John  Stuart  Mill  in  his  attempt  to  reconcile  irrecon- 
cilables.  Just  as  in  the  classical  time  of  bourgeois  economy, 
so  also  in  the  time  of  its  decline,  the  Germans  remained  mere 
schoolboys,  imitators  and  followers,  petty  retailers  and  hawk- 
ers in  the  service  of  the  great  foreign  wholesale  concern. 

The  peculiar  historic  development  of  German  society  there- 
fore forbids,  in  that  country,  all  original  work  in  bourgeois 
economy;  but  not  the  criticism  of  that  economy.  So  far  aa 
such  criticism  represents  a  class,  it  can  only  represent  the  class 
whose  vocation  in  history  is  the  overthrow  of  the  capitalist 
mode  of  production  and  the  final  abolition  of  all  classes — the 
proletariat. 

The  learned  and  unlearned  spokesmen  of  the  German  bour- 
geoisie tried  at  first  to  kill  "Das  Kapital"  by  silence,  as  they 
had  managed  to  do  with  my  earlier  writings.  As  soon  as  they 
found  that  these  tactics  no  longer  fitted  in  with  the  conditions 
of  the  time,  they  wrote,  under  pretence  of  criticising  my  book, 
prescriptions  "for  the  tranquillisation  of  the  bourgeois  mind." 
But  they  found  in  the  workers'  press — see,  e.g.,  Joseph  Dietz- 
gen's  articles  in  the  "Volksstaat" —  antagonists  stronger  than 
themselves,  to  whom  (down  to  this  very  day)  they  owe  a 
reply.* 
iThe  mealy-mouthed  babblers  of  German  vulgar  economy  fell  foul  of 


Author's  Prefaces.  21 

An  excellent  Russian  translation  of  "Das  Kapital"  appeared 
in  the  spring  of  1872.  The  edition  of  3000  copies  is  already 
nearly  exhausted.  As  early  as  1871,  A.  Sieber,  Professor  of 
Political  Economy  in  the  University  of  Kiev,  in  his  work 
"David  Eicardo's  Theory  of  Value  and  of  Capital,"  referred 
to  my  theory  of  value,  of  money  and  of  capital,  as  in  its 
fundamentals  a  necessary  sequel  to  the  teaching  of  Smith  and 
Eicardo.  That  which  astonishes  the  Western  European  in 
the  reading  of  this  excellent  work,  is  the  author's  consistent 
and  firm  grasp  of  the  purely  theoretical  position. 

That  the  method  employed  in  "Das  Kapital"  has  been  little 
understood,  is  shown  by  the  various  conceptions,  contradictory 
one  to  another,  that  have  been  formed  of  it. 

Thus  the  Paris  Revue  Positiviste  reproaches  me  in  that,  on 

the  one  hand,  I  treat  economics  metaphysically,  and  on  the 

other  hand — imagine  ! — confine  myself  to  the  mere  critical 

analysis  of  actual  facts,  instead  of  writing  recipes   (Comtist 

ones  ?)   for  the  cook-shops  of  the  future.     In  answer  to  the 

reproach  in  re  metaphysics.  Professor  Sieber  has  it :     "In  so 

far  as  it  deals  with  actual  theory,  the  method  of  Marx  is  the 

deductive  method  of  the  whole  English  school,  a  school  whose 

failings  and  virtues  are  common  to  the  best  theoretic  econ- 

the  style  of  my  book.  No  one  can  feel  the  literary  sl^ortcomings  in  "Das 
Kapital"  more  strongly  than  I  myself.  Yet  I  will  for  the  benefit  and 
the  enjoyment  of  these  gentlemen  and  their  public  quote  in  this  connec- 
tion one  English  and  one  Russian  notice.  The  "Saturday  Review,"  al- 
ways hostile  to  my  views,  said  in  its  notice  of  the  first  edition:  "The 
presentation  of  the  subject  invests  the  driest  economic  questions  with  a 
certain  peculiar  charm."  The  "St.  Petersburg  Journal"  ( Sankt-Peter- 
burgskie  Viedomosti ) ,  in  its  issue  of  April  20,  1872,  says :  "The  presen- 
tation of  the  subject,  with  the  exception  of  one  or  two  exceptionally  spe- 
cial parts,  is  distinguished  by  its  comprehensibility  by  the  general  reader, 
its  clearness,  and  in  spite  of  the  scientific  intricacy  of  the  subject,  by  an 
unusual  liveliness.  In  this  respect  the  author  in  no  way  resembles 
.  .  .  the  majority  of  German  scholars  who  .  .  .  write  their  books 
in  a  language  so  dry  and  obscure  that  the  heads  of  ordinary  mortals  are 
c'-acked  by  it." 


22  Author's  Prefaces. 

ornists."  M.  Block — "Les  theoriciens  du  socialisme  en  AUe- 
magne,  Extrait  du  Journal  des  Economistes,  Juillet  et  Aout 
1872" — makes  the  discovery  that  my  method  is  analytic  and 
says:  "Par  cet  ouvrage  M.  Marx  se  classe  parmi  les  esprits 
analytiques  les  plus  eminenta."  German  reviews,  of  course, 
shriek  out  at  "Hegelian  sophistics."  The  European  Messenger 
of  St.  Petersburg,  in  an  article  dealing  exclusively  with  the 
method  of  "Das  Kapital"  (May  number,  1872,  pp.  427-436), 
finds  my  method  of  inquiry  severely  realistic,  but  my  method 
of  presentation,  unfortunately,  Grerman-dialectical.  It  says: 
"At  first  sight,  if  the  judgment  is  based  on  the  external  form 
of  the  presentation  of  the  subject,  Marx  is  the  most  ideal  of 
ideal  philosophers,  always  in  the  German,  i.e.,  the  bad  sense 
of  the  word.  But  in  point  of  fact  he  is  infinitely  more  realis- 
tic than  all  his  fore-runners  in  the  work  of  economic  criticism. 
He  can  in  no  sense  be  called  an  idealist,"  I  cannot  answer 
the  writer  better  than  by  aid  of  a  few  extracts  from  his  own 
criticism,  which  may  interest  some  of  my  readers  to  whom 
the  Russian  original  is  inaccessible. 

After  a  quotation  from  the  preface  to  my  "Critique  of 
Political  Economy,"  Berlin,  1859,  pp.  11-13,  where  I  discuss 
the  materialistic  basis  of  my  method,  the  writer  goes  on: 
"The  one  thing  which  is  of  moment  to  Marx  is  to  find  the  law 
of  the  phenomena  with  whose  investigation  he  is  concerned; 
and  not  only  is  that  law  of  moment  to  him,  which  governs 
these  phenomena,  in  so  far  as  they  have  a  definite  form  and 
mutual  connection  within  a  given  historical  period.  Of  still 
greater  moment  to  him  is  the  law  of  their  variation,  of  their 
development,  i.e.,  of  their  transition  from  one  form  into 
another,  from  one  series  of  connections  into  a  different  one. 
This  law  once  discovered,  he  investigates  in  detail  the  effects 
in  which  it  manifests  itself  in  social  life.  Consequently,  Marx 
only  troubles  himself  about  one  thing ;  to  show,  by  rigid  scien- 


Author's  Prefaces.  23 

tific   investigation,    the  necessity    of    successive    determinate 
orders  of  social  conditions,  and  to  establish,  as  impartially  as 
possible,  the  facts  that  serve  him  for  fundamental  starting 
points.     For  this  it  is  quite  enough,  if  he  proves,  at  the  same 
time,  both  the  necessity  of  the  present  order  of  things,  and 
the   necessity   of    another  order   into    which   the    first   must 
inevitably  pass   over;    and  this   all  the  same,   whether  men 
believe  or  do  not  believe  it,  whether  they  are  conscious  or  un- 
conscious of  it.     Marx  treats  the  social  movement  as  a  process 
of  natural  history,  governed  by  laws  not  only  independent  of 
human  will,  consciousness  and  intelligence,  but  rather,  on  the 
contrary,  determining  that  will,  consciousness  and  intelligence. 
.     .     .     If  in  the  history  of  civilisation  the  conscious  element 
plays  a  part  so  subordinate,  then, it  is  self-evident  that  a  critical 
inquiry   whose   subject-matter  is   civilisation,   can,   less  than 
anything  else,  have  for  its  basis  any  form  of,  or  any  result  of, 
consciousness.     That  is  to  say,   that  not  the  idea,   but  the 
material  phenomenon   alone  can  serve   as   its  starting-point. 
Such  an  inquiry  will  confine  itself  to  the  confrontation  and 
the  comparison  of  a  fact,  not  with  ideas,  but  with  another 
fact.     For  this  inquiry,  the  one  thing  of  moment  is,  that  both 
facts  be  investigated  as  accurately  as  possible,  and  that  they 
actually  form,  each  with  respect  to  the  other,  different  mo- 
menta of  an  evolution ;  but  most  important  of  all  is  the  rigid 
analysis  of  the  series   of  successions,   of  the  sequences   and 
concatenations  in  which  the  different  stages  of  such  an  evolu- 
tion present  themselves.     But  it  will  be  said,  the  general  laws 
of  economic  life  are  one  and  the  same,  no  matter  whether 
they  are  applied  to  the  present  or  the  past.    This  Marx  directly 
denies.     According  to  him,  such  abstract  laws  do  not  exist. 
On  the  contrary,  in  his  opinion  every  historical  period  has 
laws  of  its  own.  ...  As  soon  as  society  has  outlived  a  given 
period  of  development,   and  is  passing  over  from  one  given 


24  -  Author^ s  Prefaces. 

stage  to  another,  it  begins  to  be  subject  also  to  other  laws. 
In  a  word,  economic  life  offers  us  a  phenomenon  analogous 
to  the  history  of  evolution  in  other  branches  of  biology.  The 
old  economists  misunderstood  the  nature  of  economic  laws 
when  they  likened  them  to  the  laws  of  physics  and  chemistry. 
A  more  thorough  analysis  of  phenomena  shows  that  social 
organisms  differ  among  themselves  as  fundamentally  as  plants 
or  animals.  Nay,  one  and  the  same  phenomenon  falls  under 
quite  different  laws  in  consequence  of  the  different  structure 
of  those  organisms  as  a  whole,  of  the  variations  of  their 
individual  organs,  of  the  different  conditions  in  which  those 
organs  function,  &c.  Marx,  e.g.,  denies  that  the  law  of 
population  is  the  same  at  all  times  and  in  all  places.  He 
asserts,  on  the  contrary,  that  every  stage  of  development  has 
its  own  law  of  population.  .  .  .  With  the  varying  degree  of 
development  of  productive  power,  social  conditions  and  the 
laws  governing  them  vary  too.  Whilst  Marx  sets  himself  the 
task  of  following  and  explaining  from  this  point  of  view  the 
economic  system  established  by  the  sway  of  capital,  he  is 
only  formulating,  in  a  strictly  scientific  manner,  the  aim  that 
every  accurate  investigation  into  economic  life  must  have. 
The  scientific  value  of  such  an  inquiry  lies  in  the  disclosing 
of  the  special  laws  that  regulate  the  origin,  existence,  develop- 
ment, and  death  a  given  social  organism  and  its  replacement 
by  another  and  higher  one.  And  it  is  this  value  that,  in  point 
of  fact,  Marx's  book  has." 

Whilst  the  writer  pictures  what  he  takes  to  be  actually  my 
method,  in  this  striking  and  [as  far  as  concerns  my  own 
application  of  it]  generous  way,  what  else  is  he  picturing  but 
the  dialectic  method? 

Of  course  the  method  of  presentation  must  differ  in  form 
from  that  of  inquiry.  The  latter  has  to  appropriate  the  ma- 
terial in  detail,  to  analyse  its  different  forms  of  development, 


Author's  Prefaces.  25 

to  trace  out  their  inner  connection.  Only  after  this  work  is 
done,  can  the  actual  movement  be  adequately  described.  If 
this  is  done  successfully,  if  the  life  of  the  subject-matter  is 
ideally  reflected  as  in  a  mirror,  then  it  may  appear  as  if  we  had 
before  us  a  mere  a  priori  construction. 

My  dialectic  method  is  not  only  different  from  the  Hegel- 
ian, but  is  its  direct  opposite.  To  Hegel,  the  life-process  of 
the  human  brain,  i.e.,  the  process  of  thinking,  which,  under 
the  name  of  "the  Idea,"  he  even  transforms  into  an  inde- 
pendent subject,  is  the  demiurgos  of  the  real  world,  and  the 
real  world  is  only  the  external,  phenomenal  form  of  "the 
Idea."  With  me,  on  the  contrary,  the  ideal  is  nothing  else 
than  the  material  world  reflected  by  the  human  mind,  'and 
translated  into  forms  of  thought. 

The  mystifying  side  of  Hegelian  dialectic  I  criticised  nearly 
thirty  years  ago,  at  a  time  when  it  was  still  the  fashion.  But 
just  as  I  was  working  at  the  first  volume  of  "Das  Kapital," 
it  was  the  good  pleasure  of  the  peevish,  arrogant,  mediocre 
Eiriyovotwho  now  talk  large  in  cultured  Germany,  to  treat 
Hegel  in  the  same  way  as  the  brave  Moses  Mendelssohn  in 
Lessing's  time  treated  Spinoza,  i.e.,  as  a  "dead  dog."  I  there- 
fore openly  avowed  myself  the  pupil  of  that  mighty  thinker, 
and  even  here  and  there,  in  the  chapter  on  the  theory  of  value, 
coquetted  with  the  modes  of  expression  peculiar  to  him.  The 
mystification  which  dialectic  suffers  in  Hegel's  hands,  by  no 
means  prevents  him  from  being  the  first  to  present  its  general 
form  of  working  in  a  comprehensive  and  conscious  manner. 
With  him  it  is  standing  on  its  head.  It  must  be  turned  right 
side  up  again,  if  you  would  discover  the  rational  kernel  within 
the  mystical  shell. 

In  its  mystified  form,  dialectic  became  the  fashion  in  Ger- 
many, because  it  seemed  to  transfigure  and  to  glorify  the 
existing  state  of  things.     In  its  rational  form  it  is  a  scandal 


26  Author's  Prefaces. 

and  abomination  to  bourgeoisdom  and  its  doctrinaire  pro- 
fessors, because  it  includes  in  its  comprehension  and  af- 
firmative recognition  of  the  existing  state  of  things,  at  the 
same  time  also,  the  recognition  of  the  negation  of  that  state, 
of  its  inevitable  breaking  up ;  because  it  regards  every  his- 
torically developed  social  form  as  in  fluid  movement,  and 
therefore  takes  into  account  its  transient  nature  not  less  than 
its  momentary  existence ;  because  it  lets  nothing  impose  upon 
it,  and  is  in  its  essence  critical  and  revolutionary. 

The  contradictions  inherent  in  the  movement  of  capitalist 
society  impress  themselves  upon  the  practical  bourgeois  most 
strikingly  in  the  changes  of  the  periodic  cycle,  through  which 
modem  industry  runs,  and  whose  crowning  point  is  the  uni- 
versal crisis.  That  crisis  is  once  again  approaching,  although 
as  yet  but  in  its  preliminary  stage ;  and  by  the  universality  of 
its  theatre  and  the  intensity  of  its  action  it  will  drum  dialectics 
even  into  the  heads  of  the  mushroom-upstarts  of  the  new,  holy 
Prusso-German  empire. 

KARL  MARX. 

London,  Janua/ry  24,  1873. 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  ENGLISH 
TRANSLATION. 

rp^HE  publication  of  an  English  version  of  "Das  Kapital" 
-■■  needs  no  apology.  On  the  contrary,  an  explanation 
might  be  expected  why  this  English  version  has  been  delayed 
until  now,  seeing  that  for  some  years  past  the  theories  advo- 
cated in  this  book  have  been  constantly  referred  to,  attacked 
and  defended,  interpreted  and  mis-interpreted,  in  the  period- 
ical press  and  the  current  literature  of  both  England  and 
America. 

When,  soon  after  the  author's  death  in  1883,  it  became 
evident  that  an  English  edition  of  the  work  was  really  re- 
quired, Mr.  Samuel  Moore,  for  many  years  a  friend  of  Marx 
and  of  the  present  writer,  and  than  whom,  perhaps,  no  one 
is  more  conversant  with  the  book  itself,  consented  to  undertake 
the  translation  which  the  literary  executors  of  Marx  were 
anxious  to  lay  before  the  public.  It  was  understood  that  I 
should  compare  the  MS.  with  the  original  work,  and  suggest 
such  alterations  as  I  might  deem  advisable.  When,  by  and 
by,  it  was  found  that  Mr.  Moore's  professional  occupations 
prevented  him  from  finishing  the  translation  as  quickly  as 
we  all  desired,  we  gladly  accepted  Dr.  Aveling's  offer  to 
undertake  a  portion  of  the  work;  at  the  same  time  Mrs. 
Aveling,  Marx's  youngest  daughter,  offered  to  check  the 
quotations  and  to  restore  the  original  text  of  the  numerous 
passages  taken  from  English  authors  and  Bluebooks  and  trans- 
lated by  Marx  into  German.  This  has  been  done  throughout, 
with  but  a  few  unavoidable  exceptions. 

27 


28  Editor's  Preface. 

The  following  portions  of  the  book  have  been  translated  by 
Dr.  Aveling:  (1)  Chapters  X.  (The  Working  Day),  and 
XI.  (Rate  and  Mass  of  Surplus-Value) ;  (2)  Part  VI. 
(Wages,  comprising  Chapters  XIX.  to  XXII.)  ;  (3)  from 
Chapter  XXIV,  Section  4  (Circumstances  that  &c.)  to  the 
end  of  the  book,  comprising  the  latter  part  of  Chapter  XXIV., 
Chapter  XXV.,  and  the  whole  of  Part  VIII.  (Chapters 
XXVI.  to  XXXIII.) ;  (4)  the  two  Author's  prefaces.  All 
the  rest  of  the  book  has  been  done  by  Mr.  Moore.  While, 
thus,  each  of  the  translators  is  responsible  for  his  share  of  the 
work'  only,  I  bear  a  joint  responsibility  for  the  whole. 

The  third  Grerman  edition,  which  has  been  made  the  basis 
of  our  work  throughout,  was  prepared  by  me,  in  1883,  with 
the  assistance  of  notes  left  by  the  author,  indicating  the 
passages  of  the  second  edition  to  be  replaced  by  designated 
passages,  from  the  French  text  published  in  1873.^  The  alter- 
ations thus  effected  in  the  text  of  the  second  edition  generally 
coincided  with  changes  prescribed  by  Marx  in  a  set  of  MS. 
instructions  for  an  English  translation  that  was  planned, 
about  ten  years  ago,  in  America,  but  abandoned  chiefly  for 
want  of  a  fit  and  proper  translator.  This  MS.  was  placed 
at  our  disposal  by  our  old  friend  Mr.  T.  A.  Sorge  of  Hoboken 
N.J.  It  designates  some  further  interpolations  from  the 
French  edition ;  but,  being  so  many  years  older  than  the  final 
instructions  for  the  third  edition,  I  did  not  consider  myself 
at  liberty  to  make  use  of  it  otherwise  than  sparingly,  and 
chiefly  in  cases  where  it  helped  us  over  difficulties.  In  the 
same  way,  the  French  text  has  been  referred  to  in  most  of 
the  difficult  passages,  as  an  indicator  of  what  the  author  him- 
self was  prepared  to  sacrifice  wherever  something  of  the  full 

1  "Le  Capital,"  par  Karl  Marx.  Traduction  de  M.  J.  Roy,  entif're- 
ment  revis^e  par  I'auteur.  Paris.  Lachatre."  This  translation,  especially 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  book,  contains  considerable  alterations  in  and 
additions  to  the  text  of  the  second  Grerman  edition. 


Editor's  Preface.  29 

import  of  the  original  bad  to  be  sacrificed  in  tbe  rendering. 
Tbere  is,  bowever,  one  difficulty  we  could  not  spare  tbe 
reader :  tbe  use  of  certain  terms  in  a  sense  different  from  wbat 
tbey  bave,  not  only  in  common  life,  but  in  ordinary  political 
economy.  But  tbis  was  unavoidable.  Every  new  aspect  of 
a  science  involves  a  revolution  in  tbe  technical  terms  of  tbat 
science.  This  is  best  shown  by  chemistry,  where  the  whole 
of  the  terminology  is  radically  changed  about  once  in  twenty 
years,  and  where  you  will  hardly  find  a  -single  organic  com- 
pound that  has  not  gone  through  a  whole  series  of  different 
names.  Political  Economy  has  generally  been  content  to  take, 
just  as  they  were,  the  terms  of  commercial  and  industrial  life, 
and  to  operate  with  them,  entirely  failing  to  see  that  by  so 
doing,  it  confined  itself  within  the  narrow  circle  of  ideas  ex- 
pressed by  those  terms.  Thus,  though  perfectly  aware  that 
both  profits  and  rent  are  but  sub-divisions,  fragments  of  that 
unpaid  part  of  the  product  which  the  laborer  has  to  supply 
to  his  employer  (its  first  appropriator,  though  not  its  ultimate 
exclusive  owner),  yet  even  classical  Political  Economy  never 
went  beyond  tbe  received  notions  of  profits  and  rent,  never  ex- 
amined tbis  unpaid  part  of  the  product  (called  by  Marx  sur- 
plus-product) in  its  integrity  as  a  whole,  and  therefore  never 
arrived  at  a  clear  comprehension,  either  of  its  origin  and 
nature,  or  of  the  laws  that  regulate  the  subsequent  distribution 
of  its  value.  Similarly  all  industry,  not  agricultural  or 
handicraft,  is  indiscriminately  comprised  in  the  term  of  manu- 
facture, and  thereby  the  distinction  is  obliterated  between 
two  great  and  essentially  different  periods  of  economic  history : 
the  .period  of  manufacture  proper,  based  on  the  division  of 
manual  labor,  and  tbe  period  of  modem  industry  based  on 
machinery.  It  is,  however,  self-evident  that  a  theory  which 
views  modern  capitalist  production  as  a  mere  passing  stage  in 
the  economic  history  of  mankind,  must  make  use  of  terms 


30  Editor's  Preface. 

different  from  those  habitual  to  writers  who  look  upon  that 
form  of  production  as  imperishable  and  final. 

A  word  respecting  the  author's  method  of  quoting  may  not 
be  out  of  place.  In  the  majority  of  cases,  the  quotations  serve, 
in  the  usual  way,  as  documentary  evidence  in  support  of 
assertions  made  in  the  text.  But  in  many  instances,  passages 
from  economic  writers  are  quoted  in  order  to  indicate  when, 
where,  and  by  whom  a  certain  proposition  was  for  the  first 
time  clearly  enunciated.  This  is  done  in  cases  where  the 
proposition  quoted  is  of  importance  as  being  a  more  or  less 
adequate  expression  of  the  conditions  of  social  production 
and  exchange  prevalent  at  the  time,  and  quite  irrespective 
of  Marx's  recognition,  or  otherwise,  of  its  general  validity. 
These  quotations,  therefore,  supplement  the  text  by  a  running 
commentary  taken  from  the  history  of  the  science. 

Our  translation  comprises  the  first  book  of  the  work  only. 
But  this  first  book  is  in  a  great  measure  a  whole  in  itself, 
and  has  for  twenty  years  ranked  as  an  independent  work. 
The  second  book,  edited  in  German  by  me,  in  1885,  is  de- 
cidedly incomplete  vnthout  the  third,  which  cannot  be  pub- 
lished before  the  end  of  1887.  When  Book  III.  has  been 
brought  out  in  the  original  Grerman,  it  will  then  be  soon 
enough  to  think  about  preparing  an  English  edition  of  both. 

"Das  Kapital"  is  often  called,  on  the  Continent,  "the  Bible 
of  the  working  class."  That  the  conclusions  arrived  at  in 
this  work  are  daily  more  and  more  becoming  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  great  working  class  movement,  not  only  in 
Germany  and  Switzerland,  but  in  France,  in  Holland  and 
Belgium,  in  America,  and  even  in  Italy  and  Spain ;  that  every- 
where the  working  class  more  and  more  recognises,  in  these 
conclusions,  the  most  adequate  expression  of  its  condition  and 
of  its  aspirations,  nobody  acquainted  with  that  movement  will 
deny.     And  in  England,  too,  the  theories  of  Marx,  even  at  this 


Editor's  Preface.  31 

moment,  exercise  a  powerful  influence  upon  the  socialist  move- 
ment which  is  spreading  in  the  ranks  of  "cultured"  people 
no  less  than  in  those  of  the  working  class.  But  that  is  not 
all.  The  time  is  rapidly  approaching  when  a  thorough  ex- 
amination of  England's  economic  position  will  impose  itself 
as  an  irresistible  national  necessity.  The  working  of  the  in- 
dustrial system  of  this  country,  impossible  without  a  constant 
and  rapid  extension  of  production,  and  therefore  of  markets, 
is  coming  to  a  dead  stop.  Free  trade  has  exhausted  its  re- 
sources ;  even  Manchester  doubts  this  its  quondam  economic 
gospel.^  Foreign  industry,  rapidly  developing,  stares  Eng- 
lish production  in  the  face  everywhere,  not  only  in  protected, 
but  also  in  neutral  markets,  and  even  on  this  side  of  the 
Channel.  While  the  productive  power  increases  in  a  geomet- 
ric, the  extension  of  markets  proceeds  at  best  in  an  arithmetic 
ratio.  The  decennial  cycle  of  stagnation,  prosperity,  over- 
production and  crisis,  ever  recurrent  from  1825  to  1867, 
seems  indeed  to  have  run  its  course ;  but  only  to  land  us  in  the 
slough  of  despond  of  a  permanent  and  chronic  depression. 
The  sighed-for  period  of  prosperity  will  not  come;  as  often 
as  we  seem  to  perceive  its  heralding  symptoms,  so  often  do 
they  again  vanish  into  air.  Meanwhile,  each  succeeding  winter 
brings  up  afresh  the  great  question,  "what  to  do  with  the 
unemployed ;"  but  while  the  number  of  the  unemployed  keeps 
swelling  from  year  to  year,  there  is  nobody  to  answer  that 
question ;  and  we  can  almost  calculate  the  moment  when  the 
unemployed,   losing  patience,  will  take  their  own  fate  into 

1  At  the  quarterly  meeting  of  the  Manchester  Chamber  of  Commerce, 
held  this  afternoon,  a  warm  discussion  took  place  on  the  subject  of  Free 
Trade.  A  resolution  was  moved  to  the  effect  that  "having  waited  in  vain 
40  years  for  other  nations  to  follow  the  Free  Trade  example  of  England, 
this  Chamber  thinks  the  time  has  now  arrived  to  reconsider  that  posi- 
tion." Tlie  resolution  was  rejected  by  a  majority  of  one  only,  the 
figures  being  21  for,  and  22  against. — Evening  Standard,  Nov.  1,  1886. 


32      Editor's  Preface  to  the  Fourth  German  Edition. 

their  own  hands.  Surely,  at  such  a  moment,  the  voice  ought 
to  be  heard  of  a  man  whose  whole  theory  is  the  result  of  a 
life-long  study  of  the  economic  history  and  condition  of  Eng- 
land, and  whom  that  study  led  to  the  conclusion  that,  at  least 
in  Europe,  England  is  the  only  country  where  the  inevitable 
social  revolution  might  be  effected  entirely  by  peaceful  and 
legal  means.  He  certainly  never  forgot  to  add  that  he  hardly 
expected  the  English  ruling  classes  to  submit,  without  a  "pro- 
slavery  rebellion,"  to  this  peaceful  and  legal  revolution. 

FREDERICK  ENGELS. 
November  5,  1886. 

editor's  PBEFACE  to  the  fourth  GERMAN  EDITION. 

The  fourth  edition  of  this  work  required  of  me  a  revision, 
which  should  give  to  the  text  and  foot  notes  their  final  form, 
so  far  as  possible.  The  following  brief  hints  will  indicate 
the  way  in  which  I  performed  this  task. 

After  referring  once  more  to  the  French  edition  and  to  the 
manuscript  notes  of  Marx,  I  transferred  a  few  additional  pass- 
ages from  the  French  to  the  German  text.^ 

I  have  also  placed  the  long  foot  note  concerning  the  wine 
workers,  on  pages  461-67,  into  the  text,  just  as  had  already 
been  done  in  the  French  and  English  editions.  Other  small 
changes  are  merely  of  a  technical  nature. 

Furthermore  I  added  a  few  explanatory  notes,  especially 
in  places  where  changed  historical  conditions  seemed  to  requite 
it.  All  these  additional  notes  are  placed  between  brackets 
and  marked  with  my  initials.* 

1  Tliese  were  inserted  by  me  in  the  English  text  of  the  Swan  Sonnen- 
sehein  edition,  and  will  be  found  on  pages  539,  640-644,  687-689,  and 
692  of  this  American  edition. — E.  U. 

2  These  were  ten  new  notes,  which  I  inserted  in  the  respective  plac^  of 
the  Swan  Sonnenschein  edition. — E.  U. 


Editor's  Preface  to  the  Fourth  German  Edition.       33 

A  complete  revision  of  the  numerous  quotations  had  become 
necessary,  because  the  English  edition  had  been  published  in 
the  mean  time.  Marx's  youngest  daughter,  Eleanor,  had  un- 
dertaken the  tedious  task  of  comparing,  for  this  edition,  all 
the  quotations  with  the  original  works,  so  that  the  quotations 
from  English  authors,  which  are  the  overwhelming  majority, 
are  not  retranslated  from  the  German,  but  taken  from  the 
original  texts.  I  had  to  consult  the  English  edition  for  this 
fourth  German  edition.  In  so  doing  I  found  many  small 
inaccuracies.  There  were  references  to  wrong  pages,  due 
either  to  mistakes  in  copying,  or  to  accumulated  typographical 
errors  of  three  editions.  There  were  quotation  marks,  or 
periods  indicating  omissions,  in  wrong  places,  such  as  would 
easily  occur  in  making  copious  quotations  from  notes.  ]!^ow 
and  then  I  came  across  a  somewhat  inappropriate  choice  of 
terms  made  in  translating.  Some  passages  were  taken  from 
Marx's  old  manuscripts  written  in  Paris,  1843-45,  when  he 
did  not  yet  understand  English  and  read  the  works  of  English 
economists  in  French  translations.  This  twofold  translation 
carried  with  it  a  slight  change  of  expression,  for  instance  in 
the  case  of  Steuart,  Ure,  and  others.  Now  I  used  the  English 
text.  Such  and  similar  little  inaccuracies  and  inadvertences 
were  corrected.  And  if  this  fourth  edition  is  now  compared 
with  former  editions,  it  will  be  found  that  this  whole  tedious 
process  of  verification  did  not  change  in  the  least  any  essential 
statement  of  this  work.  There  is  but  one  single  quotation 
which  could  not  be  located,  namely  that  from  Richard  Jones, 
in  section  3  of  chapter  XXIV.  Marx  probably  made  a  mis- 
take in  the  title  of  the  book.  All  other  quotations  retain  their 
corroborative  power,  or  even  increase  it  in  their  present  exact 
form. 

In  this  connection  I  must  revert  to  an  old  story. 

I  have  heard  of  only  one  case,  in  which  the  genuineness  of 


34      Editor's  Preface  to  the  Fourth  German  Edition. 

a  quotation  by  Marx  was  questioned.  Since  tliis  case  was 
continued  beyond  Marx's  death,  I  cannot  well  afford  to  ignore 
it. 

The  Berlin  Concordia,  the  organ  of  the  German  Manufafri 
turer's  Association,  published  on  March  7,  1872,  an  anony- 
mous article,  entitled :  "How  Marx  Quotes."  In  it  the  writer 
asserted  with  a  superabundant  display  of  moral  indignation 
and  unparliamentarian  expressions  that  the  quotation  from 
Gladstone's  budget  speech  of  April  16,  1863,  (cited  in  the 
Inaugural  Address  of  the  International  Workingmen's  Asso- 
ciation, 1864,  and  republished  in  Capital,  volume  I,  chapter 
XXV,  section  5  a)  was  a  falsification.  It  was  denied  that  the 
statement:  "This  intoxicating  augmentation  of  wealth  and 
power  .  .  .  entirely  confined  to  classes  of  property,"  was 
contained  in  the  stenographical  report  of  Hansard,  which  was 
as  good  as  an  official  report,  "This  statement  is  not  found 
anywhere  in  Gladstone's  speech.  It  says  just  the  reverse. 
Marx  has  formally  and  materially  lied  in  adding  that  sen- 
tence/' 

Marx,  who  received  this  issue  of  the  Concordia  in  May  of 
the  same  year,  replied  to  the  anonymous  writer  in  the  Volks- 
siaat  of  June  1.  As  he  did  not  remember  the  particular 
newspaper  from  which  he  had  clipped  this  report,  he  con- 
tented himself  with  pointing  out  that  the  same  quotation  was 
contained  in  two  English  papers.  Then  he  quoted  the  report 
of  the  Times,  according  to  which  Gladstone  had  said :  "That 
is  the  state  of  the  case  as  regards  the  wealth  of  this  country. 
I  must  say  for  one,  I  should  look  almost  with  apprehension 
and  with  pain  upon  this  intoxicating  augmentation  of  wealth 
and  power,  if  it  were  my  belief  that  it  was  confined  to  classes 
who  are  in  easy  circumstances.  This  takes  no  cognizance  at 
all  of  the  condition  of  the  labouring  population.  The  aug- 
mentation I  have  described  and  which  is  founded,  I  think. 


Editor's  Preface  to  the  Fourth  German  Edition      35 

upon  accurate  terms,  is  an  augmentation  entirely  confined  to 
classes  of  property." 

In  other  words,  Gladstone  says  here  that  he  would  be  sorry 
if  things  were  that  way,  but  they  are.  This  intoxicating  aug- 
mentation of  wealth  and  power  is  entirely  confined  to  classes 
of  property.  And  so  far  as  the  qua^  official  Hansard  is  con- 
cerned, Marx  continues :  "In  the  subsequent  manipulation  of 
his  speech  for  publication  Mr,  Gladstone  was  wise  enough  to 
eliminate  a  passage,  which  was  so  compromising  in  the  mouth 
of  an  English  Lord  of  the  Exchequer  as  that  one.  By  the 
way,  this  is  an  established  custom  in  English  parliament,  and 
not  by  any  means  a  discovery  made  by  Lasker  to  cheat  Bebel." 

The  anonymous  writer  then  became  still  madder.  Pushing 
aside  his  second-hand  sources  in  his  reply  in  the  Concordia, 
July  4,  he  modestly  hints,  that  it  is  the  "custom"  to  quote 
parliamentarian  speeches  from  the  official  reports;  that  the 
report  of  the  Times  (which  contained  the  added  lie)  "was 
materially  identical"  with  that  of  Hansard  (which  did  not 
contain  it)  ;  that  the  report  of  the  Times  even  said  "just  the 
reverse  of  what  that  notorious  passage  of  the  Inaugural  Ad- 
dress implied."  Of  course,  our  anonymous  friend  keeps  still 
about  the  fact  that  the  report  of  the  Times  does  not  only  con- 
tain "just  the  reverse,"  but  also  "that  notorious  passage" ! 
Nevertheless  he  feels  that  he  has  been  nailed  down,  and  that 
only  a  new  trick  can  save  him.  Hence  he  decorates  his  article, 
full  of  "insolent  mendacity,"  until  it  bristles  with  pretty 
epithets,  such  as  "bad  faith,"  "dishonesty,"  "mendacious  as- 
sertion," "that  lying  quotation,"  "insolent  mendacity,"  "a 
completely  spurious  quotation,"  "this  falsification,"  "simply 
infamous,"  etc.,  and  he  finds  himself  compelled  to  shift  the 
discussion  to  another  ground,  promising  "to  explain  in  a  sec- 
ond article,  what  interpretation  we  [the  "veracious"  anony- 
mous]  place  upon  the  meaning  of  Gladstone's  words."     As 


36      Editor's  Preface  to  the  Fourth  German  Edition. 

though  his  individual  opinion  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
matter!  This  second  article  is  published  in  the  Concordia 
of  July  11. 

Marx  replied  once  more  in  the  Volksstaat  of  August  7, 
quoting  also  the  reports  of  this  passage  in  the  Morning  Star 
and  Morning  Advertiser  of  April  17,  1863.  Both  of  them 
agree  in  quoting  Gladstone  to  the  effect  that  he  would  look 
with  apprehension,  etc.,  upon  this  intoxicating  augmentation 
of  wealth  and  power,  if  it  were  confined  to  classes  in  easy  cir- 
cumstances. But  this  augmentation  ipas  entirely  confined  to 
classes  possessed  of  property.  Both  of  these  papers  also  con- 
tain the  "added  lie"  word  for  word.  Marx  furthermore 
showed,  by,  comparing  these  three  independent,  yet  identical 
reports  of  newspapers,  all  of  them  containing  the  actually 
spoken  words  of  Gladstone,  with  Hansard's  report,  that  Glad- 
stone, in  keeping  with  the  "established  custom,"  had  "sub- 
sequently eliminated"  this  sentence,  as  Marx  had  said.  And 
Marx  closes  with  the  statement,  that  he  has  no  time  for  further 
controversy  with  the  anonymous  writer.  It  seems  that  this 
worthy  had  gotten  all  he  wanted,  for  Marx  received  no  more 
issues  of  the  Concordia. 

Thus  the  matter  seemed  to  be  settled.  It  is  true,  people 
who  were  in  touch  with  the  university  at  Cambridge  once  or 
twice  dropped  hints  as  to  mysterious  rumors  about  some  un- 
speakable literary  crime,  which  Marx  was  supposed  to  have 
committed  in  Capital.  But  nothing  definite  could  be  ascer- 
tained in  spite  of  all  inquiries.  Suddenly,  on  November  29, 
1883,  eight  months  after  the  death  of  Marx,  a  letter  appeared 
in  the  Times,  dated  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  and  signed 
by  Sedley  Taylor,  in  which  this  mannikin,  a  dabbler  in  the 
tamest  of  cooperative  enterprises,  at  last  took  occasion  to  give 
us  some  light,  not  only  on  the  gossip  of  Cambridge,  but  also 
on  the  anonymous  of  the  Concordia. 


Editor's  Preface  to  the  Fourth  German  Edition.     2>7 

"What  seems  very  queer,"  says  the  mannikin  of  Trinity 
College,  ''is  that  it  remained  for  professor  Brentano  (then  in 
Breslau,  now  in  Strasburg)  ...  to  lay  bare  the  bad 
faith,  which  had  apparently  dictated  that  quotation  from 
Gladstone's  speech  in  the  Inaugural  Address.  Mr.  Karl  Marx, 
who  .  .  .  tried  to  justify  his  quotation,  had  the  temerity, 
in  the  deadly  shifts  to  which  Brentano's  masterly  attacks 
quickly  reduced  him,  to  claim  that  Mr.  Gladstone  tampered 
with  the  report  of  his  speech  in  the  Times  of  April  lY,  1863, 
before  it  was  published  in  Hansard,  in  order  to  eliminate  a 
passage  which  was^  indeed,  compromising  for  the  British 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  When  Brentano  demonstrated 
by  a  detailed  comparison  of  the  texts,  that  the  report^  of  the 
Times  and  of  Hansard  agreed  to  the  absolute  exclusion  of  the 
meaning,  impugned  to  Gladstone's  words  by  a  craftily  isolated 
quotation,  Marx  retreated  under  the  excuse  of  having  no  time." 

This,  then,  was  the  kernel  of  the  walnut !  And  such  was 
the  glorious  reflex  of  Brentano's  anonymous  campaign,  in  the 
Concordia,  in  the  cooperative  imagination  of  Cambridge ! 
Thus  he  lay,  and  thus  he  handled  his  blade  in  his  "masterly 
attack,"  this  Saint  George  of  the  German  Manufacturers'  As- 
sociation, while  the  fiery  dragon  Marx  quickly  expired  under 
his  feet  "in  deadly  shifts !" 

However,  this  Ariostian  description  of  the  struggle  serves 
only  to  cover  up  the  shifts  of  our  Saint  George.  There  is  no 
longer  any  mention  of  "added  lies,"  of  "falsification,"  but 
merely  of  "a  craftily  isolated  quotation."  The  whole  question 
had  been  shifted,  and  Saint  George  and  his  Cambridge  KJaight 
knew  very  well  the  reason. 

Eleanor  Marx  replied  in  the  monthly  magazine  To-Dmj, 
February,  1884,  because  the  Times  refused  to  print  her  state- 
ments. She  reduced  the  discussion  to  the  only  point,  which 
was  in  question,  namely:   Was  that  sentence  a  lie  added  by 


38      Editor's  Preface  to  the  Fourth  German  Edition. 

Marx,  or  not  ?  Whereupon  Mr.  Sedley  Taylor  retorted :  "Tlie 
question  whether  a  certain  sentence  had  occurred  in  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's speech  or  not"  was,  in  his  opinion,  "of  a  very  inferior 
importance"  in  the  controversy  between  Marx  and  Brentano, 
"compared  with  the  question,  whether  the  quotation  had  been 
made  with  the  intention  of  reproducing  the  meaning  of  Mr. 
Gladstone  or  distorting  it"  And  then  he  admits  that  the 
report  of  the  Times  "contains  indeed  a  contradiction  in 
words" ;  but,  but^  interpreting  the  context  correctly,  that  is, 
in  a  liberal  Gladstonian  sense,  it  is  evident  what  Mr.  Gladstone 
intended  to  say.  (To^Day,  March,  1884.)  The  comic  thing 
about  this  retort  is  that  our  mannikin  of  Cambridge  now  in- 
sists on  ru>t  quoting  this  speech  from  Hansard,  as  is  the 
"custom"  according  to  the  anonymous  Mr.  Brentano,  but  from 
the  report  of  the  Times,  which  the  same  Brentano  had  desig- 
nated as  "necessarily  bungling."  Of  course,  Hansard  does 
not  contain  that  fatal  sentence ! 

It  was  easy  for  Eleanor  Marx  to  dissolve  this  argumentation 
into  thin  air  in  the  same  number  of  To-Day.  Either  Mr. 
Taylor  had  read  the  controversy  of  1872.  In  that  case  he  had 
now  "lied,"  not  only  "adding,"  but  also  "subtracting."  Or, 
he  had  not  read  it.  Then  it  was  his  business  to  keep  his 
mouth  shut.  At  any  rate,  it  was  evident  that  he  did  not  dare 
for  a  moment  to  maintain  the  charge  of  his  friend  Brentano 
to  the  effect  that  Marx  had  "added  a  lie."  On  he  contrary, 
it  was  now  claimed,  that  Marx,  instead  of  adding  a  lie,  had 
suppressed  an  important  sentence.  But  this  same  sentence  is 
quoted  on  page  5  of  the  Inaugural  Address,  a  few  lines  before 
the  alleged  "added  lie."  And  as  for  the  "contradiction"  in 
Gladstone's  speech,  isn't  it  precisely  Marx  who  speaks  in 
another  foot  note  of  that  chapter  in  Capital  of  the  "continual 
crying  contradictions  in  Gladstone's  budget  speeches  of  1863 
and  1864"  ?     Of  course,  he  does  not  undert&ke  10  reconcile 


Editor's  Preface  to  the  Fourth  German  Edition.     39 

them  by  liberal  hot  air,  like  Sedley  Taylor.  And  the  final 
summing  up  in  Eleanor  Marx's  reply  is  this:  "On  the  con- 
trary, Marx  has  neither  suppressed  anything  essential  nor 
added  any  lies.  He  rather  has  restored  and  rescued  from 
oblivion  a  certain  sentence  of  a  Gladstonian  speech,  which  had 
undoubtedly  been  pronounced,  but  which  somehow  found  its 
way  out  of  Hansard." 

This  was  enough  for  Mr.  Sedley  Taylor.  The  result  of 
this  whole  professorial  gossip  during  ten  years  and  in  two 
great  countries  was  that  no  one  dared  henceforth  to  question 
Marx's  literary  conscientiousness.  In  the  future  Mr.  Sedley 
Taylor  will  probably  have  as  little  confidence  in  the  literary 
fighting  bulletins  of  Mr.  Brentano,  as  Mr.  Brentano  in  the 
papal  infallibility  of  Hansard. 

FKEDEKECK  ENGELS. 

London,  June  25,  1890. 

(Translated  by  Ernest  Untermann.) 


BOOK  I. 

CAPITALIST   PRODUCTIOJN. 


PART  I. 
COMMODITIES  AND  MONEY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

COMMODITIES. 

SECTION  1. THE   TWO  FACTOKS  OF  A   COMMODITY :   USE-VALUE 

AND  VALUE  (tHE  SUBSTANCE  OF  VALUE  AND  THE 
MAGNITUDE  OF  VALUe). 

THE  wealth  of  those  societies  in  which  the  capitalist  mode 
of  production  prevails,  presents  itself  as  "  an  immense 
accumulation  of  commodities,"  ^  its  unit  being  a  single  com- 
modity. Our  investigation  must  therefore  begin  with  the 
analysis  of  a  commodity. 

A  commodity  is,  in  the  first  place,  an  object  outside  us,  a 
thing  that  by  its  properties  satisfies  human  wants  of  some  sort 
or  another.  The  nature  of  such  wants,  whether,  for  instance, 
they  spring  from  the  stomach  or  from  fancy,  makes  no  differ- 

1  Karl    Marx     "  A    Contribution     to    the     Critique    of    Political     Economy,"     1859, 
London,   p.   19. 

41 


42  Capitalist  Production. 

ence.*  Neither  are  we  here  concerned  to  know  how  the  object 
satisfies  these  wants,  whether  directly  as  means  of  subsistence, 
or  indirectly  as  means  of  production. 

Every  useful  thing,  as  iron,  paper,  &c.,  may  be  looked  at 
from  the  two  points  of  view  of  quality  and  quantity.  It  is 
an  assemblage  of  many  properties,  and  may  therefore  be  of 
use  in  various  ways.  To  discover  the  various  use  of  things  is 
the  work  of  history.^  So  also  is  the  establishment  of  socially- 
recognised  standards  of  measure  for  the  quantities  of  these 
useful  objects.  The  diversity  of  these  measures  has  its  origin 
partly  in  the  diverse  nature  of  the  objects  to  be  measured, 
partly  in  convention. 

The  utility  of  a  thing  makes  it  a  use-value.^  But  this 
utility  is  not  a  thing  of  air.  Being  limited  by  the  physical 
properties  of  the  commodity,  it  has  no  existence  apart  from 
that  commodity.  A  commodity,  such  as  iron,  com,  op  a 
diamond,  is  therefore,  so  far  as  it  is  a  material  thing,  a  use- 
value,  something  useful.  This  property  of  a  commodity  is 
independent  of  the  amount  of  labour  required  to  appropriate 
its  useful  qualities.  When  treating  of  use-value,  we  always 
assume  to  be  dealing  with  definite  quantities,  such  as  dozens 
of  watches,  yards  of  linen,  or  tons  of  iron.  The  use-values  of 
commodities  furnish  the  material  for  a  special  study,  that 
of  the  commercial  knowledge  of  commodities.*  Use-values 
become  a  reality  only  by  use  or  consumption:  they  also  con- 

'  "  Desire  implies  want ;  it  is  the  appetite  of  the  mind,  and  as  natural  as  hunger 
to  the  body.  .  .  .  The  greatest  number  (of  things)  have  their  value  from  supply- 
ing the  wants  of  the  mind."  Nicolas  Barbon:  "A  Discourse  on  coining  the  new 
money  lighter,  in  answer  to  Mr.  Locke's  Considerations,"  &c,  London,  1696.  p. 
2,  3. 

*  "Things  have  an  intrinsick  virtue"  (this  is  Barbon's  special  term  for  value  in 
use)  "which  in  all  places  have  the  same  virtue;  as  the  loadstone  to  attract  iron" 
(1.  c,  p.  6).  The  property  which  the  magnet  possesses  of  attracting  iron,  became 
of  use  only  after  by  means  of  that  property  the  polarity  of  the  magnet  had  been 
discovered. 

*  "The  natural  worth  of  anything  consists  in  its  fitness  to  supply  the  necessities, 
or  serve  the  conveniences  of  human  life."  (John  Locke,  "Some  considerations  on 
the  consequences  of  the  lowering  of  interest,  1691,"  in  Works  Edit.  London,  1777, 
Vol.  II.,  p.  28.)  In  English  writers  of  the  17th  century  we  frequently  find  "worth" 
in  the  sense  of  value  in  use,  and  "value"  in  the  sense  of  exchange  value.  This 
is  quite  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  a  language  that  likes  to  use  a  Teutonic 
word    for   the   actual    thing,    and   a    Romance   word    for   its   reflexion. 

*  In  bourgeois  societies  the  economical  fictio  juris  prevails,  that  every  one,  as  a 
buyer,  possesses  an  encyclopxdic  knowledge  of  commodities. 


Commodities.  43 

stitute  the  substance  of  all  wealth,  whatever  may  be  the  social 
form  of  that  wealth.  In  the  form  of  society  we  are  about  to 
consider,  they  are,  in  addition,  the  material  depositories  of 
exchange  value. 

Exchange  value,  at  first  sight,  presents  itself  as  a  quantitative 
relation,  as  the  proportion  in  which  values  in  use  of  one  sort 
are  exchanged  for  those  of  another  sort,^  a  relation  constantly 
changing  with  time  and  place.  Hence  exchange  value  appears 
to  be  something  accidental  and  purely  relative,  and  conse- 
quently an  intrinsic  value,  i.  e.,  an  exchange  value  that  is 
inseparably  connected  with,  inherent  in  commodities,  seems  a 
contradiction  in  terms.^  Let  us  consider  the  matter  a  little 
more  closely. 

A  given  commodity,  e.  g.,  a  quarter  of  wheat  is  exchanged 
for  X  blacking,  y  silk,  or  z  gold,  &c. — in  short,  for  other  com- 
modities in  the  most  different  proportions.  Instead  of  one 
exchange  value,  the  wheat  has,  therefore,  a  great  many.  But 
since  x  blacking,  y  silk,  or  z  gold,  &c.,  each  represent  the 
exchange  value  of  one  quarter  of  wheat,  x  blacking,  y  silk, 
z  gold,  &c.,  must  as  exchange  values  be  replaceable  by  each 
other,  or  equal  to  each  other.  Therefore,  first:  the  valid 
exchange  values  of  a  given  commodity  express  something 
equal ;  secondly,  exchange  value,  generally,  is  only  the  mode 
of  expression,  the  phenomenal  form,  of  something  contained 
in  it,  yet  distinguishable  from  it. 

Let  us  take  two  commodities,  e.  g.,  com  and  iron.  The  pro- 
portions in  which  they  are  exchangeable,  whatever  .those  pro- 
portions may  be,  can  always  be  represented  by  an  equation  in 
which  a  given  quantity  of  com  is  equated  to  some  quantity  of 
iron :  e.  g.,  1  quarter  com=x  cwt  iron.  What  does  this  equa- 
tion tell  us  ?  It  tells  us  that  in  two  different  things — in  1 
quarter  of  corn  and  x  cwt.  of  iron,  there  exists  in  equal  quan- 
tities something  common  to  both.     The  two  things  must  there- 

'  "La  valeur  consiste  dans  le  rapport  d'echange  qui  se  trouve  entre  telle  chose  et 
telle  autre,  entre  telle  mesure  d'une  production,  et  telle  mesure  d'une  autre."  (Le 
Trosne:      De   1'   Interet   Social.     Physiocrates,   Ed.    Daire.     Paris,    1845.     P.    889.) 

*  "Nothing  can  have  an  intrinsick  value."  (N.  Barbon,  1.  c,  p.  6) ;  or  as  But- 
ler says — 

"  The  value  of   a  thing 
Is    just    as    much    at    it    will    bring." 


44      '  Capitalist  Production. 

fore  be  equal  to  a  third,  which  in  itself  is  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other.  Each  of  them,  so  far  as  it  is  exchange  value,  must 
therefore  be  reducible  to  this  third. 

A  simple  geometrical  illustration  will  make  this  clear.  In 
order  to  calculate  and  compare  the  areas  of  rectilinear  figures, 
we  decompose  them  into  triangles.  But  the  area  of  the  tri- 
angle itself  is  expressed  by  something  totally  different  from  its 
visible  figure,  namely,  by  half  the  product  of  the  base  into 
the  .altitude.  In  the  same  way  the  exchange  values  of  com- 
modities must  be  capable  of  being  expressed  in  terms  of  some- 
thing common  to  them  all,  of  which  thing  they  rejjresent  a 
greater  or  less  quantity. 

This  common  "something"  cannot  be  either  a  geometrical, 
a  chemical,  or  any  other  natural  property  of  commodities. 
Such  properties  claim  our  attention  only  in  so  far  as  they 
affect  the  utility  of  those  commodities,  make  them  use-values. 
But  the  exchange  of  commodities  is  evidently  an  act  character- 
ised by  a  total  abstraction  from  use-value.  Then  one  use- 
value  is  just  as  good  as  another,  provided  only  it  be  present  in 
sufficient  quantity.  Or,  as  old  Barbon  says,  "one  sort  of 
wares  are  as  good  as  another,  if  the  values  be  equal.  There  is 
no  difference  or  distinction  in  things  of  equal  value  .... 
An  hundred  pounds'  worth  of  lead  or  iron,  is  of  as  great  value 
as  one  hundred  pounds'  worth  of  silver  or  gold."  ^  As  use- 
values,  commodities  are,  above  all,  of  different  qualities,  but  as 
exchange  values  they  are  merely  different  quantities,  and  con- 
sequently do  not  contain  an  atom  of  use-value. 

If  then  we  leave  out  of  consideration  the  use-value  of  com- 
modities, they  have  only  one  common  property  left,  that  of 
being  products  of  labour.  But  even  the  product  of  labour 
itself  has  undergone  a  change  in  our  hands.  If  we  make 
abstraction  from  its  use-value,  we  make  abstraction  at  the 
same  time  from  the  material  elements  and  shapes  that  make 
the  product  a  use-value ;  we  see  in  it  no  longer  a  table,  a  house, 
yarn,  or  any  other  useful  thing.  Its  existence  as  a  material 
thing  is  put  out  of  sight.  ISTeither  can  it  any  longer  be  re- 
garded as  the  product  of  the  labour  of  the  joiner,  the  mason, 

*  N.   Barbon,   1.   c.   p.    63   and   7. 


Commodities.  45 

the  spinner,  or  of  any  other  definite  kind  of  productive 
labour.  Along  with  the  useful  qualities  of  the  products  them- 
selves, we  put  out  of  sight  both  the  useful  character  of  the 
various  kinds  of  labour  embodied  in  them,  and  the  concrete 
forms  of  that  labour ;  there  is  nothing  left  but  what  is  common 
to  them  all;  all  are  reduced  to  one  and  the  same  sort  of 
labour,  human  labour  in  the  abstract. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  residue  of  each  of  these  products; 
it  consists  of  the  same  unsubstantial  reality  in  each,  a  mere 
congelation  of  homogeneous  human  labour,  of  labour-power  ex- 
pended without  regard  to  the  mode  of  its  expenditure.  All 
that  these  things  now  tell  us  is,  that  human  labour-power  has 
been  expended  in  their  production,  that  human  labor  is  em- 
bodied in  them.  When  looked  at  as  crystals  of  this  social 
substance,  common  to  them  all,  they  are^ — Values. 

We  have  seen  that  when  commodities  are  exchanged,  their 
exchange  value  manifests  itself  as  something  totally  independ- 
ent of  their  use-value.  But  if  we  abstract  from  their  use-value, 
there  remains  their  Value  as  defined  above.  Therefore,  the 
common  substance  that  manifests  itself  in  the  exchange  value 
of  commodities,  whenever  they  are  exchanged,  is  their  value. 
The  progress  of  our  investigation  will  show  that  exchange 
value  is  the  only  form  in  which  the  value  of  commodities  can 
manifest  itself  or  be  expressed.  For  the  present,  however,  we 
have  to  consider  the  nature  of  value  independently  of  this,  its 
form. 

A  use-value,  or  useful  article,  therefore,  has  value  only  be- 
cause human  labour  in  the  abstract  has  been  embodied  or  ma- 
terialised in  it.  How,  then,  is  the  magnitude  of  this  value  to 
be  measured  ?  Plainly,  by  the  quantity  of  the  value-creating 
substance,  the  labour,  contained  in  the  article.  The  quantity 
of  labour,  however,  is  measured  by  its  duration,  and  labour- 
time  in  its  turn  finds  its  standard  in  weeks,  days,  and  hours. 

Some  people  might  think  that  if  the  value  of  a  commodity 
is  determined  by  the  quantity  of  labour  spent  on  it,  the  more 
idle  and  unskilful  the  labourer,  the  more  valuable  would  his 
commodity  be,  because  more  time  would  be  required  in  its 
production.     The  labour,  however,  that  forms  the  substance  of 


46  Capitalist  Production. 

value,  is  homogeneous  human  labour,  expenditure  of  one  uni- 
form labour-power.  The  total  labour-power  of  society,  which 
is  embodied  in  the  sum  total  of  the  values  of  all  commodities 
produced  by  that  society,  counts  here  as  one  homogeneous  mass 
of  human  labour-power,  composed  though  it  be  of  innumerable 
individual  units.  Each  of  these  units  is  the  same  as  any  other, 
80  far  as  it  has  the  character  of  the  average  labour-power  of 
society,  and  takes  effect  as  such ;  that  is,  so  far  as  it  requires  for 
producing  a  commodity,  no  more  time  than  is  needed  on  an 
average,  no  more  than  is  socially  necessary.  The  labour-time 
socially  necessary  is  that  required  to  produce  an  article  under 
the  normal  conditions  of  production,  and  with  the  average 
degree  of  skill  and  intensity  prevalent  at  the  time.  The  intro- 
duction of  power  looms  into  England  probably  reduced  by  one 
half  the  labour  required  to  weave  a  given  quantity  of  yam  into 
cloth.  The  hand-loom  weavers,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  continued 
to  require  the  same  time  as  before;  but  for  all  that,  the  pro- 
duct of  one  hour  of  their  labour  represented  after  the  change 
only  half  an  hour's  social  labour,  and  consequently  fell  to  one- 
half  its  former  value. 

We  see  then  that  that  which  determines  the  magnitude  of 
the  value  of  any  article  is  the  amount  of  labour  socially  neces- 
sary, or  the  labour-time  socially  necessary  for  its  production.* 
Each  individual  commodity,  in  this  connexion,  is  to  be  con- 
sidered as  an  average  sample  of  its  class.  ^  Commodities,  there- 
fore, in  which  equal  quantities  of  labour  are  embodied,  or 
which  can  be  produced  in  the  same  time,  have  the  same  value. 
The  value  of  one  commodity  is  to  the  value  of  any  other,  as  the 
labour-time  necessary  for  the  production  of  the  one  is  to  that 
necessary  for  the  production  of  the  other.  "As  values,  all  com- 
modities are  only  definite  masses  of  congealed  labour-time."  ' 

'  The  value  of  them  (the  necessaries  of  life),  when  they  are  exchanged  the 
one  for  another,  is  regulated  by  the  quantity  of  labour  necessarily  required,  and 
commonly  taken  in  producing  them."  (Some  Thoughts  on  the  Interest  of  Money 
in  general,  and  particularly  in  the  Publick  Funds,  &c.,  Lond.,  p.  36.)  This  re- 
markable anonymous  work,  written  in  the  last  century,  bears  no  date.  It  is 
dear,  however,  from  internal  evidence,  that  it  appeared  in  the  reign  of  George 
II.  about  1739  or  1740. 

*  "  Toutes  les  productions  d'un  meme  genre  ne  forment  proprement  qu'une  masse, 
dont  le  prix  se  determine  en  general  et  sans  egard  aux  circonstances  particulieres." 
(Le  Trosne,   1.   c.   p.   893.)  » K.  Marx,   1.   c.   p.  24. 


Commodities.  47 

The  value  of  a  commodity  would  therefore  remain  constant, 
if  the  labour-time  required  for  its  production  also  remained 
constant.  But  the  latter  changes  with  every  variation  in  the 
productiveness  of  labour.  This  productiveness  is  determined 
by  various  circumstances,  amongst  others,  by  the  average 
amount  of  skill  of  the  workmen,  the  state  of  science,  and  the 
degree  of  its  practical  application,  the  social  organisation  of 
production,  the  extent  and  capabilities  of  the  means  of  pro- 
duction, and  by  physical  conditions.  For  example,  the 
same  amount  of  labour  in  favourable  seasons  is  embodied 
in  8  bushels  of  corn,  and  in  unfavourable,  only  in  four. 
The  same  labour  extracts  from  rich  mines  more  metal  than 
from  poor  mines.  Diamonds  are  of  very  rare  occurrence  on 
the  earth's  surface,  and  hence  their  discovery  costs,  on  an  aver- 
age, a  great  deal  of  labour-time.  Consequently  much  labour 
is  represented  in  a  small  compass.  Jacob  doubts  whether  gold 
has  ever  been  paid  for  at  its  full  value.  This  applies  still 
more  to  diamonds.  According  to  Eschwege,  the  total  produce 
of  the  Brazilian  diamond  mines  for  the  eighty  years,  ending 
in  1823,  had  not  realised  the  price  of  one-and-a-half  years' 
average  produce  of  the  sugar  and  coffee  plantations  of  the 
same,  country,  although  the  diamonds  cost  much  more  labour, 
and  therefore  represented  more  value.  With  richer  mines,  the 
same  quantity  of  labour  would  embody  itself  in  more  diamonds 
and  their  value  would  fall.  If  we  could  succeed  at  a  small 
expenditure  of  labour,  in  converting  carbon  into  diamonds, 
their  value  might  fall  below  that  of  bricks.  In  general,  the 
greater  the  productiveness  of  labour,  the  less  is  the  labour-time 
required  for  the  production  of  an  article,  the  less  is  the  amount 
of  labour  crystallised  in  that  article,  and  the  less  is  its  value ; 
and  vise  versa,  the  less  the  productiveness  of  labour,  the  greater 
is  the  labour-time  required  for  the  production  of  an  article, 
and  the  greater  is  its  value.  The  value  of  a  commodity,  there- 
fore, varies  directly  as  the  quantity,  and  inversely  as  the 
productiveness,  of  the  labour  incorporated  in  it. 

A  thing  can  be  a  use-value,  without  having  value.  This  is 
the  case  whenever  its  utility  to  man  is  not  due  to  labour. 
Such  are  air,  virgin  soil,  natural  meadows,  &c.     A  thing  can 


48  Capitalist  Production. 

be  useful,  and  the  product  of  human  labour,  without  being  a 
commodity.  Whoever  directly  satisfies  his  wants  with  the 
produce  of  his  own  labour,  creates,  indeed,  use-values,  but  not 
commodities.  In  order  to  produce  the  latter,  he  must  not  only 
produce  use-values,  but  use-values  for  others,  social  use-values. 
Lastly,  nothing  can  have  value,  without  being  an  object  of 
utility.  If  the  thing  is  useless,  so  is  the  labour  contained  in 
it;  the  labour  does  not  count  as  labour,  and  therefore  creates 
no  value. 

SECTION    2. THE    TWOFOI.D    CHARACTER   OF   THE    I^BOUR   EM- 
BODIED IN  COMMODITIES. 

At  first  sight  a  commodity  presented  itself  to  us  as  a  complex 
of  two  things — ^use-value  and  exchange-value.  Later  on,  we 
saw  also  that  labour,  too,  possesses  the  same  two-fold  nature; 
for,  so  far  as  it  finds  expression  in  value,  it  does  not  possess  the 
same  characteristics  that  belong  to  it  as  a  creator  of  use-values. 
I  was  the  first  to  point  out  and  to  examine  critically  this  two- 
fold nature  of  the  labour  contained  in  commodities.  As  this 
point  is  the  pivot  on  which  a  clear  comprehension  of  political 
economy  turns,  we  must  go  more  into  detail. 

Let  us  take  two  commodities  such  as  a  coat  and  10  yards  of 
linen,  and  let  the  former  be  double  the  value  of  the  latter,  so 
that,  if  10  yards  of  linen=W,  the  coat=2W. 

The  coat  is  a  use-value  that  satisfies  a  particular  want.  Its 
existence  is  the  result  of  a  special  sort  of  productive  activity, 
the  nature  of  which  is  determined  by  its  aim,  mode  of  opera- 
tion, subject,  means,  and  result.  The  labour,  whose  utility  is 
thus  represented  by  the  value  in  use  of  its  product,  or  which 
manifests  itself  by  making  its  product  a  use-value,  we  call 
useful  labour.  In  this  connexion  we  consider  only  its  useful 
effect. 

As  the  coat  and  the  linen  are  two  qualitatively  different  use* 
values,  so  also  are  the  two  forms  of  labour  that  produce  them, 
tailoring  and  weaving.  Were  these  two  objects  not  quali- 
tatively different,  not  produced  respectively  by  labour  of 
different  quality,  they  could  not  stand  to  each  other  in  the 


Commodities.  49 

relation  of  commodities.  Coats  are  not  exchanged  for  coats, 
one  use-value  is  not  exchanged  for  another  of  the  same  kind. 

To  all  the  different  varieties  of  values  in  use  there  correspond 
as  many  different  kinds  of  useful  labour,  classified  according  to 
the  order,  genus,  species,  and  Variety  to  which  they  belong  in 
the  social  division  of  labour.  This  division  of  labour  is  a  neces- 
sary condition  for  the  production  of  commodities,  but  it  does 
not  follow  conversely,  that  the  production  of  commodities  is  a 
necessary  condition  for  the  division  of  labour.  In  the  primitive 
Indian  community  there  is  social  division  of  labour,  without 
production  of  commodities.  Or,  to  take  an  example  nearer 
home,  in  every  factory  the  labour  is  divided  according  to  a 
system,  but  this  division  is  not  brought  about  by  the  operatives 
mutually  exchanging  their  individual  products.  Only  such 
products  can  become  commodities  with  regard  to  each  other,  as 
result  from  different  kinds  of  labour,  each  kind  being  carried 
on  independently  and  for  the  account  of  private  individuals. 

To  resume,  then :  In  the  use-value  of  each  commodity  there 
is  contained  useful  labour,  i.  e.,  productive  activity  of  a  definite 
kind  and  exercised  with  a  definite  aim.  Use-values  cannot 
confront  each  other  as  commodities,  unless  the  useful  labour 
embodied  in  them  is  qualitatively  different  in  each  of  them. 
In  a  community,  the  produce  of  which  in  general  takes  the 
fqrm  of  commodities,  i.  e.,  in  a  community  of  commodity  pro- 
ducers, this  qualitative  difference  between  the  useful  forms  of 
labour  that  are  carried  on  independently  by  individual  pro- 
ducers, each  on  their  own  account,  develops  into  a  complex 
system,  a  social  division  of  labour. 

Anyhow,  whether  the  coat  be  worn  by  the  tailor  or  by  his 
customer,  in  either  case  it  operates  as  a  use-value.  iN^or  is  the 
relation  between  the  coat  and  the  labour  that  produced  it 
altered  by  the  circumstance  that  tailoring  may  have  become  a 
special  trade,  an  independent  branch  of  the  social  division  of 
labour.  Wherever  the  want  of  clothing  forced  them  to  it,  the 
human  race  made  clothes  for  thousands  of  years,  without  a 
single  man  becoming  a  tailor.  But  coats  and  linen,  like  every 
other  element  of  material  wealth  that  is  not  the  spontaneous 
produce  of  nature,  must  invariably  owe  their  existence  to  a 


50  Capitalist  Production. 

special  productive  activity,  exercised  with  a  definite  aim,  an 
activity  that  appropriates  particular  nature-given  materials  to 
particular  human  wants.  So  far  therefore  as  labour  is  a 
creator  of  use-value,  is  useful  labour,  it  is  a  necessary  con- 
dition, independent  of  all  forms  *of  society,  for  the  existence  of 
the  human  race;  it  is  an  eternal  nature-imposed  necessity, 
without  which  there  can  be  no  material  exchanges  between 
man  and  Nature,  and  therefore  no  life. 

The  use-values,  coat,  linen^  &c.,  i.  e.,  the  bodies  of  commodi- 
ties, are  combinations  of  two  elements — matter  and  labour. 
If  we  take  away  the  useful  labour  expended  upon  them,  a 
material  substratum  is  always  left,  which  is  furnished  by 
Nature  without  the  help  of  man.  The  latter  can  work  only  as 
Nature  does,  that  is  by  changing  the  form  of  matter.^  Nay 
more,  in  this  work  of  changing  the  form  he  is  constantly  helped 
by  natural  forces.  We  see,  then,  that  labour  is  not  the  only 
source  of  material  wealth,  of  use-values  produced  by  labour. 
As  William  Petty  puts  it,  labour  is  its  father  and  the  earth  its 
mother. 

Let  us  now  pass  from  the  commodity  considered  as  a  use» 
value  to  the  value  of  commodities. 

By  our  assumption,  the  coat  is  worth  twice  as  much  as  the 
linen.  But  this  is  a  mere  quantitative  difference,  which  for  the 
present  does  not  concern  us.  We  bear  in  mind,  however,  that 
if  the  value  of  the  coat  is  double  that  of  10  yds.  of  linen,  20 
yds.  of  linen  must  have  the  same  value  as  one  coat.  So  far 
as  they  are  values,  the  coat  and  the  linen  are  things  of  a  like 
substance,  objective  expressions  of  essentially  identical  labour. 
But  tailoring  and  weaving  are,  qualitatively,  different  kinds  of 
labour.     There  are,  however,  states  of  society  in  which  one  and 

*  Tutti  i  f  enomeni  dell'  universo,  sieno  essi  prodotti  della  mano,  dell'  uomo,  ovvero 
delle  universal!  leggi  della  fisica,  non  ci  danno  idea  di  attuale  creazione,  ma 
unicamente  di  una  modificazione  della  materia.  Accostare  e  separare  sono  gli  unici 
elementi  che  I'ingegno  umano  ritrova  analizzando  I'idea  della  riproduzione:  e  tanto  k 
riproduzione  di  valore  (value  in  use,  although  Verri  in  this  passage  of  his  contro- 
versy with  the  Physiocrats  is  not  himself  quite  certain  of  the  kind  of  value  he  is 
speaking  of)  e  di  ricchezze  se  la  terra  I'aria  e  I'acqua  ne'  campi  si  trasmutino  in 
grano,  come  se  colla  mano  dell'  uomo  il  glutine  di  un  insetto  si  trasmuti  in  velluto 
owero  alcuni  pezzetti  di  metallo  si  organizzino  a  formare  una  ripetizione." — 
Pietro  Verri.  "Meditazioni  sulla  Economia  Politica"  [first  printed  in  1778] 
in  Custodi's  edition  of  the  Italian  Economists,  Parte  Modema,  t.  xv.  p.  22. 


Coinmoditics.  51 

the  same  man  does  tailoring  and  weaving  alternately,  in  which 
case  these  two  forms  of  labour  are  mere  modifications  of  the 
labour  of  the  same  individual,  and  not  special  and  fixed  func- 
tions of  different  persons ;  just  as  the  coat  wlii'ch  our  tailor 
makes  one  day,  and  the  trousers  which  he  makes  another  day, 
imply  only  a  variation  in  the  labour  of  one  and  the  same  indi- 
vidual. Moreover,  we  see  at  a  glance  that,  in  our  capitalist 
society,  a  given  portion  of  human  labour  is,  in  accordance  with 
the  varying  demand,  at  one  time  supplied  in  the  form  of  tailor- 
ing, at  another  in  the  form  of  weaving.  This  change  may 
possibly  not  take  place  without  friction,  but  take  place  it  must. 
Productive  activity,  if  we  leave  out  of  sight  its  special  form, 
viz.,  the  useful  character  of  the  labour,  is  nothing  but  the  ex- 
penditure of  human  labour-power.  Tailoring  and  weaving, 
though  qualitatively  different  productive  activities,  are  each  a 
productive  expenditure  of  human  brains,  nerves,  and  muscles, 
and  in  this  sense  are  human  labour.  They  are  but  two 
different  modes  of  expending  human  labour-power.  Of  course, 
this  labour-power,  which  remains  the  same  under  all  its  modi- 
fications, must  have  attained  a  certain  pitch  of  development 
before  it  can  be  expended  in  a  multiplicity  of  modes.  But  the 
value  of  a  commodity  represents  human  labour  in  the  abstract, 
the  expenditure  of  human  labour  in  general.  And  just  as  in 
society,  a  general  or  a  banker  plays  a  great  part,  but  mere 
man,  on  the  other  hand,  a  very  shabby  part,^  so  here  with 
mere  human  labour.  It  rs  the  expenditure  of  simple  labour- 
power,  i.e.,  of  the  labour-power  which,  on  an  average,  apart 
from  any  special  development,  exists  in  the  organism  of  every 
ordinary  individual.  Simple  average  labour,  it  is  true,  varies 
in  character  in  different  countries  and  at  different  times,  but 
in  a  particular  society  it  is  given.  Skilled  labour  counts  only 
as  simple  labour  intensified,  or  rather,  as  multiplied  simple 
labour,  a  given  quantity  of  skilled  being  considered  equal  to  a 
greater  quantity  of  simple  labour.  Experience  shows  that  this 
reduction  is  constantly  being  made.  A  commodity  may  be  the 
product  of  the  most  skilled  labour,  but  its  value,  by  equating 
it  to   the   product  of  simple  unskilled  labour,   represents   a 

^  Comp.   Hegel,   Philosophie  des   Rechts.     Berlin,    1840,   p.   250   §   190. 


52  Capitalist  Production. 

definite  quantity  of  the  latter  labour  alone. ^  The  different 
proportions  in  which  different  sorts  of  labour  are  reduced  to 
unskilled  labour  as  their  standard,  are  established  by  a  social 
process  that  goes  on  behind  the  backs  of  the  producers,  and, 
consequently,  appear  to  be  fixed  by  custom.  For  simplicity's 
sake  we  shall  henceforth  account  every  kind  of  labour  to  be 
unskilled,  simple  labour;  by  this  we  do  no  more  than  save 
ourselves  the  trouble  of  making  the  reduction. 

Just  as,  therefore,  in  viewing  the  coat  and  linen  as  values, 
we  abstract  from  their  different  use-values,  so  it  is  with  the 
labour  represented  by  those  values :  we  disregard  the  difference 
between  its  useful  forms,  weaving  and  tailoring.  As  the  use- 
values,  coat  and  linen,  are  combinations  of  special  productive 
activities  with  cloth  and  yarn,  while  the  values,  coat  and  linen, 
are,  on  the  other  hand,  mere  homogeneous  congelations  of 
indifferentiated  labour,  so  the  labour  embodied  in  these  latter 
values  does  not  count  by  virtue  of  its  productive  relation  to 
cloth  and  yarn,  but  only  as  being  expenditure  of  human 
labour-power.  Tailoring  and  weaving  are  necessary  factors  in 
the  creation  of  the  use-values,  coat  and  linen,  precisely  because 
these  two  kinds  of  labour  are  of  different  qualities;  but  only 
in  so  far  as  abstraction  is  made  from  their  special  qualities, 
only  in  so  far  as  both  possess  the  same  quality  of  being  human 
labour,  do  tailoring  and  weaving  form  the  substance  of  the 
values  of  the  same  articles. 

Coats  and  linen,  however,  are  not  merely  values,  but  values 
of  definite  magnitude,  and  according  to  our  assumption,  the 
coat  is  worth  twice  as  much  as  the  ten  yards  of  linen.  Whence 
this  difference  in  their  values?  It  is  owing  to  the  fact  that 
the  linen  contains  only  half  as  much  labour  as  the  coat, 
and  consequently,  that  in  the  production  of  the  latter,  labour- 
power  must  have  been  expended  during  twice  the  time  necesr 
sary  for  the  production  of  the  former. 

While,  therefore,  with  reference  to  use-value,  the  labour  con- 
tained in  a  commodity  counts  only  qualitatively,  with  refer- 

*  The  reader  must  note  that  we  are  not  speaking  here  of  the  wages  or  value 
that  the  labourer  gets  for  a  given  labour  time,  but  of  the  value  of  the  com- 
modity in  which  that  labour  time  is  materialised.  Wages  is  a  category  that,  as 
yet,    has   no  existence   at   the   present   stage   of   our  investigation. 


Commodities.  53 

ence  to  value  it  counts  only  quantitatively,  and  must  first  be 
reduced  to  human  labour  pure  and  simple.  In  the  former 
case,  it  is  a  question  of  How  and  What,  in  the  latter  of  How 
much  ?  How  long  a  time  ?  Since  the  magnitude  of  the  value  of 
a  commodity  represents  only  the  quantity  of  labour  embodied 
in  it,  it  follows  that  all  commodities,  when  taken  in  certain 
proportions,  must  be  equal  in  value. 

If  the  productive  power  of  all  the  different  sorts  of  useful 
labour  required  for  the  production  of  a  coat  remains  unchanged, 
the  sum  of  the  values  of  the  coat  produced  increases  with 
their  number.  If  one  coat  represents  x  days'  labour,  two 
coats  represent  2x  days'  labour,  and  so  on.  But  assume  that 
the  duration  of  the  labour  necessary  for  the  production  of  a 
coat  becomes  doubled  or  halved.  In  the  first  case,  one  coat  is 
worth  as  much  as  two  coats  were  before ;  in  the  second  case, 
two  coats  are  only  worth  as  much  as  one  was  before,  although 
in  both  cases  one  coat  renders  the  same  service  as  before,  and 
the  useful  labour  embodied  in  it  remains  of  the  same  quality. 
But  the  quantity  of  labour  spent  on  its  production  has  altered. 

An  increase  in  the  quantity  of  use-values  is  an  increase  of 
material  wealth.  With  two  coats  two  men  can  be  clothed, 
with  one  coat  only  one  man.  Nevertheless,  an  increased  quan- 
tity of  material  wealth  may  correspond  to  a  simultaneous 
fall  in  the  magnitude  of  its  value.  This  antagonistic  move- 
ment has  its  origin  in  the  two-fold  character  of  labour. 
Productive  power  has  reference,  of  course,  only  to  labour  of 
some  useful  concrete  form ;  the  efficacy  of  any  special  produc- 
tive activity  during  a  given  time  being  dependent  on  its 
productiveness.  Useful  labour  becomes,  therefore,  a  more  or 
less  abundant  source  of  products,  in  proportion  to  the  rise  or 
fall  of  its  productiveness.  On  the  other  hand,  no  change  in  this 
productiveness  affects  the  labour  represented  by  value.  Since 
productive  power  is  an  attribute  of  the  concrete  useful  forms 
of  labour,  of  course  it  can  no  longer  have  any  bearing  on  that 
labour,  so  soon  as  we  make  abstraction  from  those  concrete 
useful  forms.  However  then  productive  power  may  vary,  the 
same  labour,  exercised  during  equal  periods  of  time,  always 
yields  equal  amounts  of  value,     feut  it  will  yield,  during  equal 


54  Capitalist  Production. 

periods  of  time,  different  quantities  of  values  in  use ;  more,  if 
the  productive  power  rise,  fewer,  if  it  fall.  The  same  change 
in  productive  power,  which  increases  the  fruitfulness  of  labour, 
and,  in  consequence,  the  quantity  of  use-values  produced  by 
that  labour,  will  diminish  the  total  value  of  this  increased 
quantity  of  use-values,  provided  such  change  shorten  the  total 
labour-time  necessary  for  their  production ;  and  vice  versd. 

On  the  one  hand  all  labour  is,  speaking  physiologically,  an 
expenditure  of  human  labour-power,  and  in  its  character  of 
identical  abstract  human  labour,  it  creates  and  forms  the  value 
of  commoditi^.  On  the  other  hand,  all  labour  is  the  expendi- 
ture of  human  labour-power  in  a  special  form  and  with  a 
definite  aim,  and  in  this,  its  character  of  concrete  useful  labour, 
it  produces  use^values.* 

SECTION  3. THE  FOEM  OF  VALUE  OB  EXCHANGE  VAL-UE. 

Commodities  come  into  the  world  in  the  shape  of  use-values, 
articles,  or  goods,  such  as  iron,  linen,  com,  &c.  This  is  their 
plain,  homely,  bodily  form.     They  are,  however,  commodities, 

*  In  order  to  prove  that  labour  alone  is  that  all-sufficient  and  real  measure, 
by  which  at  all  times  the  value  of  all  commodities  can  be  estimated  and  com- 
pared, Adam  Smith  says,  "  Equal  quantities  of  labour  must  at  all  times  and  in  all 
places  have  the  same  value  for  the  labourer.  In  his  normal  state  of  health,  strength 
and  activity,  and  with  the  average  degree  of  skill  that  he  may  possess,  he  must 
always  give  up  the  same  portion  of  his  rest,  his  freedom,  and  his  happiness." 
(Wealth  of  Nations,  b.  I.  ch.  v.)  On  the  one  hand,  Adam  Smith  here  (but  not 
everywhere)  confuses  the  determination  of  value  by  means  of  the  quantity  of 
labour  expended  in  the  production  of  commodities,  with  the  determination  of  the 
values  of  commodities  by  means  of  the  value  of  labour,  and  seeks  in  consequence 
to  prove  that  equal  quantities  of  labour  have  always  the  same  value.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  has  a  presentiment,  that  labour,  so  far  as  it  manifests  itself  in 
the  value  of  commodities,  counts  only  as  expenditure  of  labour  power,  but  he 
treats  this  expenditure  as  the  mere  sacrifice  of  rest,  freedom,  and  happiness,  not  as 
the  same  time  the  normal  activity  of  living  beings.  But  then,  he  has  the  mod- 
ern wage-labourer  in  his  eye.  Much  more  aptly,  the  anonymous  predecessor  of 
Adam  Smith,  quoted  above  in  Note  *,  p.  6,  says,  "  one  man  has  employed  him- 
self a  week  in  providing  this  necessary  of  life  .  .  .  and  he  that  g:ives  him 
some  other  in  exchange,  cannot  make  a  better  estimate  of  what  is  a  proper 
equivalent,  than  by  computing  what  cost  him  just  as  much  labour  and  time; 
which  in  effect  is  no  more  than  exchanging  one  man's  labour  in  one  thing  for 
a  time  certain,  for  another  man's  labour  in  another  thing  for  the  same  time." 
(1.  c.  p.  39.)  [The  English  language  has  the  advantage  of  possessing  different 
words  for  the  two  aspects  of  labour  here  considered.  The  labour  which  creates 
Use- Value,  and  counts  qualitatively,  is  Work,  as  distinguished  from  Labour;  that 
which  creates  Value  and  counts  quantitatively,  is  Labour  as  disting^ushed  from 
Work.  --  Ed.] 


Commodities.  55 

only  because  they  are  something  twofold,  both  objects  of  utility, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  depositories  of  value.  They  manifest 
themselves  therefore  as  commodities,  or  have  the  form  of  com- 
modities, only  in  so  far  as  they  have  two  forms,  a  physical 
or  natural  form,  and  a  value  form. 

The  reality  of  the  value  of  commodities  differs  in  this  respect 
from  Dame  Quickly,  that  we  don't  know  "where  to  have  it." 
The  value  of  commodities  is  the  very  opposite  of  the  coarse  ma- 
teriality of  their  substance,  not  an  atom  of  matter  enters  into  its 
composition.  Turn  and  examine  a  single  commodity,  by  itself, 
as  we  will.  Yet  in  so  far  as  it  remains  an  object  of  value,  it 
seems  impossible  to  grasp  it.  If,  however,  we  bear  in  mind 
that  the  value  of  commodities  has  a  purely  social  reality,  and 
that  they  acquire  this  reality  only  in  so  far  as  they  are  expres- 
sions or  embodiments  of  one  identical  social  substance,  viz.,  hu- 
man labour,  it  follows  as  a  matter  of  course,  th"at  value  can  only 
manifest  itself  in  the  social  relation  of  commodity  to  com- 
modity. In  fact  we  started  from  exchange  value,  or  the 
exchange  relation  of  commodities,  in  order  to  get  at  the  value 
that  lies  hidden  behind  it.  We  must  now  return  to  this  form 
under  which  value  first  appeared  to  us. 

Every  one  knows,  if  he  knows  nothing  else,  that  commodities 
have  a  value  form  common  to  them  all,  and  presenting  a 
marked  contrast  with  the  varied  bodily  forms  of  their  use- 
values.  I  mean  their  money  form.  Here,  however,  a  task  is 
set  us,  the  performance  of  which  has  never  yet  even  been  at- 
tempted by  bourgeois  economy,  the  task  of  tracing  the  genesis 
of  this  money  form,  of  developing  the  expression  of  value  im- 
plied in  the  value  relation  of  commodities,  from  its  simplest, 
almost  imperceptible  outline,  to  the  dazzling  money  form.  By 
doing  this  we  shall,  at  the  same  time,  solve  the  riddle  presented 
by  money. 

The  simplest  value  relation  is  evidently  that  of  one  com- 
modity to  some  one  other  commodity  of  a  different  kind. 
Hence  the  relation  between  the  values  of  two  commodities  sup- 
plies us  with  the  simplest  expression  of  the  value  of  a  single 
commodity. 


56  Capitalist  Production. 

A.  Elementary  or  Accidental  Form  of.  Value. 
X  commodity  A=y  commodity  B,  or 
X  commodity  A  is  worth  y  commodity  B. 

20  yards  of  linen=l  coat,  or 

20  yards  of  linen  are  ■worth  1  coat. 

1.  The  two  poles  of  the  expression  of  vailue :  Relative  form  and 
Equivalent  form. 

The  whole  mystery  of  the  form  of  value  lies  hidden  in 
this  elementary  form.  Its  analysis,  therefore,  is  our  real 
diflSculty. 

Here  two  different  kinds  of  commodities  (in  our  example 
the  linen  and  the  coat),  evidently  play  two  different  parts. 
The  linen  expresses  its  value  in  the  coat ;  the  coat  serves  as  the 
material  in  which  that  value  is  expressed.  The  former  plays 
an  active,  the  latter  a  passive,  part.  The  value  of  the  linen  is 
represented  as  relative  value,  or  appears  in  relative  form. 
The  coat  officiates  as  equivalent,  or  appears  in  equivalent 
form. 

The  relative  form  and  the  equivalent  form  are  two  intimate- 
ly connected,  mutually  dependent  and  inseparable  elements  of 
the  expression  of  value;  but,  at  the  same  time,  are  mutually 
exclusive,  antagonistic  extremes — i.e.j  poles  of  the  same  ex- 
pression. They  are  allotted  respectively  to  the  two  different 
commodities  brought  into  relation  by  that  expression.  It  is 
not  possible  to  express  the  value  of  linen  in  linen.  20  yards 
of  linen =20  yards  of  linen  is  no  expression  of  value.  On  the 
contrary,  such  an  equation  merely  says  that  20  yards  of  linen 
are  nothing  else  than  20  yards  of  linen,  a  definite  quantity  of 
the  use-value  linen.  The  value  of  the  linen  can  therefore  be 
expressed  only  relatively — i.e.^  in  some  other  commodity.  The 
relative  form  of  the  value  of  the  linen  pre-supposes,  therefore, 
the  presence  of  some  other  commodity — here  the  coat — under 
the  form  of  an  equivalent.  On  the  other  hand,  the  commodity 
that  figures  as  the  equivalent  cannot  at  the  same  time  assume 
the  relative  form.  That  second  commodity  is  not  the  one 
whose  value  is  expressed.     Its  function  is  merely  to  serve  as 


Commodities.  57 

the  material  in  which  the  value  of  the  first  commodity  is  ex- 
pressed. 

No  doubt,  the  expression  20  yards  of  linen=l  coat,  or  20 
yards  of  linen  are  worth  1  coat,  implies  the  opposite  relation :  1 
coat=20  yards  of  linen,  or  1  coat  is  worth  20  yards  of  linen. 
But,  in  that  case,  I  must  reverse  the  equation,  in  order  to  ex- 
press the  value  of  the  coat  relatively;  and,  so  soon  as  I  do 
that  the  linen  becomes  the  equivalent  instead  of  the  coat. 
A  single  commodity  cannot,  therefore,  simultaneously  assume, 
in  the  same  expression  of  value,  both  forms.  The  very 
polarity  of  these  forms  makes  them  mutually  exclusive. 

Whether,  then,  a  commodity  assumes  the  relative  form,  or 
the  opposite  equivalent  form,  depends  entirely  upon  its  acci- 
dental position  in  the  expression  of  value — that  is,  upon 
whether  it  is  the  commodity  whose  value  is  being  expressed  or 
the  commodity  in  which  value  is  being  expressed. 

2.  The  Relative  form  of  value. 
(a.)  The  nature  and  import  of  this  form. 

In  order  to  discover  how  the  elementary  expression  of  the 
value  of  a  commodity  lies  hidden  in  the  value  relation  of  two 
commodities,  we  must,  in  the  first  place,  consider  the  latter 
entirely  apart  from  its  quantitative  aspect.  The  usual  mode  of 
procedure  is  generally  the  reverse,  and  in  the  value  relation 
nothing  is  seen  but  the  proportion  between  definite  quantities 
of  two  different  sorts  of  commodities  that  are  considered  equal 
to  each  other.  It  is  apt  to  be  forgotten  that  the  magnitudes 
of  different  things  can  be  compared  quantitatively,  only  when 
those  magnitudes  are  expressed  in  terms  of  the  same  unit.  It 
is  only  as  expressions  of  such  a  unit  that  they  are  of  the  same 
denomination,  and  therefore  commensurable.^ 

Whether   20   yards   of   linen^l   coat   or=20   coats   or=x 

*  The  few  economists,  amongst  whom  is  S.  Bailey,  who  have  occupied  themselves 
with  the  analysis  of  the  form  of  value,  have  been  unable  to  arrive  at  any  result, 
first,  because  they  confuse  the  form  of  value  with  value  itself;  and  second,  be- 
cause, under  the  coarse  influence  of  the  practical  bourgeois,  they  exclusively  give 
their  attention  to  the  quantitative  aspect  of  the  question.  "The  command  of  quan- 
ity  .  .  .  constitutes  value."  ("Money  ^and  its  Vicissitudes."  London,  1837,  p. 
11.     By   S.    Bailey. 


58  Capitalist  Production. 

coats — that  is,  whether  a  given  quantity  of  linen  is  worth  few 
or  many  coats,  every  such  statement  implies  that  the  linen  and 
coats,  as  magnitudes  of  value,  are  expressions  of  the  same  unit, 
things  of  the  same  kind.  Linen=coat  is  the  basis  of  the 
equation. 

But  the  two  commodities  whose  identity  of  quality  is  thus 
assumed,  do  not  play  the  same  part.  It  is  only  the  value  of 
the  linen  that  is  expressed.  And  how  ?  By  its  reference  to 
the  coat  as  its  equivalent,  as  something  that  can  be  exchanged 
for  it  In  this  relation  the  coat  is  the  mode  of  existence  of 
value,  is  value  embodied,  for  only  as  such  is  it  the  same  as  the 
linen.  On  the  other  hand,  the  linen's  own  value  comes  to  the 
front,  receives  independent  expression,  for  it  is  only  as  being 
value  that  it  is  comparable  with  the  coat  as  a  thing  of  equal 
value,  or  exchangeable  with  the  coat  To  borrow  an  illustra- 
tion from  chemistry,  butyric  acid  is  a  different  substance  from 
propyl  formate.  Yet  both  are  made  up  of  the  same  chemical 
substances,  carbon  (C),  hydrogen  (H),  and  oxygen  (O),  and 
that,  too,  in  like  proportions — namely,  C4II8O2.  If  now  we 
equate  butyric  acid  to  propyl  formate,  then,  in  the  first  place, 
propyl  formate  would  be,  in  this  relation,  merely  a  form  of 
existence  of  C4H8O2;  and  in  the  second  place,  we  should  be 
stating  that  butyric  acid  also  consists  of  C4H802-  Therefore, 
by  thus  equating  the  two  substances,  expression  would  be  given 
to  their  chemical  composition,  while  their  different  physical 
forms  would  be  neglected. 

If  we  say  that,  as  values,  commodities  are  mere  congelations 
of  human  labour,  we  reduce  them  by  our  analysis,  it  is  true,  to 
the  abstraction,  value;  but  we  ascribe  to  this  value  no  form, 
apart  from  their  bodily  form.  It  is  otherwise  in  the  value 
relation  of  one  commodity  to  another.  Here,  the  one  stands 
forth  in  its  character  of  value  by  reason  of  its  relation  to  the 
other. 

By  making  the  coat  the  equivalent  of  the  linen,  we  equate 
the  labour  embodied  in  the  former  to  that  in  the  latter.  Now, 
it  is  true  that  the  tailoring,  which  makes  the  coat,  is  concrete 
labour  of  a  different  sort  from  the  weaving  which  makes  the 
linen.     But  the  act  of  equating  it  to  the  weaving,  reduces  the 


Commodities.  59 

tailoring  to  that  which  is  really  equal  in  the  two  kinds  of 
labour,  to  their  common  character  of  human  labour.  In  this 
roundabout  way,  then,  the  fact  is  expressed,  that  weaving  also, 
in  so  far  as  it  weaves  value,  has  nothing  to  distinguish  it  from 
tailoring,  and,  consequently,  is  abstract  human  labour.  It  is 
the  expression  of  equivalence  between  different  sorts  of  com- 
modities that  alone  brings  into  relief  the  specific  character  of 
value-creating  labour,  and  this  it  does  by  actually  reducing 
the  different  varieties  of  labour  embodied  in  the  different 
kinds  of  commodities  to  their  common  quality  of  human  labour 
in  the  abstract.^ 

There  is,  however,  something  else  required  beyond  the  ex- 
pression of  the  specific  character  of  the  labour  of  which  the 
value  of  the  linen  consists.  Human  labour-power  in  motion, 
or  human  labour,  creates  value,  but  is  not  itself  value.  It 
becomes  value  only  in  its  congealed  state,  when  embodied  in 
the  form  of  some  object.  In  order  to  express  the  value  of  the 
linen  as  a  congelation  of  human  labour,  that  value  must  be 
expressed  as  having  objective  existence,  as  being  a  something 
materially  different  from  the  linen  itself,  and  yet  a  something 
common  to  the  linen  and  all  other  commodities.  The  problem 
is  already  solved. 

When  occupying  the  position  of  equivalent  in  the  equation 
of  value,  the  coat  ranks  qualitatively  as  the  equal  of  the  linen, 
as  something  of  the  same  kind,  because  it  is  value.  In  this  posi- 
tion it  is  a  thing  in  which  we  see  nothing  but  value,  or  whose 
palpable  bodily  form  represents  value.  Yet  the  coat  itself,  the 
body  of  the  commodity,  coat,  is  a  mere  use-value.  A  coat  as 
such  no  more  tells  us  it  is  value,  than  does  the  first  piece  of 
linen  we  take  hold  of.     This  shows  that  when  placed  in  value 

'  The  celebrated  Franklin,  one  of  the  first  economists,  after  Wm.  Petty,  who 
saw  through  the  nature  of  value,  says:  "Trade  in  general  being  nothing  else  but 
the  exchange  of  labour  for  labour,  the  value  of  all  things  is  .  .  .  most  justly 
measured  by  labour."  (The  works  of  B.  Franklin,  &c.,  edited  by  Sparks, 
Boston,  1836,  Vol.  II.,  p.  267.)  Franklin  is  unconscious  that  by  estimating  the 
value  of  everything  in  labour,  he  makes  abstraction  from  any  difference  in  the 
sorts  of  labour  exchanged,  and  thus  reduces  them  all  to  equal  human  labour. 
But  although  ignorant  of  this,  yet  he  says  ij.  He  speaks  first  of  "the  one  labour," 
then  of  "  the  other  labour,"  and  finally  of  "  labour,"  without  further  qualifica- 
tion, as  the  substance  of  the  value  of  everything. 


6o  Capitalist  Production. 

relation  to  the  linen,  the  coat  signifies  more  than  when  ont  of 
that  relation,  just  as  many  a  man  strutting  about  in  a  gorgeous 
uniform  counts  for  more  than  when  in  mufti. 

In  the  production  of  the  coat,  human  labour-power,  in  the 
shape  of  tailoring,  must  have  been  actually  expended.  Human 
labour  is  therefore  accumulated  in  it.  In  this  aspect  the  coat 
is  a  depository  of  value,  but  though  worn  to  a  thread,  it  does 
not  let  this  fact  show  through.  And  as  equivalent  of  the  linen 
in  the  value  equation,  it  exists  under  this  aspect  alone,  counts 
therefore  as  embodied  value,  as  a  body  that  is  value.  A,  for 
instance,  cannot  be  "your  majesty"  to  B,  unless  at  the  same 
time  majesty  in  B's  eyes  assumes  the  bodily  form  of  A,  and, 
what  is  more,  with  every  new  father  of  the  people,  changes  its 
features,  hair,  and  many  other  things  besides. 

Hence,  in  the  value  equation,  in  which  the  coat  is  the  equiva- 
lent of  the  linen,  the  coat  officiates  as  the  form  of  value.  The 
value  of  the  commodity  linen  is  expressed  by  the  bodily  form  of 
the  commodity  coat,  the  value  of  one  by  the  use-value  of  the 
other.  As  a  use-value,  the  linen  is  something  palpably  dif- 
ferent from  the  coat ;  as  value,  it  is  the  same  as  the  coat,  and 
now  has  the  appearance  of  a  coat.  Thus  the  linen  acquires 
a  value  form  different  from  its  physical  form.  The  fact  that 
it  is  value,  is  made  manifest  by  its  equality  with  the  coat,  just 
as  the  sheep's  nature  of  a  Christian  is  shown  in  his  resemblance 
to  the  Lamb  of  God. 

We  see,  then,  all  that  our  analysis  of  the  value  of  commo- 
dities has  already  told  us,  is  told  us  by  the  linen  itself,  so  soon 
as  it  comes  into  communication  vtdth  another  conmiodity,  the 
coat.  Only  it  betrays  its  thoughts  in  that  language  with 
which  alone  it  is  familiar,  the  language  of  commodities.  In 
order  to  tell  us  that  its  own  value  is  created  by  labour  in  ita 
abstract  character  of  human  labour,  it  says  that  the  coat,  in  so 
far  as  it  is  worth  as  much  as  the  linen,  and  therefore  is  value, 
consists  of  the  same  labour  as  the  linen.  In  order  to  inform 
us  that  its  sublime  reality  as  value  is  not  the  same  as  its  buck- 
ram body,  it  says  that  value  has  the  appearance  of  a  coat,  and 
consequently  that  so  far  as  the  linen  is  value,  it  and  the  coat 
are  as  like  as  two  peas.     We  may  here  remark,  that  the  Ian- 


Commodities.  6l 

guage  of  commodities  has,  besides  Hebrew,  many  other  more  or 
less  correct  dialects.  The  German  "werthsein,"  to  be  worth, 
for  instance,  expresses  in  a  less  striking  manner  than  the 
Romance  verbs  "valere,"  "valer,"  "valoir,"  that  the  equating  of 
commodity  B  to  commodity  A,  is  commodity  A's  own  mode  of 
expressing  its  value.     Paris  vaut  bien  une  messe. 

By  means,  therefore,  of  the  value  relation  expressed  in  our 
equation,  the  bodily  form  of  commodity  B  becomes  the  value 
form  of  commodity  A,  or  the  body  of  commodity  B  acts  as  a 
mirror  to  the  value  of  commodity  A.  ^  By  putting  itself  in  re- 
lation with  commodity  B,  as  value  in  propria  persona,  as  the 
matter  of  which  human  labour  is  made  up,  the  commodity  A 
converts  the  value  in  use,  B,  into  the  substance  in  which  to 
express  its,  A's,  own  value.  The  value  of  A,  thus  expressed  in 
the  use-value  of  B,  has  taken  the  form  of  relative  value. 

(b.)    Quantitative  determination  of  Relative  value. 

Every  commodity,  whose  value  it  is  intended  to  express,  is  a 
useful  object  of  given  quantity,  as  15  bushels  of  corn,  or  100 
lbs.  of  coffee.  And  a  given  quantity  of  any  commodity  con- 
tains a  definite  quantity  of  human  labor.  The  value-form 
must  therefore  not  only  express  value  generally,  but  also  value 
in  definite  quantity.  Therefore,  in  the  value  relation  of  com- 
modity A  to  commodity  B,  of  the  linen  to  the  coat,  not  only  is 
the  latter,  as  value  in  general,  made  the  equal  in  quality  of  the 
linen,  but  a  definite  quantity  of  coat  (1  coat)  is  made  the 
equivalent  of  a  definite  quantity  (20  yards)  of  linen. 

The  equation,  20  yards  of  linen=l  coat,  or  20  yards  of  linen 
are  worth  one  coat,  implies  that  the  same  quantity  of  value- 
substance  (congealed  labour)  is  embodied  in  both;  that  the 
two  commodities  have  each  cost  the  same  amount  of  labour  or 
the  same  quantity  of  labour  time.  But  the  labour  time 
necessary  for  the  production  of  20  yards  of  linen  or  1  coat 

*  In  a  sort  of  way,  it  is  with  man  as  with  commodities.  Since  he  comes  into 
the  world  neither  with  a  looking  glass  in  his  hand,  nor  as  a  Fichtian  philosopher, 
to  whom  "  I  am  I  "  is  sufficient,  man  first  sees  and  recognises  himself  in  other 
men.  Peter  only  establishes  his  own  identity  as  a  man  by  first  comparing  him- 
self with  Paul  as  being  of  like  kind.  And  thereby  Paul,  just  as  he  stands  in  his 
Pauline   personality,    becomes    to    Peter   the   type    of   the    genus    homo. 


62  Capitalist  Production. 

varies  with  every  change  in  the  productiveness  of  weaving  or 
tailoring.  We  have  now  to  consider  the  influence  of  such 
changes  on  the  quantitative  aspect  of  the  relative  expression  of 
value. 

I.  Let  the  value  of  the  linen  vary/  that  of  the  coat  remain- 
ing constant.  If,  say  in  consequence  of  the  exhaustion  of  flax- 
growing  soil,  the  labour  time  necessary  for  the  production  of 
the  linen  be  doubled,  the  value  of  the  linen  will  also  be  doubled. 
Instead  of  the  equation,  20  yards  of  linen=l  coat,  we  should 
have  20  yards  of  linen=2  coats,  since  1  coat  would  now  con- 
tain only  half  the  labour  time  embodied  in  20  yards  of  linen. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  in  consequence,  say,  of  improved  looms, 
this  labour  time  be  reduced  by  one  half,  the  value  of  the  linen 
would  fall  by  one  half.  Consequently,  we  should  have  20 
yards  of  linen=^  coat.  The  relative  value  of  commodity  A, 
i.e.,  its  value  expressed  in  commodity  B,  rises  and  falls  directly 
as  the  value  of  A,  the  value  of  B  being  supposed  constant. 

II.  Let  the  value  of  the  linen  remain  constant,  while  the 
value  of  the  coat  varies.  If,  under  these  circumstances,  in 
consequence,  for  instance,  of  a  poor  crop  of  wool,  the  labour 
time  necessary  for  the  production  of  a  coat  becomes  doubled, 
we  have  instead  of  20  yards  of  linen =1  coat,  20  yards  of  linen 
=^  coat.  If,  on  the  otlier  hand,  the  value  of  the  coat  sinks 
by  one  half,  then  20  yards  of  linen=2  coats.  Hence,  if  the 
value  of  commodity  A  remain  constant,  its  relative  value  ex- 
pressed in  commodity  B  rises  and  falls  inversely  as  the  value 
ofB. 

If  we  compare  the  different  cases  in  I.  and  II.,  we  see  that 
the  same  change  of  magnitude  in  relative  value  may  arise  from 
totally  opposite  causes.  Thus,  the  equation,  20  yards  of  linen 
=1  coat,  becomes  20  yards  of  linen=2  coats,  either,  because, 
the  value  of  the  linen  has  doubled,  or  because  the  value  of  the 
coat  has  fallen  by  one  half ;  and  it  becomes  20  yards  of  linen 
=^  coat,  either,  because  the  value  of  the  linen  has  fallen  by 
one  half,  or  Ix^cause  the  value  of  the  coat  has  doubled. 

III.  I>et  the  quantities  of  labour  time  respectively  necesr 

*  Value  is  here,  as  occasionally  in  the  preceding  pages,  used  in  the  sense  of 
value    determined    as   to    quantity,    or    of    magnitude    of    value. 


Commodities.  63 

sary  for  the  production  of  tlie  linen  and  the  coat  vary  sim- 
ultaneously in  the  same  direction  and  in  the  same  proportion. 
In  this  case  20  yards  of  linen  continue  equal  to  1  coat,  however 
much  their  values  may  have  altered.  Their  change  of  value  is 
seen  as  soon  as  they  are  compared  with  a  third  commodity, 
whose  value  has  remained  constant.  If  the  values  of  all  com- 
modities rose  or  fell  simultaneously,  and  in  the  same  propor- 
tion, their  relative  values  would  remain  unaltered.  Their  real 
change  of  value  would  appear  from  the  diminished  or  increased 
quantity  of  commodities  produced  in  a  given  time. 

IV.  The  labour  time  respectively  necessary  for  the  produc- 
tion of  the  linen  and  the  coat,  and  therefore  the  value  of  these 
commodities  may  simultaneously  vary  in  the  same  direction, 
but  at  unequal  rates,  or  in  opposite  directions,  or  in  other 
ways.  The  effect  of  all  these  possible  different  variations,  on 
the  relative  value  of  a  commodity,  may  be  deduced  from  the 
results  of  I.,  IL,  and  III. 

Thus  real  changes  in  the  magnitude  of  value  are  neither 
unequivocally  nor  exhaustively  reflected  in  their  relative 
expression,  that  is,  in  the  equation  expressing  the  magnitude 
of  relative  value.  The  relative  value  of  a  commodity  may 
vary,  although  its  value  remains  constant.  Its  relative  value 
may  remain  constant,  although  its  value  varies;  and  finally, 
simultaneous  variations  in  the  magnitude  of  value  and  in  that 
of  its  relative  expression  by  no  means  necessarily  correspond 
in  amount.^ 


*  This  incongruity  between  the  magnitude  of  value  and  its  relative  expression 
has,  with  customary  ingenuity,  been  exploited  by  vulgar  economists.  For  example 
— "Once  admit  that  A  falls,  because  B,  with  which  it  is  exchanged,  rises,  while 
no  less  labour  is  bestowed  in  the  meantime  on  A,  and  your  general  principle  of 
value  falls  to  the  ground.  .  .  .  If  he  [Ricardo]  allowed  that  when  A  rises  in 
value  relatively  to  B,  B  falls  in  value  relatively  to  A,  he  cut  away  the  ground  on 
which  he  rested  his  grand  proposition,  that  the  value  of  a  commodity  is  ever  de- 
termined by  the  labour  embodied  in  it;  for  if  a  change  in  the  cost  of  A  alters  not 
only  its  own  value  in  relation  to  B,  for  which  it  is  exchanged,  but  also  the  value 
of  B  relatively  to  that  of  A,  though  no  change  has  taken  place  in  the  quantity 
of  labour  to  produce  B,  then  not  only  the  ^  doctrine  falls  to  the  ground  which 
asserts  that  the  quantity  of  labour  bestowed  on  an  article  regulates  its  value, 
but  also  that  which  affirms  the  cost  of  an  article  to  regulate  its  value."  (J. 
Broadhurst:   Political   Economy,   London,  1842,  p.   11   and   14. 

Mr.  Broadhurst  might  just  as  well  say:  consider  the  fractions  ^0.^  ^^,  ^LO^,  &c., 
the   number   10   remains   unchanged,   and   yet   its  proportional   magnitude,  its  magni- 


64  Capitalist  Production. 

3.  The  Equivalent  form  of  value. 

We  have  seen  that  commodity  A  (the  linen),  by  expressing 
its  value  in  the  use-value  of  a  commodity  differing  in  kind 
(the  coat),  at  the  same  time  impresses  upon  the  latter  a  specific 
form  of  value,  namely  that  of  the  equivalent  The  commodity 
linen  manifests  its  quality  of  having  a  value  by  the  fact  that 
the  coat,  without  having  assumed  a  value  form  different  from 
its  bodily  form,  is  equated  to  the  linen.  The  fact  that  the 
latter  therefore  has  a  value  is  expressed  by  saying  that  the 
coat  is  directly  exchangeable  with  it.  Therefore,  when  we  say 
that  a  commodity  is  in  the  equivalent  form,  we  express  the 
fact  that  it  is  directly  exchangeable  with  other  commodities^ 

When  one  commodity,  such  as  a  coat,  serves  as  the  equivalent 
of  another,  such  as  linen,  and  coats  consequently  acquire  the 
characteristic  property  of  being  directly  exchangeable  with 
linen,  we  are  far  from  knowing  in  what  proportion  the  two  are 
exchangeable.  The  value  of  the  linen  being  given  in  magni- 
tude, that  proportion  depends  on  the  value  of  the  coat. 
Whether  the  coat  serves  as  the  equivalent  and  the  linen  as 
relative  value,  or  the  linen  as  the  equivalent  and  the  coat  as 
relative  value,  the  magnitude  of  the  coat's  value  is  determined, 
independently  of  its  value  form,  by  the  labour  time  necessary 
for  its  production.  But  whenever  the  coat  assumes  in  the 
equation  of  value,  the  position  of  equivalent,  its  value  acquires 
no  quantitative  expression;  on  the  contrary,  the  commodity 
coat  now  figures  only  as  a  definite  quantity  of  some  article. 

Yor  instance,  40  yards  of  linen  are  worth — ^what?  2  coats. 
Because  the  commodity  coat  here  plays  the  part  of  equivalent, 
because  the  use-value  coat,  as  opposed  to  the  linen,  figures  as 
an  embodiment  of  value,  therefore  a  definite  number  of  coats 
suffices  to  express  the  definite  quantity  of  value  in  the  linen. 
Two  coats  may  therefore  express  the  quantity  of  value  of  40 
yards  of  linen,  but  they  can  never  express  the  quantity  of  their 
own  value.     A  superficial  observation  of  this  fact,  namely,  that 

tude  relatively  to  the  numbers  20,  50,  100,  &c.,  continually  diminishes.  There- 
fore the  great  principle  that  the  magnitude  of  a  whole  number,  such  as  10,  is 
"regulated"  by  the  number  of  times  unity  is  contained  in  it,  falls  to  the  ground. 
—  [The  author  explains  in  section  4  of  this  chapter,  p.  62,  note  2,  what  he  tmder- 
Btands   by    "  Vulgar    Economy."  —  Ed.] 


Commodities.  65 

in  the  equation  of  value,  the  equivalent  figures  exclusively  as 
a  simple  quantity  of  some  article,  of  some  use-value,  has  misled 
Bailey,  as  also  many  others,  both  before  and  after  him,  into 
seeing,  in  the  expression  of  value,  merely  a  quantitative  rela- 
tion. The  truth  being,  that  when  a  commodity  acts  as  equiva- 
lent, no  quantitative  determination  of  its.  value  is  expressed. 

The  first  peculiarity  that  strikes  us,  in  considering  the  form 
of  the  equivalent,  is  this :  use-value  becomes  the  form  of  mani- 
festation, the  phenomenal  form  of  its  opposite,  value. 

The  bodily  form  of  the  commodity  becomes  its  value  form. 
But,  mark  well,  that  this  quid  pro  quo  exists  in  the  ease  of  any 
commodity  B,  only  when  some  other  commodity  A  enters  into 
a  value  relation  with  it^  and  then  only  within  the  limits  of  this 
relation.  Since  no  commodity  can  stand  in  the  relation  of 
equivalent  to  itself,  and  thus  turn  its  own  bodily  shape  into  the 
expression  of  its  own  value,  every  commodity  is  compelled 
to  choose  some  other  commodity  for  its  equivalent,  and  to  ac- 
cept the  use-value,  that  is  to  say,  the  bodily  shape  of  that  other 
commodity  as  the  form  of  its  own  value. 

One  of  the  measures  that  we  apply  to  commodities  as  ma- 
terial substances,  as  use-values,  will  serve  to  illustrate  this  point. 
A  sugar-loaf  being  a  body,  is  heavy,  and  therefore  has  weight: 
but  we  can  neither  see  nor  touch  this  weight.  We  then  take 
various  pieces  of  iron,  whose  weight  has  been  determined 
beforehand.  The  iron,  as  iron,  is  no  more  the  form  of  manifes- 
tation of  weight,  than  is  the  sugar-loaf.  ISFevertheless,  in  order 
to  express  the  sugar-loaf  as  so  much  weight,  we  put  it  into  a 
weight-relation  with  the  iron.  In  this  relation,  the  iron 
officiates  as  a  body  representing  nothing  but  weight.  A  certain 
quantity  of  iron  therefore  serves  as  the  measure  of  the  weight 
of  the  sugar,  and  represents,  in  relation  to  the  sugar-loaf, 
weight  embodied,  the  form  of  manifestation  of  weight.  This 
part  is  played  by  the  iron  only  within  this  relation,  into  which 
the  sugar  or  any  otherbody,  whose  weight  has  to  be  determined, 
enters  with  the  iron.  Were  they  not  both  heavy,  they  could 
not  enter  into  this  relation,  and  the  one  could  therefore  not 
serve  as  the  expression  of  the  weight  of  the  other.  When  we 
throw  both  into  the  scales,  we  see  in  reality,  that  as  weight 


66  Capitalist  Production. 

they  are  both  the  same,  and  that,  therefore,  when  taken  in 
proper  proportions,  they  have  the  same  weight.  Just  as  the 
substance  iron,  as  a  measure  of  weight,  represents  in  relation 
to  the  sugar-loaf  weight  alone,  so,  in  our  expression  of  value, 
the  material  object,  coat,  in  relation  to  the  linen,  represents 
value  alone. 

Here,  however,  the  analogy  ceases.  The  iron,  in  the  expres- 
sion of  the  weight  of  the  sugar-loaf,  represents  a  natural  pro- 
perty common  to  both  bodies,  namely  their  weight ;  but  the  coat 
in  the  expression  of  value  of  the  linen,  represents  a  non-natural 
property  of  both,  something  purely  social,  namely,  their  value. 

Since  the  relative  form  of  value  of  a  commodity — the  linen, 
for  example — expresses  the  value  of  that  commodity,  as  being 
something  wholly  different  from  its  substance  and  properties, 
as  being,  for  instance,  coat-like,  we  see  that  this  expression 
itself  indicates  that  some  social  relation  lies  at  the  bottom  of 
it.  With  the  equivalent  form  it  is  just  the  contrary.  The  very 
essence  of  this  form  is  that  the  material  commodity  itself — the 
coat — ^just  as  it  is,  expresses  value,  and  is  endowed  with  the 
form  of  value  by  Nature  itself.  Of  course  this  holds  good  only 
so  long  as  the  value  relation  exists,  in  which  the  coat  stands  in 
the  position  of  equivalent  to  the  linen.  ^  Since,  however,  the 
properties  of  a  thing  are  not  the  result  of  its  relations  to  other 
things,  but  only  manifest  themselves  in  such  relations,  the 
coat  seems  to  be  endowed  with  its  equivalent  form,  its  property 
of  being  directly  exchangeable,  just  as  much  by  Nature  as  it  is 
endowed  with  the  property  of  being  heavy,  or  the  capacity  to 
keep  us  warm.  Hence  the  enigmatical  character  of  the  equiva- 
lent form  which  escapes  the  notice  of  the  bourgeois  political 
economist,  until  this  form,  completely  developed,  confronts  him 
in  the  shape  of  money.  He  then  seeks  to  explain  away  the 
mystical  character  of  gold  and  silver,  by  substituting  for  them 
less  dazzling  commodities,  and  by  reciting,  with  ever  renewed 
s^isfaction,  the  catalogue  of  all  possible  commodities  which  at 
one  time  or  another  have  played  the  part  of  equivalent.     He 

*  Such  expressions  of  relations  in  general,  called  by  Hegel  reflex-categories,  form 
a  very  curious  class.  For  instance,  one  man  is  king  only  because  other  men  stand 
in  the  relation  of  subjects  to  him.  They,  on  the  contrary,  imagine  that  they  are 
■ubjects    because    he    is    king. 


Commodities.  6y 

has  not  the  least  suspicion  that  the  most  simple  expression  of 
value,  such  as  20  yds.  of  linen=l  coat,  already  propounds  the 
riddle  of  tlie  equivalent  form  for  our  solution. 

The  body  of  the  commodity  that  serves  as  the  equivalent, 
figures  as  the  materialism  of  human  labour  in  the  abstract 
and  is  at  the  same  time  the  product  of  some  specifically  useful 
concrete  labour.  This  concrete  labour  becomes,  therefore,  the 
medium  for  expressing  abstract  human  labour.  If  on  the 
one  hand  the  coat  ranks  as  nothing  but  the  embodiment  of 
abstract  human  labour,  so,  on  the  other  hand,  the  tailoring 
which  is  actually  embodied  in  it,  counts  as  nothing  but  the 
form  under  which  that  abstract  labour  is  realised.  In  the  ex- 
pression of  value  of  the  linen,  the  utility  of  the  tailoring  con- 
sists, not  in  making  clothes,  but  in  making  an  object,  which  we 
at  once  recognise  to  be  Value,  and  therefore  to  be  a  congelation 
of  labour,  but  of  labour  indistinguishable  from  that  realised  in 
the  value  of  the  linen.  In  order  to  act  as  such  a  mirror  of 
value,  the  labour  of  tailoring  must  reflect  nothing  besides  its 
own  abstract  quality  of  being  human  labour  generally. 

In  tailoring,  as  well  as  in  weaving,  human  labour-power  is 
expended.  Both,  therefore,  possess  the  general  property  of 
being  human  labour,  and  may,  therefore,  in  certain  cases,  such 
as  in  the  production  of  value,  have  to  be  considered  under 
this  aspect  alone.  There  is  nothing  mysterious  in  this.  Biit 
in  the  expression  of  value  there  is  a  complete  turn  of  the 
tables.  For  instance,  how  is  the  fact  to  be  expressed  that 
weaving  creates  the  value  of  the  linen,  not  by  virtue  of  being 
weaving,  as  such,  but  by  reason  of  its  general  property  of  being 
human  labour  ?  Simply  by  opposing  to  weaving  that  other 
particular  form  of  concrete  labour  (in  this  instance  tailoring), 
which  produces  the  equivalent  of  the  product  of  weaving. 
Just  as  the  coat  in  its  bodily  form  became  a  direct  expression 
of  value,  so  now  does  tailoring,  a  concrete  form  of  labour, 
appear  as  the  direct  and  palpable  embodiment  of  human  labour 
generally. 

Hence,  the  second  peculiarity  of  the  equivalent  form  is,  that 
concrete  labour  becomes  the  form  under  which  its  opposite, 
abstract  human  labour,  manifests  itself. 


68  Capitalist  Production. 

But  because  this  concrete  labour,  tailoring  in  our  case,  ranks 
as,  and  is  directly  indentified  with,  undifferentiated  human 
labour,  it  also  ranks  as  identical  with  any  other  sort  of  labor, 
and  therefore  with  that  embodied  in  linen.  Consequently, 
although,  like  all  other  commodity-producing  labour,  it  is  the 
labour  of  private  individuals,  yet,  at  the  same  time,  it  ranks  as 
labour  directly  social  in  its  character.  This  is  the  reason  why 
it  results  in  a  product  directly  exchangeable  with  other  com- 
modities. We  have  then  a  third  peculiarity  of  the  Equivalent 
form,  namely,  that  the  labour  of  private  individuals  takes  the 
form  of  its  opposite,  labour  directly  social  in  its  form. 

The  two  latter  peculiarities  of  the  Equivalent  form  will 
become  more  intelligible  if  we  go  back  to  the  great  thinker 
who  was  the  first  to  analyse  so  many  forms,  whether  of 
thought,  society,  or  nature,  and  amongst  them  also  the  form  of 
value.     I  mean  Aristotle. 

In  the  first  place,  he  clearly  enunciates  that  the  money  form 
of  commodities  is  only  the  further  development  of  the  simple 
form  of  value — i.  e.,  of  the  expression  of  the  value  of  one  com- 
modity in  some  other  commodity  taken  at  random ;  for  he  says 
5     beds=l     house     (KA.tVat  trhrrt  dvTi  OLKvas'^     is    not    to    be 

distinguished  from 
5  beds=so  much  money. 

(kKIvox.  irevTC  Svrl   .    .    .   ocrou  al  irhfre.  kXivoi^ 

He  further  sees  that  the  value  relation  which  gives  rise  to 
this  expression  makes  it  necessary  that  the  house  should  quali- 
tatively be  made  the  equal  of  the  bed,  and  that,  without  such 
an  equalization,  these  two  clearly  different  things  could  not 
be  compared  with  each  other  as  commensurable  quantities. 
"Exchange,"  he  says,  "cannot  take  place  without  equality,  and 
equality  not  without  commensurability"  (  ©vt  iVoti^s  ft^  ownjs 
(Tv/x/icTpias ) .  Here,  however,  he  comes  to  a  stop,  and  gives 
up  the  further  analysis  of  the  form  of  value.  "It  is, 
however,  in  reality,  impossible  ('''"n/AcvouvdA.T/^ci'^dSvvaTov)^  that 
such  unlike  things  can  be  commensurable" — i.  e.,  qualita- 
tively equal.  Such  an  equalisation  can  only  be  something 
foreign  to  their  real  nature,  consequently  only  "a  make-shift 
for  practical  purposes." 


Commodities.  69 

Aristotle  therefore,  himself,  tells  us,  what  barred  the  way  to 
his  furtlier  analysis ;  it  was  the  absence  of  any  concept  of 
value.  What  is  that  equal  something,  that  common  substance, 
which  admits  of  the  value  of  the  beds  being  expressed  by  a 
house  ?  Such  a  thing,  in  truth,  cannot  exist,  says  Aristotle. 
And  why  not  ?  Compared  with  the  beds,  the  house  does  re- 
present something  equal  to  them,  in  so  far  as  it  represents  what 
is  really  equal,  both  in  the  beds  and  the  house.  And  that  is — 
human  labour. 

There  was,  however,  an  important  fact  which  prevented 
Aristotle  from  seeing  that,  to  attribute  value  to  commodities,  is 
merely  a  mode  of  expressing  all  labour  as  equal  human  labour, 
and  consequently  as  labour  of  equal  quality.  Greek  society 
was  founded  upon  slavery,  and  had,  therefore,  for  its  natural 
basis,  the  inequality  of  men  and  of  their  labour  powers.  The 
secret  of  the  expression  of  value,  namely,  that  all  kinds  of 
labour  are  equal  and  equivalent,  because,  and  so  far  as  they 
are  human  labou^r  in  general,  cannot  be  deciphered,  until  the 
notion  of  human  equality  has  already  acquired  the  fixity  of  a 
popular  prejudice.  This,  however,  is  possible  only  in  a  society 
in  which  the  great  mass  of  the  produce  of  labour  takes  the  form 
of  commodities,  in  which,  consequently,  the  dominant  relation 
between  man  and  man,  is  that  of  owners  of  commodities.  The 
brilliancy  of  Aristotle's  genius  is  shown  by  this  alone,  that  he 
discovered,  in  the  expression  of  the  value  of  commodities,  a 
relation  of  equality.  The  peculiar  conditions  of  the  society  in 
which  he  lived,  alone  prevented  him  from  discovering  what, 
"in  truth,"  was  at  the  bottom  of  this  equality. 

4.  The  Elementary  form  of  value  considered  as  a  whole. 

The  elementary  form  of  value  of  a  commodity  is  contained 
in  the  equation,  expressing  its  value  relation  to  another  com- 
modity of  a  different  kind,  or  in  its  exchange  relation  to  the 
same.  The  value  of  commodity  A-^  is  qualitatively  expressed 
by  the  fact  that  commodity  B  is  directly  exchangeable  with  it. 
Its  value  is  quantitively  expressed  by  the  fact,  that  a  definite 
quantity  of  B  is  exchangeable  with  a  definite  quantity  of  A. 
In  other  words,  the  value  of  a  commodity  obtains  independent 


70  Capitalist  Production. 

and  definite  expression,  by  taking  the  form  of  exchange  value. 
When,  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  we  said,  in  common 
parlance,  that  a  commodity  is  both  a  use-value  and  an  ex- 
change value,  we  were,  accurately  speaking,  wrong.  A  com- 
modity is  a  use-value  or  object  of  utility,  and  a  value.  It 
manifests  itself  as  this  two-fold  thing,  that  it  is,  as  soon  as  its 
value  assumes  an  independent  form — viz.,  the  form  exchange 
value.  It  never  assumes  this  form  when  .isolated,  but  only 
when  placed  in  a  value  or  exchange  relation  with  another 
commodity  of  a  different  kind.  When  once  we  know  this, 
such  a  mode  of  expression  does  no  harm ;  it  simply  serves  as  an 
abbreviation. 

Our  analysis  has  shown,  that  the  form  or  expression  of  the 
value  of  a  commodity  originates  in  the  nature  of  value,  and 
not  that  value  and  its  magnitude  originate  in  the  mode  of 
their  expression  as  exchange  value.  This,  however,  is  the 
delusion  as  well  of  the  mercantilists  and  their  recent  revivors, 
Ferrier,  Ganilh,^  and  others,  as  also  of  their  antipodes,  the 
modern  bagmen  of  Free  Trade,  such  as  Bastiat.  The  mercan- 
tilists lay  special  stress  on  the  qualitative  aspect  of  the 
expression  of  value,  and  consequently  on  the  equivalent  form 
of  commodities,  which  attains  its  full  perfection  in  money. 
The  modern  hawkers  of  Free  Trade,  who  must  get  rid  of  their 
article  at  any  price,  on  the  other  hand,  lay  most  stress  on  the 
quantitative  aspect  of  the  relative  form  of  value.  For  them 
there  consequently  exists  neither  value,  nor  magnitude  of 
value,  anywhere  except  in  its  expression  by  means  of  the 
exchange  relation  of  commodities,  that  is,  in  the  daily  list  of 
prices  current.  MacLeod,  who  has  taken  upon  himself  to 
dress  up  the  confused  ideas  of  Lombard  Street  in  the  most 
learned  finery,  is  a  successful  cross  between  the  superstitious 
mercantilists,  and  the  enlightened  Free  Trade  bagmen. 

A  close  scrutiny  of  the  expression  of  the  value  of  A  in  terms 
of  B,  contained  in  the  equation  expressing  the  value  relation  of 
A  to  B,  has  shown  us  that,  within  that  relation,  the  bodily  form 

*  F.  L.  Ferrier,  sous-inspecteur  des  douanes,  "Du  gouvernement  considere 
dans  ses  rapports  avec  le  commerce,"  Paris,  1805;  and  Charles  Ganilb,  "  Des 
Systimes  d'Economie  politique,"  2nd  ed.,  Paris,  1821. 


Commodities.  71 

of  A  figures  only  as  a  use-value,  the  bodily  form  of  B  only  as 
the  form  or  aspect  of  value.  The  opposition  or  contrast 
existing  internally  in  each  commodity  between  use-value  and 
value,  is,  therefore,  made  evident  externally  by  two  com- 
modities being  placed  in  such  relation  to  each  other,  that  the 
commodity  whose  value  it  is  sought  to  express,  figures  directly 
as  a  mere  use-value,  while  the  commodity  in  which  that  value 
is  to  be  expressed,  figures  directly  as  mere  exchange  value. 
Hence  the  elementary  form  of  value  of  a  commodity  is  the 
elementary  form  in  which  the  contrast  contained  in  that 
commodity,  between  use-value  and  value,  becomes  apparent. 

Every  product  of  labour  is,  in  all  states  of  society,  a  use- 
value  ;  but  it  is  only  at  a  definite  historical  epoch  in  a  society's 
development  that  such  product  becomes  a  commodity,  viz., 
at  the  epoch  when  the  labour  spent  on  the  production  of  a 
useful  article  becomes  expressed  as  one  of  the  objective 
qualities  of  that  article,  i.e.,  as  its  value.  It  therefore  follows 
that  the  elementary  value-form  is  also  the  primitive  form 
under  which  a  product  of  labour  appears  historically  as  a 
commodity,  and  that  the  gradual  transformation  of  such 
products  into  commodities,  proceeds  pari  passu  with  the 
development  of  the  value-form. 

We  perceive,  at  first  sight,  the  deficiencies  of  the  elementary 
form  of  value :  it  is  a  mere  germ,  which  must  undergo  a  series- 
of  metamorphoses  before  it  can  ripen  into  the  Price-form. 

The  expression  of  the  value  of  commodity  A  in  terms  of  any 
other  commodity  B,  merely  distinguishes  the  value  from  the 
use-value  of  A,  and  therefore  places  A  merely  in  a  relation  of 
exchange  with  a  single  different  commodity,  B;  but  it  is  still 
far  from  expressing  A's  qualitative  equality,  and  quantitative 
proportionality,  to  all  commodities.  To  the  elementary  rela- 
tive value-form  of  a  commodity,  there  corresponds  the  single 
equivalent  form  of  one  other  commodity.  Thus,  in  the  rela- 
tive expression  of  value  of  the  linen,  the  coat  assumes  the  form 
of  equivalent,  or  of  being  directly  exchangeable,  only  in  re- 
lation to  a  single  commodity,  the  linen. 

Nevertheless,  the  elementary  form  of  value  passes  by  an  easy 
transition  into  a  more  complete  form.     It  is  true  that  by  means 


72  Capitalist  Production. 

of  the  elementary  form,  the  value  of  a  commodity  A,  becomes 
expressed  in  terms  of  one,  and  only  one,  other  commodity. 
But  that  one  may  be  a  commodity  of  any  kind,  coat,  iron,  com, 
or  anything  else.  Therefore,  according  as  A  is  placed  in  rela- 
tion with  one  or  the  other,  we  get  for  one  and  the  same  com- 
modity, different  elementary  expressions  of  value.^  The  num- 
ber of  such  possible  expressions  is  limited  only  by  the  number 
of  the  different  kinds  of  commodities  distinct  from  it.  The 
isolated  expression  of  A's  value,  is  therefore  convertible  into  a 
series,  prolonged  to  any  length,  of  the  different  elementary  ex- 
pressions of  that  value. 

B.  Total  or  Expanded  form  of  value. 

z  Com.  A=u  Com.  B  or=v  Com.  C  or^=-w  Com.  D  or=x  Com. 

E  or=&c. 

(20  yards  of  linen^l  coat  or=10  lb  tea  or  =  40  lb  coffee  or= 

1  quarter  corn  or=2  ounces  gold  or^l^  ton  iron  or=&c.) 

1.  The  Expanded  Relative  form  of  value. 

The  value  of  a  single  commodity,  the  linen,  for  example,  is 
now  expressed  in  terms  of  numberless  other  elements  of  the 
world  of  commodities.  Every  other  commodity  now  becomes 
a  mirror  of  the  linen's  value. ^     It  is  thus,  that  for  the  first  time 

*  In  Homer,  for  instance,  the  value  of  an  article  is  expressed  in  a  series  of  dif- 
ferent  things.     II.    VII.,    472-475. 

*  For  this  reason,  we  can  speak  of  the  coat-value  of  the  linen  when  its  value  is 
expressed  in  coats,  or  of  its  corn-value  when  expressed  in  corn,  and  so  on. 
Every  such  expression  tells  us,  that  what  appears  in  the  use-values,  coat,  corn, 
&c.,  is  the  value  of  the  linen.  "  The  value  of  any  commodity  denoting  its  relation 
in  exchange,  we  may  speak  of  it  as  .  .  .  corn-value,  cloth-value,  according  to  the 
commodity  with  which  it  is  compared;  and  hence  there  are  a  thousand  different  kinds  of 
value,  as  many  kinds  of  value  as  there  are  commodities  in  existence,  and  all  are 
equally  real  and  equally  nominal."  (A  Critical  Dissertation  on  the  Nature,  Meas- 
ure and  Causes  of  Value;  chiefly  in  reference  to  the  writings  of  Mr.  Ricardo 
and  his  followers.  By  the  author  of  "  Essays  on  the  Formation,  &c.,  of  Opin- 
ions." London,  1825,  p.  S9.)  S.  Bailey,  the  author  of  this  anonymous  work, 
a  work  which  in  its  day  created  much  stir  in  England,  fancied  that,  by  thus 
pointing  out  the  various  relative  expressions  of  one  and  the  same  value,  he  had 
proved  the  impossibility  of  any  determination  of  the  concept  of  value.  How- 
ever narrow  his  own  views  may  have  been,  yet,  that  he  laid  his  finger  on  some 
serious  defects  in  the  Ricardian  Theory,  is  proved  by  the  animosity  with  which 
he  was  attacked  by  Ricardo's  followers.     See  the  IVestminster  Review  for  example.    , 


Commodities.  73 

this  value  shows  itself  in  its  true  light  as  a  congelation  of  un- 
differentiated human  labour.  Tor  the  labour  that  creates  it, 
now  stands  expressly  revealed,  as  labour  that  ranks  equally 
with  every  other  sort  of  human  labour,  no  matter  what  its 
form,  whether  tailoring,  ploughing,  mining,  &c.  and  no  matter, 
therefore,  whether  it  is  realised  in  coats,  corn,  iron,  or  gold. 
The  linen,  by  virtue  of  the  form  of  its  value,  now  stands  in  a 
social  relation,  no  longer  with  only  one  other  kind  of  com- 
modity, but  with  the  whole  world  of  commodities.  As  a 
commodity,  it  is  a  citizen  of  that  world.  At  the  same  time, 
the  interminable  series  of  value  equations  implies,  that  as  re- 
gards the  value  of  a  commodity,  it  is  a  matter  of  in- 
difference under  what  particular  form,  or  kind,  of  use-value  it 
appears. 

In  the  first  form,  20  yds.  of  linen^l  coat,  it  might  for  ought 
that  otherwise  appears  be  pure  accident,  that  these  two  com- 
modities are  exchangeable  in  definite  quantities.  In  the  second 
form,  on  the  contrary,  we  perceive  at  once  the  background  that 
determines,  and  is  essentially  different  from,  this  accidental 
appearance.  The  value  of  the  linen  remains  unaltered  in  mag- 
nitude, whether  expressed  in  coats,  coffee,  or  iron,  or  in  num- 
berless different  commodities,  the  property  of  as  many 
different  owners.  The  accidental  relation  between  two  in- 
dividual commodity-owners  disappears.  It  becomes  plain,  that 
it  is  not  the  exchange  of  commodities  which  regulates  the 
magnitude  of  their  value ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  is  the 
magnitude  of  their  value  which  controls  their  exchange 
proportions. 

2.   The  particular  Equivalent  form. 

Each  commodity,  such  as  coat,  tea,  com,  iron,  &c.,  figures  in 
the  expression  of  value  of  the  linen,  as  an  equivalent,  and  con- 
sequently as  a  thing  that  is  value.  The  bodily  form  of  each 
of  these  commodities  figures  now  as  a  particular  equivalent 
form,  one  out  of  many.  In  the  same  way  the  manifold  concrete 
form,  one  out  of  many.  In  the  same  way  the  manifold  con- 
crete useful  kinds  of  labour,  embodied  in  these  different  com- 


74  Capitalist  Production. 

modities,  rank  now  as  so  many  different  forms  of  the  realisa- 
tion, or  manifestation,  of  undifferentiated  human  labour. 

3.  Defects  of  the  Total  or  Expanded  form  of  value. 

In  the  first  place,  the  relative  expression  of  value  is  incom- 
*  plete  because  the  series  representing  it  is  interminable.  The 
chain  of  vehich  each  equation  of  value  is  a  link,  is  liable  at  any 
moment  to  be  lengthened  by  each  new  kind  of  commodity  that 
comes  into  existence  and  furnishes  the  material  for  a  fresh 
expression  of  value.  In  the  second  place,  it  is  a  many- 
coloured  mosaic  of  disparate  and  independent  expressions 
of  value.  And  lastly,  if,  as  must  be  the  case,  the  relative  value 
of  each  commodity  in  turn,  becomes  expressed  in  this  ex- 
panded form,  we  get  for  each  of  them  a  relative  value-form, 
different  in  every  case,  and  consisting  of  an  interminable 
series  of  expressions  of  value.  The  defects  of  the  expanded 
relative-value  form  are  reflected  in  the  corresponding  equiva- 
lent form.  Since  the  bodily  form  of  each  single  commodity  is 
one  particular  equivalent  form  amongst  numberless  others,  we 
have,  on  the  whole,  nothing  but  fragmentary  equivalent  forms, 
each  excluding  the  others.  In  the  same  way,  also,  the  special, 
concrete,  useful  kind  of  labour  embodied  in  each  particular 
equivalent,  is  presented  only  as  a  particular  kind  of  labour, 
and  therefore  not  as  an  exhaustive  representative  of  human 
labour  generally.  The  latter,  indeed,  gains  adequate  manifes- 
tation in  the  totality  of  its  manifold,  particular,  concrete  forms. 
But,  in  that  case,  its  expression  in  an  infinite  series  is  ever 
incomplete  and  deficient  in  unity. 

The  expanded  relative  value  form  is,  however,  nothing  but 
the  sum  of  the  elementary  relative  expressions  or  equations  of 
the  first  kind,  such  as 

20  yards  of  linen=l  coat 

20  yards  of  linen =10  lbs.  of  tea,  etc. 

Each  of  these  implies  the  corresponding  inverted  equation, 
1  coat=20  yards  of  linen 
10  lbs.  of  tea=20  yards  of  linen,  etc. 

In  fact,  when  a  person  exchanges  his  linen  for  many  other 
commodities,  and  thus  expresses  its  value  in  a  series  of  other 


=20  yards  of  linen 


Commodities.  75 

commodities,  it  necessarily  follows,  that  the  various  owners  of 
the  latter  exchange  them  for  the  linen,  and  consequently  express 
the  value  of  their  various  commodities  in  one  and  the  same 
third  commodity,  the  linen.  If  then,  we  reverse  the  series,  20 
yards  of  linen=l  coat  or=10  lbs.  of  tea,  etc.,  that  is  to  say, 
if  we  give  expression  to  the  converse  relation  already  implied 
in  the  series,  we  get, 

C.  The  General  form  of  valiie. 
1  coat 

10  lbs.  of  tea 
40  lbs.  of  coffee 

1  quarter  of  com 

2  ounces  of  gold 
■J  a  ton  of  iron 
X  com.  A.,  etc. 

1.     The  altered  character  of  the  form  of  value. 

All  commodities  now  express  their  value  (1)  in  an  element- 
ary form,  because  in  a  single  commodity;  (2)  with  unity,  be- 
cause in  one  and  the  same  commodity.  This  form  of  value 
is  elementary  and  the  same  for  all,  therefore  general. 

The  forms  A  and  B  were  fit  only  to  express  the  value  of  a 
commodity  as  something  distinct  from  its  use-value  or  material 
form. 

The  first  form,  A,  furnishes  such  equations  as  the  follow- 
ing : — 1  coat:^20  yards  of  linen^  10  lbs.  of  tea^^  ton  of  iron. 
The  value  of  the  coat  is  equated  to  linen,  that  of  the  tea  to 
iron.  But  to  be  equated  to  linen,  and  again  to  iron,  is  to  be  as 
different  as  are  linen  and  iron.  This  form,  it  is  plain,  occurs 
practically  only  in  the  first  beginning,  when  the  products  of 
labour  are  converted  into  commodities  by  accidental  and 
occasional  exchanges. 

The  second  form,  B,  distinguishes,  in  a  more  adequate  man- 
ner than  the  first,  the  value  of  a  commodity  from  its  use-value ; 
for  the  value  of  the  coat  is  there  placed  in  contrast  under  all 
possible  shapes  with  the  bodily  form  of  the  coat ;  it  is  equated 


76  Capitalist  Production. 

to  linen,  to  iron,  to  tea,  in  short,  to  everything  else,  only  not  to 
itself,  the  coat.  On  the  other  hand,  any  general  expression  of 
value  common  to  all  is  directly  excluded ;  for,  in  the  equation 
of  value  of  each  commodity,  all  other  commodities  now  appear 
only  under  the  form  of  equivalents.  The  expanded  form  of 
value  comes  into  actual  existence  for  the  first  time  so  soon  as 
a  particular  product  of  labour,  such  as  cattle,  is  no  longer 
exceptionally,  but  habitually,  exchanged  for  various  other 
commodities. 

The  third  and  lastly  developed  form  expresses  the  values  of 
the  whole  world  of  commodities  in  terms  of  a  single  commodity 
set  apart  for  the  purpose,  namely,  the  linen,  and  thus  represents 
to  us  their  values  by  means  of  their  equality  with  linen.  The 
value  of  every  commodity  is  now,  by  being  equated  to  linen, 
not  only  differentiated  from  its  own  use-value,  but  from  all 
other  use-values  generally,  and  is,  by  that  very  fact,  expressed 
as  that  which  is  common  to  all  commodities.  By  this  form, 
commodities  are,  for  the  first  time,  effectively  brought  into 
relation  with  one  another  as  values,  or  made  to  appear  as 
exchange  values. 

The  two  earlier  forms  either  express  the  value  of  each  com- 
modity in  terms  of  a  single  commodity  of  a  different  kind,  or 
in  a  series  of  many  such  commodities.  In  both  cases,  it  is,  so 
to  say,  the  special  business  of  each  single  commodity  to  find  an- 
expression  for  its  value,  and  this  it  does  without  the  help  of 
the  others.  These  others,  with  respect  to  the  former,  play  the 
passive  parts  of  equivalents.  The  general  form  of  value  C, 
results  from  the  joint  action  of  the  whole  world  of  commodities, 
and  from  that  alone.  A  commodity  can  acquire  a  general  ex- 
pression of  its  value  only  by  all  other  commodities,  simulta- 
neously with  it,  expressing  their  values  in  the  same  equivalent ; 
and  every  new  commodity  must  follow  suit.  It  thus  becomes 
evident  that,  since  the  existence  of  commodities  as  values  is 
purely  social,  this  social  existence  can  be  expressed  by  the 
totality  of  their  social  relations  alone,  and  consequently 
that  the  form  of  their  value  must  be  a  socially  recognised 
form. 

All  commodities  being  equated  to  linen  now  appear  not  only 


Commodities.  'jj 

as  qualitatively  equal  as  values  generally,  but  also  as  values 
whose  magnitudes  are  capable  of  comparison.  By  expressing 
the  magnitudes  of  their  values  in  one  and  the  same  material, 
the  linen,  those  magnitudes  are  also  compared  with  each  other. 
For  instance,  10  lbs.  of  tea=20  yards  of  linen,  and  40  lbs.  of 
coffee^20  yards  of  linen.  Therefore,  10  lbs.  of  tea=40  lbs. 
of  coffee.  In  other  words,  there  is  contained  in  1  lb.  of  coffee 
only  one-fourth  as  much  substance  of  value — labour — as  is  con- 
tained in  1  lb.  of  tea. 

The  general  form  of  relative  value,  embracing  the  whole 
world  of  commodities,  converts  the  single  commodity  that  is 
excluded  from  the  rest,  and  made  to  play  the  part  of  equivalent 
— here  the  linen — into  the  universal  equivalent.  The  bodily 
form  of  the  linen  is  now  the  form  assumed  in  common  by  the 
value  of  all  commodities;  it  therefore  becomes  directly 
exchangeable  with  all  and  every  of  them.  The  substance 
linen  becomes  the  visible  incarnation,  the  social  chrysalis  state 
of  every  kind  of  human  labour.  Weaving,  which  is  the  labour 
of  certain  private  individuals  producing  a  particular  article, 
linen,  acquires  in  consequence  a  social  character,  the  character 
of  equality  with  all  other  kinds  of  labour.  The  innumerable 
equations  of  which  the  general  form  of  value  is  composed, 
equate  in  turn  the  labour  embodied  in  the  linen  to  that  em- 
bodied in  every  other  commodity,  and  they  thus  convert 
weaving  into  the  general  form  of  manifestation  of  undiffer- 
entiated human  labour.  In  this  manner  the  labour  realised  in 
the  values  of  commodities  is  presented  not  only  under  its 
negative  aspect,  under  which  abstraction  is  made  from  every 
concrete  form  and  useful  property  of  actual  work,  but 
its  own  positive  nature  is  made  to  reveal  itself  expressly. 
The  general  value-form  is  the  reduction  of  all  kinds  of 
actual  labour  to  their  common  character  of  being  human 
labour  generally,  of  being  the  expenditure  of  human  labour 
power. 

The  general  value  form,  which  represents  all  products  of 
labour  as  mere  congelations  of  undifferentiated  human  labour, 
shows  by  its  very  structure  that  it  is  the  social  resume  of  the 
world   of   commodities.     That    form   consequently   makes   it 


78  Capitalist  Production. 

indisputably  evident  that  in  the  world  of  commodities  the 
character  possessed  by  all  labour  of  being  human  labour 
constitutes  its  specific  social  character. 

2.  The  interdependeni  development  of  the  Relative  form  of 
value,  a/nd  of  the  Equivalent  form. 

The  degree  of  development  of  the  relative  form  of  value 
corresponds  to  that  of  the  equivalent  form.  But  we  must  bear 
in  mind  that  the  development  of  the  latter  is  only  the  expres- 
sion and  result  of  the  development  of  the  former. 

The  primary  or  isolated  relative  form  of  value  of  one 
commodity  converts  some  other  commodity  into  an  isolated 
equivalent.  The  expanded  form  of  relative  value,  which  is 
the  expression  of  the  value  of  one  commodity  in  terms  of  all 
other  commodities,  endows  those  other  commodities  with  the 
character  of  particular  equivalents  differing  in  kind.  And 
lastly,  a  particular  kind  of  commodity  acquires  the  character  of 
universal  equivalent,  because  all  other  commodities  make  it  the 
material  in  which  they  uniformly  express  their  value. 

The  antagonism  between  the  relative  form  of  value  and  the 
equivalent  form,  the  two  poles  of  the  value  form,  is  developed 
concurrently  with  that  form  itself. 

The  first  form,  20  yds.  of  linen =one  coat,  already  contains 
this  antagonism,  without  as  yet  fixing  it.  According  as  we 
read  this  equation  forwards  or  backwards,  the  parts  played  by 
the  linen  and  the  coat  are  different.  In  the  one  case  the 
relative  value  of  the  linen  is  expressed  in  the  coat,  in  the 
other  case  the  relative  value  of  the  coat  is  expressed  in  the 
linen.  In  this  first  form  of  value,  therefore,  it  is  difficult  to 
grasp  the  polar  contrast 

Form  B  shows  tliat  only  one  single  commodity  at  a  time  can 
completely  expand  its  relative  value,  and  that  it  acquires  this 
expanded  form  only  because,  and  in  so  far  as,  all  other  com- 
modities are,  with  respect  to  it,  equivalents.  Here  we  cannot 
reverse  the  equation,  as  we  can  the  equation  20  yds.  of  linen= 
1  coat,  without  altering  its  general  character,  and  converting 
it  from  the  expanded  form  of  value  into  the  general  form  of 
value. 


Commodities.  79 

Finally,  the  form  C  gives  to  the  world  of  commodities  a 
general  social  relative  form  of  value,  because,  and  in  so  far  as, 
thereby  all  commodities,  with  the  exception  of  one,  are  excluded 
from  the  equivalent  form.  A  single  commodity,  the  linen, 
appears  therefore  to  have  acquired  the  character  of  direct  ex- 
changeability with  every  other  commodity  because,  and  in  so 
far  as,  this  character  is  denied  to  every  other  commodity.^ 

The  commodity  that  figures  as  universal  equivalent,  is,  on 
the  other  hand,  excluded  from  the  relative  value  form.  If  the 
linen,  or  any  other  commodity  serving  as  universal  equivalent, 
were,  at  the  same  time,  to  share  in  the  relative  form  of  value, 
it  would  have  to  serve  as  its  own  equivalent.  We  should  then 
have  20  yds.  of  linen=20  yds.  of  linen;  this  tautology  ex- 
presses neither  value,  nor  magnitude  of  value.  In  order  to 
express  the  relative  value  of  the  universal  equivalent,  we  must 
rather  reverse  the  form  C.  This  equivalent  has  no  relative 
form  of  value  in  common  with  other  commodities,  but  its  value 
is  relatively  expressed  by  a  never  ending  series  of  other  com- 
modities. Thus,  the  expanded  form  of  relative  value,  or  form 
B,  now  shows  itself  as  the  specific  form  of  relative  value  for  the 
equivalent  commodity. 

3.   Transition  from  the  General  form  of  value  to  the 
Money  form. 

The  universal  equivalent  form  is  a  form  of  value  in  general. 
It  can,  therefore,  be  assumed  by  any  commodity.     On  the 

*  It  19  by  no  means  sfelf-evident  that  this  character  of  direct  and  universal  ex- 
changeability is,  so  to  speak,  a  polar  one,  and  as  intimately  connected  with  its 
opposite  pole,  the  absence  of  direct  exchangeability,  as  the  positive  pole  of  the 
magnet  is  with  its  negative  counterpart.  It  may  therefore  be  imagined  that  all 
commodities  can  simultaneously  have  this  character  impressed  upon  them,  just  as 
it  can  be  imagined  that  all  Catholics  can  be  popes  together.  It  is,  of  course, 
highly  desirable  in  the  eyes  of  the  petit  bourgeois,  for  whom  the  production  of 
commodities  is  the  ne  plus  ultra  of  human  freedom  and  individual  independence, 
that  the  inconveniences  resulting  from  this  character  of  commodities  not  being 
directly  exchangeable,  should  be  removed.  Proudhon's  socialism  is  a  working  out 
of  this  Philistine  Utopia,  a  form  of  socialism  which,  as  I  have  elsewhere  shown, 
does  not  possess  even  the  merit  of  originality.  Long  before  his  time,  the  task 
was  attempted  with  much  better  success  by  Gray,  Bray,  and  others.  But,  for  all 
that,  wisdom  of  this  kind  flourishes  even  now  in  certain  circles  under  the  name 
of  "  science."  Never  has  any  school  played  more  tricks  with  the  word  science, 
than  that  of  Proudhon,   for 

"wo   Begriffe   fehlen 
Da  stellt  zur   rechten   Zeit  ein   Wort  sich   ein." 


8o 


Capitalist  Production. 


other  hand,  if  a  commodity  be  found  to  have  assumed  the 
universal  equivalent  form  (form  C),  this  is  only  because  and 
in  80  far  as  it  has  been  excluded  from  \he  rest  of  all  other 
commodities  as  their  equivalent,  and  that  by  their  own  act. 
And  from  the  moment  that  this  exclusion  becomes  finally 
restricted  to  one  particular  commodity,  from  that  moment  only, 
the  general  form  of  relative  value  of  the  world  of  commodities 
obtains  real  consistence  and  general  social  validity. 

The  particular  commodity,  with  whose  bodily  form  the 
equivalent  form  is  thus  socially  identified,  now  becomes  the 
money  commodity,  or  serves  as  money.  It  becomes  the  special 
social  function  of  that  commodity,  and  consequently  its  social 
monopoly,  to  play  within  the  world  of  commodities  the  part  of 
the  universal  equivalent.  Amongst  the  commodities  which,  in 
form  B,  figure  as  particular  equivalents  of  the  linen,  and  in 
form  C,  express  in  common  their  relative  values  in  linen,  this 
foremost  place  has  been  attained  by  one  in  particular — namely, 
gold.  If,  then,  in  form  C  we  replace  the  linen  by  gold,  we 
get, 

D.  TTie  Money  form. 
20  yards  of  linen       =: 


1  coat  = 

10  R)  of  tea  = 

40  K)  of  coffee  == 


2  ounces  of  gold. 


1  qr.  of  corn  = 

•J  a  ton  of  iron  = 

X  commodity  A  = 
In  passing  from  form  A  to  form  B,  and  from  the  latter  to 
form  C,  the  changes  are  fundamental.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  is  no  difference  between  forms  C  and  D,  except  that,  in 
the  latter,  gold  has  assumed  the  equivalent  form  in  the  place 
of  linen.  Gold  is  in  form  D,  what  linen  was  in  form  C — the 
universal  equivalent  The  progress  consists  in  this  alone,  that 
the  character  of  direct  and  universal  exchangeability — in  other 
words,  that  the  universal  equivalent  form — has  now,  by  social 
custom,  become  finally  identified  with  the  substance,  gold. 


Commodities.  8i 

Gold  is  now  money  with  reference  to  all  otlier  commodities 
only  because  it  was  previously,  with  reference  to  them,  a 
simple  commodity.  Like  all  other  commodities,  it  was  also 
capable  of  serving  as  an  equivalent,  either  as  simple  equivalent 
in  isolated  exchanges,  or  as  particular  equivalent  by  the  side 
of  others.  Gradually  it  began  to  serve,  within  varying  limits, 
as  universal  equivalent.  So  soon  as  it  monopolises  this  posi- 
tion in  the  expression  of  value  for  the  world  of  commodities, 
it  becomes  the  money  commodity,  and  then,  and  not  till  then, 
does  form  D  become  distinct  from  form  C,  and  the  general 
form  of  value  become  changed  into  the  money  form. 

The  elementary  expression  of  the  relative  value  of  a  single 
commodity,  such  as  linen,  in  terms  of  the  commodity,  such  as 
gold,  that  plays  the  part  of  money,  is  the  price  form  of  that 
commodity.  The  price  form  of  the  linen  is  therefore 
20  yards  of  linen=2  ounces  of  gold,  or,  if  2  ounces  of  gold 
when  coined  are  £2,  20  yards  of  linen=£2. 

The  difficulty  in  forming  a  concept  of  the  money  form,  con- 
sists in  clearly  comprehending  the  universal  equivalent  form, 
and  as  a  necessary  corollary,  the  general  form  of  value,  form  C. 
The  latter  is  deducible  from  form  B,  the  expanded  form  of 
value,  the  essential  component  element  of  which,  we  saw,  is 
form  A,  20  yards  of  linen=l  coat  or  x  commodity  A=y  com- 
modity B.  The  simple  commodity  form  is  therefore  the  germ 
of  the  money  form. 

Section  4. — The  fetishism  of  commodities  and  the 
secret  thereof. 

A  commodity  appears,  at  first  sight,  a  very  trivial  thing,  and 
easily  understood.  Its  analysis  shows  that  it  is,  in  reality,  a 
very  queer  thing,  abounding  in  metaphysical  subtleties  and 
theological  niceties.  So  far  as  it  is  a  value  in  use,  there  is 
nothing  mysterious  about  it,  whether  we  consider  it  from  the 
point  of  view  that  by  its  properties  it  is  capable  of  satisfying 
human  wants,  or  from  the  point  that  those  properties  are  the 
product  of  human  labour.  It  is  as  clear  as  noon-day,  that  man, 
by  his  industry,  changes  the  forms  of  the  materials  furnished 
by  nature,  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  them  useful  to  him.     The 


82  Capitalist  Production. 

form  of  wood,  for  instance,  is  altered,  by  making  a  table  out 
of  it.  Yet,  for  all  that  the  table  continues  to  be  that  common, 
every-day  thing,  wood.  But,  so  soon  as  it  steps  forth  as  a 
commodity,  it  is  changed  into  something  transcendent.  It  not 
only  stands  with  its  feet  on  the  ground,  but,  in  relation  to  all 
other  commodities,  it  stands  on  its  head,  and  evolves  out  of  its 
wooden  brain  grotesque  ideas,  far  more  wonderful  than  "table- 
turning"  ever  was. 

The  mystical  character  of  commodities  does  not  originate, 
therefore,  in  their  use-value.  Just  as  little  does  it  proceed 
from  the  nature  of  the  determining  factors  of  value.  For,  in 
the  first  place,  however  varied  the  useful  kinds  of  labour,  or 
productive  activities,  may  be,  it  is  a  physiological  fact,  that 
they  are  functions  of  the  human  organism,  and  that  each  such 
function,  whatever  may  be  its  nature  or  form,  is  essentially  the 
expenditure  of  human  brain,  nerves,  muscles,  &c.  Secondly, 
with  regard  to  that  which  forms  the  ground-work  for  the  quan- 
titative determination  of  value,  namely,  the  duration  of  that 
expenditure,  or  the  quantity  of  labour,  it  is  quite  clear  that 
there  is  a  palpable  difference  between  its  quantity  and  quality. 
In  all  states  of  society,  the  labour-time  that  it  costs  to  produce 
the  means  of  subsistence  must  necessarily  be  an  object  of  inter- 
est to  mankind,  though  not  of  equal  interest  in  different  stages 
of  development.^  And  lastly,  from  the  moment  that  men  in 
any  way  work  for  one  another,  their  labour  assumes  a  social 
form. 

Whence,  then,  arises  the  enigmatical  character  of  the  product 
of  labour,  so  soon  as  it  assumes  the  form  of  commodities? 
Clearly  from  this  form  itself.  The  equality  of  all  sorts  of 
human  labour  is  expressed  objectively  by  their  products  all 
being  equally  values ;  the  measure  of  the  expenditure  of  labour- 
power  by  the  duration  of  that  expenditure,  takes  the  form  of 
the  quantity  of  value  of  the  products  of  labour;  and  finally, 
the  mutual  relations  of  the  producers,  within  which  the  social 

*  Among  the  ancient  Germans  the  unit  for  measuring  land  was  what  could  be 
harvested  in  a  day,  and  was  called  Tagwerk,  Tagwanne  (jurnale,  or  terra  jurnalis, 
or  diornalis),  Mannsmaad,  &c.  (See  G.  L.  von  Maurer  Einleitung  zur  Geschichte 
der    Mark  — ,    &c.    Verfassung,    Muncben,    1859,    p.    129-50.) 


Commodities.  83 

character  of  their  labour  affirms  itself,  take  the  form  of  a 
social  relation  between  the  products. 

A  commodity  is  therefore  a  mysterious  thing,  simply  because 
in  it  the  social  character  of  men's  labour  appears  to  them  as  an 
objective  character  stamped  upon  the  product  of  that  labour; 
because  the  relation  of  the  producers  to  the  sum  total  of  their 
own  labour  is  presented  to  them  as  a  social  relation,  existing 
not  between  themselves,  but  between  the  products  of  their 
labour.  This  is  the  reason  why  the  products  of  labour  become 
commodities,  social  things  whose  qualities  are  at  the  same  time 
perceptible  and  imperceptible  by  the  senses.  In  the  same  way 
the  light  from  an  object  is  perceived  by  us  not  as  the  subjective 
excitation  of  our  optic  nerve,  but  as  the  objective  form  of 
something  outside  the  eye  itself.  But,  in  the  act  of  seeing, 
there  is  at  all  events,  an  actual  passage  of  light  from  one  thing 
to  another,  from  the  external  object  to  the  eye.  There  is  a 
physical  relation  between  physical  things.  But  it  is  different 
with  commodities.  There,  the  existence  of  the  things  qua 
commodities,  and  the  value  relation  between  the  products  of 
labour  which  stamps  them  as  commodities,  have  absolutely  no 
connection  with  their  physical  properties  and  with  the  material 
relations  arising  therefrom.  There  it  is  a  definite  social  rela- 
tion between  men,  that  assumes,  in  their  eyes,  the  fantastic 
form  of  a  relation  between  things.  In  order,  therefore,  to  find 
an  analogy,  we  must  have  recourse  to  the  mist-enveloped  re- 
gions of  the  religious  world.  In  that  world  the  productions  of 
the  human  brain  appear  as  independent  beings  endowed  with 
life,  and  entering  into  relation  both  with  one  another  and  the 
human  race.  So  it  is  in  the  world  of  commodities  with  the 
products  of  men's  hands.  This  I  call  the  Fetishism  which  at- 
taches itself  to  the  products  of  labour,  so  soon  as  they  are  pro- 
duced as  commodities,  and  which  is  therefore  inseparable  from 
the  production  of  commodities. 

This  Fetishism  of  commodities  has  its  origin,  as  the  fore- 
going analysis  has  already  shown,  in  the  peculiar  social 
character   of  the  labour  that   produces   them. 

As  a  general  rule,  articles  of  utility  become  commodities, 
only  because  they  are  products  of  the  labour  of  private  individ- 


84  Capitalist  Production. 

uals  or  groups  of  individuals  who  carry  on  their  work  inde- 
pendently of  each  other.  The  sum  total  of  the  labour  of  all 
these  private  individuals  forms  the  aggregate  labour  of  society. 
Since  the  producers  do  not  come  into  social  contact  with  each 
other  until  they  exchange  their  products,  the  specific  social 
character  of  each  producer's  labour  does  not  show  itself  except 
in  the  act  of  exchange.  In  other  words,  the  labour  of  the  in- 
dividual asserts  itself  as  a  part  of  the  labour  of  society,  only 
by  means  of  the  relations  which  the  act  of  exchange  establishes 
directly  between  the  products,  and  indirectly,  through  them, 
between  the  producers.  To  the  latter,  therefore,  the  relations 
connecting  the  labour  of  one  individual  with  that  of  the  rest  ap- 
pear, not  as  direct  social  relations  between  individuals  at  work, 
but  as  what  they  really  are,  material  relations  between  persons 
and  social  relations  between  things.  It  is  only  by  being  ex- 
changed that  the  products  of  labour  acquire,  as  values,  one  uni- 
form social  status,  distinct  from  their  varied  forms  of  existence 
as  objects  of  utility.  This  division  of  a  product  into  a  useful 
thing  and  a  value  becomes  practically  important,  only  when  ex- 
change has  acquired  such  an  extension  that  useful  articles  are 
produced  for  the  purpose  of  being  exchanged,  and  their  char- 
acter as  values  has  therefore  to  be  taken  into  account,  before- 
hand, during  production.  From  this  moment  the  labour  of  the 
individual  producer  acquires  socially  a  two-fold  character. 
On  the  one  hand,  it  must,  as  a  definite  useful  kind  of  labour, 
satisfy  a  definite  social  want,  and  thus  hold  its  place  as  part 
and  parcel  of  the  collective  labour  of  all,  as  a  branch  of  a  social 
division  of  labour  that  has  sprung  up  spontaneously.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  can  satisfy  the  manifold  wants  of  the  indiyidual 
producer  himself,  only  in  so  far  as  the  mutual  exchangeability 
of  all  kinds  of  useful  private  labour  is  an  established  social 
fact,  and  therefore  the  private  useful  labour  of  each  producer 
ranks  on  an  equality  with  that  of  all  others.  The  equalization 
of  the  most  different  kinds  of  labour  can  be  the  result  only  of 
an  abstraction  from  their  inequalities,  or  of  reducing  them  to 
their  common  denominator,  viz.,  expenditure  of  human  labour 
power  or  human  labour  in  the  abstract.  '  The  two-fold  social 
character  of  the  labour  of  the  individual  appears  to  him,  when 


Commodities.  85 

reflected  in  his  brain,  only  under  those  forms  which  are  im- 
pressed upon  that  labour  in  everyday  practice  by  the  exchange 
of  products.  In  this  way,  the  character  that  his  own  labour 
possesses  of  being  socially  useful  takes  the  form  of  the  condi- 
tion, that  the  product  must  be  not  only  useful,  but  useful  for 
others,  and  the  social  character  that  his  particular  labour  has  of 
being  the  equal  of  all  other  particular  kinds  of  labour,  takes  the 
form  that  all  the  physically  different  articles  that  are  the  pro- 
ducts of  labour,  have  one  common  quality,  viz,  that  of  having 
value. 

Hence,  when  we  bring  the  products  of  our  labour  into  rela- 
tion with  each  other  as  values,  it  is  not  because  we  see  in  these 
articles  the  material  receptacles  of  homogeneous  human  labour. 
Quite  the  contrary ;  whenever,  by  an  exchange,  we  equate  as 
values  our  different  products,  by  that  very  act,  we  also  equate, 
as  human  labour,  the  different  kinds  of  labour  expended  upon 
them.  We  are  not  aware  of  this,  nevertheless  we  do  it.^ 
Value,  therefore,  does  not  stalk  about  with  a  label  describing 
what  it  is.  It  is  value,  rather,  that  converts  every  product 
into  a  social  hieroglyphic.  Later  on,  we  try  to  decipher  the 
hieroglyphic,  to  get  behind  the  secret  of  our  own  social  pro- 
ducts; for  to  stamp  an  object  of  utility  as  a  value,  is  just  as 
much  a  social  product  as  language.  The  recent  scientific  dis- 
covery, that  the  products  of  labour,  so  far  as  they  are  values, 
are  but  material  expressions  of  the  human  labour  spent  in 
their  production,  marks,  indeed,  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the 
development  of  the  human  race,  but,  by  no  means,  dissipates 
the  mist  through  which  the  social  character  of  labour  appears 
to  us  to  be  an  objective  character  of  the  products  themselves. 
The  fact,  that  in  the  particular  form  of  production  with  which 
we  are  dealing,  viz.,  the  production  of  commodities,  the  specific 
social  character  of  private  labour  carried  on  independently, 
consists  in  the  equality  of  every  kind  of  that  labour,  by  virtue 
of  its  being  human  labour,  which  character,  therefore,  assumes 

^When,  therefore,  Galiani  says:  Value  is  a  relation  between  persons — i"La 
Ricchezza  e  una  ragione  tra  due  persone," — he  ought  to  have  added:  a  relation  be- 
tween persons  expressed 'as  a  relation  between  things.  (Galiani:  Delia  Moneta,  p. 
221,  V.  III.  of  Custodi's  collection  of  "Scrittori  Classici  Italiani  di  Economia 
Politicia."     Parte  Moderna,   Milano,   1803.) 


86  Capitalist  Production. 

in  the  product  the  form  of  value — this  fact  appears  to  the 
producers,  notwithstanding  the  discovery  above  referred  to, 
to  be  just  as  real  and  final,  as  the  fact,  that,  after  the  discovery 
by  science  of  the  component  gases  of  air,  the  atmosphere  itself 
remained  unaltered. 

What,  first  of  all,  practically  concerns  producers  when  they 
make  an  exchange,  is  the  question,  how  much  of  some  other 
product  they  get  for  their  own  ?  in  what  proportions  the  pro- 
ducts are  exchangeable  ?  When  these  proportions  have,  by 
custom,  attained  a  certain  stability,  they  appear  to  result  from 
the  nature  of  the  products,  so  that,  for  instance,  one  ton  of  iron 
and  two  ounces  of  gold  appear  as  naturally  to  be  of  equal  value 
as  a  pound  of  gold  and  a  pound  of  iron  in  spite  of  their 
different  physical  and  chemical  qualities  appear  to  be  of  equal 
weight.  The  character  of  having  value,  when  once  impressed 
upon  products,  obtains  fixity  only  by  reason  of  their  acting  and 
re-acting  upon  each  other  as  quantities  of  value.  These 
quantities  vary  continually,  independently  of  the  will,  fore- 
sight and  action  of  the  producers.  To  them,  their  own  social 
action  takes  the  form  of  the  action  of  objects,  which  rule  the 
producers  instead  of  being  ruled  by  them.  It  requires  a  fully 
developed  production  of  commodities  before,  from  accumulated 
experience  alone,  the  scientific  conviction  springs  up,  that  all 
the  different  kinds  of  private  labour,  which  are  carried  on  in- 
dependently of  each  other,  and  yet  as  spontaneously  developed 
branches  of  the  social  division  of  labour,  are  continually  being 
reduced  to  the  quantitive  proportions  in  which  society  re- 
quires them.  And  why?  Because,  in  the  midst  of  all  the 
accidental  and  ever  fluctuating  exchange-relations  between 
the  products,  the  labour-time  socially  necessary  for  their  pro- 
duction forcibly  asserts  itself  like  an  over-riding  law  of  nature. 
The  law  of  gravity  thus  asserts  itself  when  a  house  falls  about 
our  ears.*  The  determination  of  the  magnitude  of  value  by 
labour-time  is  therefore  a  secret,  hidden  under  the  apparent 

*  "  What  are  we  to  think  of  a  law  that  asserts  itself  only  by  periodical  revolu- 
tions? It  is  just  nothing  but  a  law  of  Nature,  founded  on  the  want  of  knowledge  of 
those  whose  action  is  the  subject  of  it."  (Friedrich  Engels:  Umrisse  zu  einer 
Kritik  der  Nationa  lokonomie,"  in  the  "Deutsch-franzosische  Jahrbucher,"  edited  by 
Arnold  Ruge  and  Karl  Marx.     Paris,  1844. 


Commodities.  87 

fluctuations  in  the  relative  values  of  commodities.  Its  dis- 
covery, while  removing  all  appearance  of  mere  accidentality 
from  the  determination  of  the  magnitude  of  the  values  of 
products,  yet  in  no  way  alters  the  mode  in  which  that 
determination  takes  place. 

Man's  reflections  on  the  forms  of  social  life, and  consequently, 
also,  his  scientific  analysis  of  those  forms,  take  a  course  directly 
opposite  to  that  of  their  actual  historical  development.  He 
begins,  post  festum,  with  the  results  of  the  process  of  develop- 
ment ready  to  hand  before  him.  The  characters  that  stamp 
products  as  commodities,and  whose  establishment  is  a  necessary 
preliminary  to  the  circulation  of  commodities,  have  already 
acquired  the  stability  of  natural,  self-understood  forms  of  social 
life,  before  man  seeks  to  decipher,  not  their  historical  character, 
for  in  his  eyes  they  are  immutable,  but  their  meaning.  Con- 
sequently it  was  the  analysis  of  the  prices  of  commodities 
that  alone  led  to  the  determination  of  the  magnitude  of  value, 
and  it  was  the  common  expression  of  all  commodities  in  money 
that  alone  led  to  the  establishment  of  their  characters  as  values. 
It  is,  however,  just  this  ulimate  money  form  of  the  world  of 
commodities  that  actually  conceals,  instead  of  disclosing,  the 
social  character  of  private  labour,  and  the  social  relations 
between  the  individual  producers.  When  I  state  that  coats  or 
boots  stand  in  a  relation  to  linen,  because  it  is  the  universal 
incarnation  of  abstract  human  labour,  the  absurdity  of  the 
statement  is  self-evident.  !N^evertheless,  when  the  producers  of 
coats  and  boots  compare  those  articles  with  linen,  or,  what  is 
the  same  thing  with  gold  or  silver,  as  the  universal  equivalent, 
they  express  the  relation  between  their  own  private  labour  and 
the  collective  labour  of  society  in  the  same  absurd  form. 

The  categories  of  bourgeois  economy  consist  of  such  like 
forms.  They  are  forms  of  thought  expressing  with  social 
validity  the  conditions  and  relations  of  a  definite,  historically 
determined  mode  of  production,  viz.,  the  production  of  com- 
modities. The  whole  mystery  of  commodities,  all  the  magic 
and  necromancy  that  surrounds  the  products  of  labour  as  long 
as  they  take  the  form  of  commodities,  vanishes  therefore,  so 
soon  as  we  come  to  other  forms  of  production. 


88  Capitalist  Production. 

Since  Robinson  Crusoe's  experiences  are  a  favorite  theme 
with  political  economists,^  let  us  take  a  look  at  him  on  his 
island.  Moderate  though  he  be,  yet  some  few  wants  he  has  to 
satisfy,  and  must  tterefore  do  a  little  useful  work  of  various 
sorts,  such  as  making  tools  and  furniture,  taming  goats,  fish- 
ing and  hunting.  Of  his  prayers  and  the  like  we  take  no  ac- 
count, since  they  are  a  source  of  pleasure  to  him,  and  he  looks 
upon  them  as  so  much  recreation.  In  spite  of  the  variety  of 
his  work,  he  knows  that  his  laboui,  whatever  its  form,  is  but 
the  activity  of  one  and  the  same  Robinson,  and  consequently, 
that  it  consists  of  nothing  but  different  modes  of  human 
labour.  Necessity  itself  compels  him  to  apportion  his  time 
accurately  between  his  different  kinds  of  work.  Whether  one 
kind  occupies  a  greater  space  in  his  general  activity  than  an- 
other, depends  on  the  difficulties,  greater  or  less  as  the  case 
may  be,  to  be  overcome  in  attaining  the  useful  effect  aimed 
at.  This  our  friend  Robinson  soon  learns  by  experience,  and 
having  rescued  a  watch,  ledger,  and  pen  and  ink  from  the 
wreck,  commences,  like  a  true-bom  Briton,  to  keep  a  set  of 
books.  His  stock-book  contains  a  list  of  the  objects  of  utility 
that  belong  to  him,  of  the  operations  necessary  for  their  pro- 
duction ;  and  lastly,  of  the  labour  time  that  definite  quantities 
of  those  objects  have,  on  an  average,  cost  him.  All  the  rela- 
tions between  Robinson  and  the  objects  that  form  this  wealth 
of  his  own  creation,  are  here  so  simple  and  clear  as  to  be  in- 
telligible without  exertion,  even  to  Mr.  Sedley  Taylor.  And 
yet  those  relations  contain  all  that  is  essential  to  the  deter- 
mination of  value. 

Let  us  now  transport  ourselves  from  Robinson's  island 
bathed  in  light  to  the  European  middle  ages  shrouded  in  dark- 
ness.    Here,  instead  of  the  independent  man,  we  find  every- 

*  Even  Ricardo  has  his  stories  a  la  Robinson.  "He  makes  the  primitive  hunter 
and  the  primitive  fisher  straightway,  as  owners  of  commodities,  exchange  fish  and 
game  in  the  proportion  in  which  labour-time  is  incorporated  in  these  exchange 
values.  On  this  occasion  he  commits  the  anachronism  of  making  these  men  apply  to 
the  calculation,  so  far  as  their  implements  have  to  be  taken  into  account,  the 
annuity  tables  in  current  use  on  the  London  Exchange  in  the  year  1847.  'The  par- 
allelograms of  Mr.  Owen'  appear  to  be  the  only  form  of  society,  besides  the  bour- 
geois form,  with  which  he  was  acquainted."  (Karl  Marx:  "Critique,"  &c., 
p.  69-70.) 


Commodities.  89 

one  dependent,  serfs  and  lords,  vassals  and  suzerains,  lay- 
men and  clergy.  Personal  dependence  here  characterises  the 
social  relations  of  production  just  as  much  as  it  does  the  other 
spheres  of  life  organized  on  the  basis  of  that  production.  But 
for  the  very  reason  that  personal  dependence  forms  the  ground- 
work of  society,  there  is  no  necessity  for  labour  and  its  prod- 
ucts to  assume  a  fantastic  form  different  from  their  reality. 
They  take  the  shape,  in  the  transactions  of  society,  of  services 
in  kind  and  payments  in  kind.  Here  the  particular  and  natu- 
ral form  of  labour,  and  not,  as  in  a  society  based  on  production 
of  commodities,  its  general  abstract  form  is  the  immediate 
social  form  of  labour.  Compulsory  labour  is  just  as  properly 
measured  by  time,  as  commodity-producing  labour;  but  every 
serf  knows  that  what  he  expends  in  the  service  of  his  lord,  is 
a  definite  quantity  of  his  own  personal  labour-power.  The 
tithe  to  be  rendered  to  the  priest  is  more  matter  of  fact  than 
his  blessing.  No  matter,  then,  what  we  may  think  of  the 
parts  played  by  the  different  classes  of  people  themselves  in 
this  society,  the  social  relations  between  individuals  in  the 
performance  of  their  labour,  appear  at  all  events  as  their 
own  mutual  personal  relations,  and  are  not  disguised  under 
the  shape  of  social  relations  between  the  products  of  labour. 

For  an  example  of  labour  in  common  or  directly  associated 
labour,  we  have  no  occasion  to  go  back  to  that  spontaneously 
developed  form  which  we  find  on  the  threshold  of  the  history 
of  all  civilized  races.  ^  We  have  one  close  at  hand  in  the 
patriarchal  industries  of  a  peasant  family,  that  produces  com, 
cattle,  yarn,  linen,  and  clothing  for  home  use.  These  differ- 
ent articles  are,  as  regards  the  family,  so  many  products  of  its 
labour,  but  as  between  themselves,  they  are  not  commodities. 
The  different  kinds  of  labour,  such  as  tillage,  cattle  tending, 

^  "A  ridiculous  presumption  has  latterly  got  abroad  that  common  property  in 
its  primitive  form  is  specifically  a  Slavonian,  or  even  exclusively  Russian 
form.  It  is  the  primitive  form  that  we  can  prove  to  have  existed  amongst 
Romans,  Teutons,  and  Celts,  and  even  to  this  day  we  find  numerous  examples, 
ruins  though  they  be,  in  India.  A  more  exhaustive  study  of  Asiatic,  and 
especially  of  Indian  forms  of  common  property,  would  show  how  from  the  different 
forms  of  primitive  common  property,  different  forms  of  its  dissolution  have  been 
developed.  Thus,  for  instance,  the  various  original  types  of  Roman  and  Teutonic 
private  property  are  deducible  from  different  forms  of  Indian  common  property," 
(Karl   Marx.     "Critique,"    &c.,    p.    29,    footnote.) 


go  Capitalist  Production. 

spinning,  weaving  and  making  clothes,  which  result  in  the 
various  products,  are  in  themselves,  and  such  as  they  are, 
direct  social  functions,  because  functions  of  the  family,  which 
just  as  much  as  a  society  based  on  the  production  of  commod- 
ities, possesses  a  spontaneously  developed  system  of  division 
of  labour.  The  distribution  of  the  work  within  the  family, 
and  the  regulation  of  the  labour-time  of  the  several  members, 
depend  as  well  upon  differences  of  age  and  sex  as  upon  nat- 
ural conditions  varying  with  the  seasons.  The  labour-power 
of  each  individual,  by  its  very  nature,  operates  in  this  case 
merely  as  a  definite  portion  of  the  whole  labour-power  of  the 
family,  and  therefore,  the  measure  of  the  expenditure  of  in- 
dividual labour-power  by  its  duration,  appears  here  by  its 
very  nature  as  a  social  character  of  their  labour. 

Let  us  now  picture  to  ourselves,  by  way  of  change,  a  com- 
munity of  free  individuals,  carrying  on  their  work  with  the 
means  of  production  in  common,  in  which  the  labour-power  of 
all  the  different  individuals  is  consciously  applied  as  the 
combined  labour-power  of  the  community.  All  the  charac- 
teristics of  Robinson's  labour  are  here  repeated,  but  with  this 
difference,  that  they  are  social,  instead  of  individual.  Every- 
thing produced  by  him  was  exclusively  the  result  of  his  own 
personal  labour,  and  therefore  simply  an  object  of  use  for 
himself.  The  total  product  of  our  community  is  a  social 
product.  One  portion  serves  as  fresh  means  of  production 
and  remains  social.  But  another  portion  is  consumed  by  the 
members  as  means  of  subsistence.  A  distribution  of  this 
portion  amongst  them  is  consequently  necessary.  The  mode 
of  this  distribution  will  vary  with  the  productive  organization 
of  the  community,  and  the  degree  of  historical  development 
attained  by  the  producers.  We  will  assume,  but  merely  for 
the  sake  of  a  parallel  with  the  production  of  commodities,  that 
the  share  of  each  individual  producer  in  the  means  of  subsis- 
tence is  determined  by  his  labour-time.  Labour-time  would, 
in  that  case,  play  a  double  part.  Its  apportionment  in  accord- 
ance with  a  definite  social  plan  maintains  the  proper  propor- 
tion between  the  different  kinds  of  work  to  be  done  and  the 
various  wants  of  the  community.     On  the  other  hand,  it  also 


Commodities.  91 

serves  as  a  measure  of  the  portion  of  the  common  labour  borne 
by  each  individual  and  of  his  share  in  the  part  of  the  total 
product  destined  for  individual  consumption.  The  social  re- 
lations of  the  individual  producers,  with  regard  both  to  their 
labour  and  to  its  products,  are  in  this  case  perfectly  simple 
and  intelligible,  and  that  with  regard  not  only  to  production 
but  also  to  distribution. 

The  religious  world  is  but  the  reflex  of  the  real  world.  And 
for  a  society  based  upon  the  production  of  commodities,  in 
which  the  producers  in  general  enter  into  social  relations  with 
one  another  by  treating  their  products  as  commodities  and 
values,  whereby  they  reduce  their  individual  private  labour  to 
the  standard  of  homogeneous  human  labour — for  such  a  soci- 
ety, Christianity  with  its  cultus  of  abstract  man,  more  espec- 
ially in  its  bourgeois  developments,  Protestantism,  Deism,  &c., 
is  the  most  fitting  form  of  religion.  In  the  ancient  Asiatic 
and  other  ancient  modes  of  production,  we  find  that  the  con- 
version of  products  into  commodities,  and  therefore  the  con- 
version of  men  into  producers  of  commodities,  holds  a  subor- 
dinate place,  which,  however,  increases  in  importance  as  the 
primitive  communities  approach  nearer  and  nearer  to  their 
dissolution.  Trading  nations,  properly  so  called,  exist  in  the 
ancient  world  only  in  its  interstices,  like  the  gods  of  Epicurus 
in  the  Intermundia,  or  like  Jews  in  the  pores  of  Polish  soci- 
ety. Those  ancient  social  organisms  of  production  are,  as 
compared  with  bourgeois  society,  extremely  simple  and  trans- 
parent. But  they  are  founded  either  on  the  immature  devel- 
opment of  man  individually,  who  has  not  yet  severed  the  um- 
bilical cord  that  unites  him  with  his  fellow  men  in  a  primi- 
tive tribal  community,  or  upon  direct  relations  of  subjec- 
tion. They  can  arise  and  exist  only  when  the  development  of 
the  productive  power  of  labour  has  not  risen  beyond  a  low 
stage,  and  when,  therefore,  the  social  relations  within  the 
sphere  of  material  life,  between  man  and  man,  and  between 
man  and  Nature,  are  correspondingly  narrow.  This  narrow- 
ness is  reflected  in  the  ancient  worship  of  Nature,  and  in  the 
other  elements  of  the  popular  religions.  The  religious  reflex 
of  the  real  world  can,  in  any  case,  only  then  finally  vanish, 


92  Capitalist  Production. 

when  the  practical  relations  of  everyday  life  offer  to  man  none 
but  perfectly  intelligible  and  reasonable  relations  with  re- 
gard to  his  fellowmen  and  to  nature. 

The  life-process  of  society,  which  is  based  on  the  process  of 
material  production,  does  not  strip  off  its  mystical  veil  until  it 
is  treated  as  production  by  freely  associated  men,  and  is  con- 
sciously regulated  by  them  in  accordance  with  a  settled  plan. 
This,  however,  demands  for  society  a  certain  material  ground- 
work or  set  of  conditions  of  existence  which  in  their  turn  are 
the  spontaneous  product  of  a  long  and  painful  process  of 
development. 

Political  economy  has  indeed  analysed,  however  incom- 
pletely,^ value  and  its  magnitude,  and  has  discovered  what 
lies  beneath  these  forms.  But  it  has  never  once  asked  the 
question  why  labour  is  represented  by  the  value  of  its  product 

*  The  insufficiency  of  Ricardo's  analysis  of  the  magnitude  of  value,  and  his  an- 
alysis is  by  far  the  best,  will  appear  from  the  3rd  and  4th  book  of  this  work.  As 
regards  values  in  general,  it  is  the  weak  point  of  the  classical  school  of  political 
economy  that  it  nowhere,  expressly  and  with  full  consciousness,  distinguishes  be- 
tween labour,  as  it  appears  in  the  value  of  a  product  and  the  same  labour,  as  it  ap- 
pears in  the  use-value  of  that  product.  Of  course  the  distinction  is  practically  made 
since  this  school  treats  labour,  at  one  time  under  its  quantitative  aspect,  at  another 
under  its  qualitative  aspect.  But  it  has  not  the  least  idea,  that  when  the 
difference  between  various  kinds  of  labour  is  treated  as  purely  quantitative, 
their  qualitative  unity  or  equality,  and  therefore  their  reduction  to  abstract  human 
labour,  is  implied.  For  instance,  Ricardo  declares  that  he  agrees  with  Destutt 
de  Tracy  in  this  proposition:  "As  it  is  certain  that  our  physical  and  moral 
faculties  are  alone  our  original  riches,  the  employment  of  those  faculties,  labour 
of  some  kind,  is  our  only  original  treasure,  and  it  is  always  from  this  employment 
that  all  those  things  are  created,  which  we  call  riches.  .  .  .  It  is  certain,  too, 
that  all  those  things  only  represent  the  labour  which  has  created  them,  and  if  they 
have  a  value,  or  even  two  distinct  values,  they  can  only  derive  them  from  that 
(the  value)  of  the  labour  from  which  they  emanate."  (Ricardo,  The  Principles 
of  Pol.  Econ.  3  Ed.  Lond.  1821,  p.  334.)  We  would  here  only  point  out  that 
Ricardo  puts  his  own  more  profound  interpretation  upon  the  words  of  Destutt. 
What  the  latter  really  says  is,  that  on  the  one  hand  all  things  which  constitute 
wealth  represent  the  labour  that  creates  them,  but  that  on  the  other  hand,  they 
acquire  their  "two  different  values"  (use-value  and  exchange-value)  from  "the 
value  of  labour."  He  thus  falls  into  the  commonplace  error  of  the  vulgar  econo- 
mists, who  assume  the  value  of  one  commodity  (in  this  case  labour)  in  order  to  deter- 
mine the  values  of  the  rest.  But  Ricardo  reads  him  as  if  he  had  said,  that  labour 
(not  the  value  of  labour)  is  embodied  both  in  use-value  and  exchange-value. 
Nevertheless,  Ricardo  himself  pays  so  little  attention  to  the  two-fold  character 
of  the  labour  which  has  a  two-fold  embodiment,  that  he  devotes  the  whole  of  his 
chapter  on  "  Value  and  Riches,  Their  Distinctive  Properties,"  to  a  laborious  ex- 
amination of  the  trivialities  of  a  J.  B.  Say.  And  at  the  finish  he  is  quite 
astonished  to  find  that  Destutt  on  the  one  hand  agrees  with  him  as  to  labour  being 
the  source  of  value,  and  on  the  other  band  with  J.  B.  Say  as  to  the  notion  of 
value. 


Commodities.  93 

and  labour  time  by  the  magnitude  of  that  value. ^  These  for- 
mulae, which  bear  stamped  upon  them  in  unmistakeable  let- 
ters, that  they  belong  to  a  state  of  society,  in  which  the  process 
of  production  has  the  mastery  over  man,  instead  of  being  con- 
trolled by  him,  such  formulae  appear  to  the  bourgeois  intellect 
to  be  as  much  a  self-evident  necessity  imposed  by  nature  as 
productive  labour  itself.  Hence  forms  of  social  production 
that  preceded  the  bourgeois  form,  are  treated  by  the  bour- 
geoisie in  much  the  same  way  as  the  Fathers  of  the  Church 
treated  pre-Christian  religions.^ 

^  It  is  one  of  the  chief  failings  of  classical  economy  that  it  has  never  succeeded, 
by  means  of  its  analysis  of  commodities,  and,  in  particular,  of  their  value,  in  dis- 
covering that  form  under  which  value  becomes  exchange-value.  Even  Adam 
Smith  and  Ricardo,  the  best  representatives  of  the  school,  treat  the  form  of  value 
as  a  thing  of  no  importance,  as  having  no  connection  with  the  inherent  nature 
of  commodities.  The  reason  for  this  is  not  solely  because  their  attention  is  en- 
tirely absorbed  in  the  analysis  of  the  magnitude  of  value.  It  lies  deeper.  The 
value  form  of  the  product  of  labour  is  not  only  the  most  abstract,  but  is  also  the 
most  universal  form,  taken  by  the  product  in  bourgeois  production,  and  stamps 
that  production  as  a  particular  species  of  social  production,  and  thereby  gives 
it  its  special  historical  character.  If  then  we  treat  this  mode  of  production  as  one 
eternally  fixed  by  nature  for  every  state  of  society,  we  necessarily  overlook  that 
which  is  the  differentia  specifica  of  the  value-form,  and  consequently  of  the 
commodity-form,  and  of  its  further  developments,  money-form,  capital-form,  &c. 
We  consequently  find  that  economists,  who  are  thoroughly  agreed  as  to  labour  time 
being  the  measure  of  the  magnitude  of  value,  have  the  most  strange  and  con- 
tradictory ideas  of  money,  the  perfected  form  of  the  general  equivalent.  This 
is  seen  in  a  striking  manner  when  they  treat  of  banking,  where  the  common- 
place definitions  of  money  will  no  longer  hold  water.  This  led  to  the  rise  of 
a  restored  mercantile  system  (Ganilh,  &c.),  which  sees  in  'value  nothing  but  a 
social  form,  or  rather  the  unsubstantial  ghost  of  that  form.  Once  for  all  I  may 
here  state,  that  by  classical  political  economy,  I  understand  that  economy  which, 
since  the  time  of  W.  Petty,  has  investigated  the  real  relations  of  production  in 
bourgeois  society,  in  contradistinction  to  vulgar  economy,  which  deals  with  appear- 
ances only,  ruminates  without  ceasing  on  the  materials  long  since  provided  by 
scientific  economy,  and  there  seeks  plausible  explanations  of  the  most  obtrusive 
phenomena,  for  bourgeois  daily  use,  but  for  the  rest,  confines  itself  to  systema- 
tizing in  a  pedantic  way,  and  proclaiming  for  everlasting  truths,  the  trite  ideas 
held  by  the  self-complacent  bourgeoisie  with  regard  to  their  own  world,  to  them 
the   best  of  all   possible  worlds. 

*  "The  economists  have  a  singular  manner  of  proceeding.  There  are  for  them 
only  two  kinds  of  institutions,  those  of  art  and  those  of  nature.  Feudal  institu- 
tions are  artificial  institutions,  those  of  the  bourgeoisie  are  natural  institutions. 
In  this  they  lesemble  the  theologians,  who  also  establish  two  kinds  of  religion. 
Every  religion  but  their  own  is  an  invention  of  men,  while  their  own  religion  is 
an  errianation  from  God.  .  .  .  Thus  there  has  been  history,  but  there  is  no 
longer  any."  Karl  Marx,  The  Poverty  of  Philosophy,  A  Reply  to  'La  Philosophic 
de  la  Misere'  by  Mr.  Proudhon.  1847,  p.  100.  Truly  comical  is  M.  Bastiat,  who 
imagines  that  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans  lived  by  plunder  alone.  But  when 
people  plunder  for  centuries,  there  must  always  be  something  at  hand  for  them  to 
seize;  the  objects  of  plunder  must  be  continually  reproduced.     It  would  thus  appear 


94  Capitalist  Production. 

To  what  extent  some  economists  are  misled  by  the  Fetishism 
inherent  in  commodities,  or  by  the  objective  appearance  of 
the  social  characteristics  of  labour,  is  shown,  amongst  other 
ways,  by  the  dull  and  tedious  quarrel  over  the  part  played  by 
Nature  in  the  formation  of  exchange  value.  Since  exchange 
value  is  a  definite  social  manner  of  expressing  the  amount  of 
labour  bestowed  upon  an  object,  Nature  has  no  more  to  do 
with  it,  than  it  has  in  fixing  the  course  of  exchange. 

The  mode  of  production  in  which  the  product  takes  the 
form  of  a  commodity,  or  is  produced  directly  for  exchange,  is 
the  most  general  and  most  embryonic  form  of  bourgeois  pro- 
duction. It  therefore  makes  its  appearance  at  an  early  date 
in  history,  though  not  in  the  same  predominating  and  charac- 
teristic manner  as  now-a-days.  Hence  its  Fetish  character  is 
comparatively  easy  to  be  seen  through.  But  when  we  come 
to  more  concrete  forms,  even  this  appearance  of  simplicity 
vanishes.  Whence  arose  the  illusions  of  the  monetary  sys- 
tem ?  To  it  gold  and  silver,  when  serving  as  money,  did  not 
represent  a  social  relation  between  producers,  but  were  nat- 

that  even  Greeks  and  Romans  had  some  process  of  production,  consequently,  an 
economy,  which  just  as  much  constituted  the  material  basis  of  their  world,  as  bour- 
geois economy  constitutes  that  of  our  modern  world.  Or  perhaps  Bastiat  means, 
that  a  mode  of  production  based  on  slavery  is  based  on  a  system  of  plunder.  In 
that  case  he  treads  on  dangerous  ground.  If  a  g^iant  thinker  like  Aristotle  erred  in 
his  appreciation  of  slave  labour,  why  should  a  dwarf  economist  like  Bastiat  be  right 
in  his  appreciation  of  wage  labour?  —  I  seize  this  opportunity  of  shortly  answering 
an  objection  taken  by  a  German  paper  in  America,  to  my  work,  "Critique  of 
Political  Economy,  1859."  In  the  estimation  of  that  paper,  my  view  that  each 
special  mode  of  production  and  the  social  relations  corresponding  to  it,  in  short, 
that  the  economic  structure  of  society,  is  the  real  basis  on  which  the  juridical 
and  political  superstructure  is  raised,  and  to  which  definite  social  forms  of 
thought  correspond;  that  the  mode  of  production  determines  the  character  of  the 
social,  political,  and  intellectual  life  generally,  all  this  is  very  true  for  our  own 
times,  in  which  material  interests  preponderate,  but  not  for  the  middle  ages,  in 
which  Catholicism,  nor  for  Athens  and  Rome,  where  politics,  reigned  supreme. 
In  the  first  place  it  strikes  one  as  an  odd  thing  for  any  one  to  suppose  that  these 
well-worn  phrases  about  the  middle  ages  and  the  ancient  world  are  unknown  to 
anyone  else.  This  much,  however,  is  clear,  that  the  middle  ages  could  not  live 
on  Catholicism,  nor  the  ancient  world  on  politics.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the 
mode  in  which  they  gained  a  livelihood  that  explains  why  here  politics,  and 
there  Catholicism,  played  the  chief  part.  For  the  rest,  it  requires  but  a  slight 
acquaintance  with  the  history  of  the  Roman  republic,  for  example,  to  be 
aware  that  its  secret  history  is  the  history  of  its  landed  property.  On  the  other 
hand,  Don  Quixote  long  ago  paid  the  penalty  for  wrongly  imagining  that  knight 
errantry   was  compatible  with  all  economical   forms  of  society. 


Commodities.  95 

Tiral  objects  "with,  strange  social  properties.  And  modem 
economy,  which  looks  down  with  such  disdain  on  the  monetary 
system,  does  not  its  superstition  come  out  as  clear  as  noon-day, 
whenever  it  treats  of  capital  ?  How  long  is  it  since  economy 
discarded  the  physiocratic  illusion^  that  rents  grow  out  of  the 
soil  and  not  out  of  society  ? 

But  not  to  anticipate,  we  will  content  ourselves  with  yet 
another  example  relating  to  the  commodity  form.  Could  com- 
modities themselves  speak,  they  would  say :  Our  use-value  may 
be  a  thing  that  interests  men.  It  is  no  part  of  us  as  objects. 
What,  however,  does  belong  to  us  as  objects,  is  our  value.  Our 
natural  intercourse  as  commodities  proves  it.  In  the  eyes  of 
each  other  we  are  nothing  but  exchange  values.  Now  listen 
how  those  commodities  speak  through  the  mouth  of  the  econo- 
mist. "Value" — (i.e.,  exchange  value)  "is  a  property  of  things, 
riches" — (i.e.,  use-value)  "of  man.  Value,  in  this  sense,  neces- 
sarily implies  exchanges,  riches  do  not."  ^  "Eiches"  (use- 
value)  "are  the  attribute  of  men,  value  is  the  attribute  of  com- 
modities. A  man  or  a  community  is  rich,  a  pearl  or  a  dia- 
mond is  valuable.  .  .  A  pearl  or  a  diamond  is  valuable"  as  a 
pearl  or  diamond.^  So  far  no  chemist  has  ever  discovered  ex- 
change value  either  in  a  pearl  or  a  diamond.  The  economical 
discoverers  of  this  chemical  element,  who  by-the-bye  lay  special 
claim  to  critical  acumen,  find  however  that  the  use-value  of 
objects  belongs  to  them  independently  of  their  material  pro- 
perties, while  their  value^  on  the  other  hand,  forms  a  part  of 
them  as  objects.  What  confirms  them  in  this  view,  is  the 
peculiar  circumstances  that  the  use-value  of  objects  is  realised 
without  exchange,  by  means  of  a  direct  relation  between  the 

1  Observations  on  certain  verbal  disputes  in  Pol.  Econ.,  particularly  relating  to 
value  and  to  demand  and  supply.     Lond.,  1821,  p.  16. 

»S.    Bailey,    1.    c,    p.    165. 

^  The  author  of  "  Observations  "  and  S.  Bailey  accuse  Ricardo  of  converting  ex- 
change value  from  something  relative  into  something  absolute.  The  opposite  is  the 
fact.  He  has  explained  the  apparent  relation  between  objects,  such  as  diamonds 
and  pearls,  in  which  relation  they  appear  as  excliange  values,  and  disclosed  the 
true  relation  hidden  behind  the  appearances,  namely,  their  relation  to  each  other 
as  mere  expressions  of  human  labour.  If  the  follov/ers  of  Ricardo  answer  Bailey 
somewhat  rudely,  and  by  no  means  convincingly,  the  reason  is  to  be  sought  in 
this,  that  they  were  unable  to  find  in  Ricardo's  own  works  any  key  to  the  hidden 
relations  existing  between  value  and  its   form,   exchange  value. 


gS  Capitalist  Production. 

objects  and  man,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  their  value  is  real- 
ised only  by  exchange,  that  is,  by  means  of  a  social  process. 
Who  fails  here  to  call  to  mind  our  good  friend,  Dogberry,  who 
informs  neighbour  Seacoal,  that,  "To  be  a  well-favoured  man 
is  the  gift  of  fortune;  but  reading  and  writing  comes  by 
nature." 


CHAPTER  II. 

EXCHANGE. 


It  is  plain  that  commodities  cannot  go  to  market  and  make 
exchanges  of  their  own  account.  We  must,  therefore,  have 
recourse  to  their  guardians,  who  are  also  their  owners.  Com- 
modities are  things,  and  therefore  without  power  of  resistance 
against  man.  If  they  are  wanting  in  docility  he  can  use  force ; 
in  other  words,  he  can  take  possession  of  them.^  In  order  that 
these  objects  may  enter  into  relation  with  each  other  as  com- 
modities, their  guardians  must  place  themselves  in  relation 
to  one  another,  as  persons  whose  will  resides  in  those  objects, 
and  must  behave  in  such  a  way  that  each  does  not  appropriate 
the  commodity  of  the  other,  and  part  with  his  own,  except  by 
means  of  an  act  done  by  mutual  consent.  They  must,  there- 
fore, mutually  recognise  in  each  other  the  right  of  private 
proprietors.  This  juridical  relation,  which  thus  expresses  it- 
self in  a  contract,  whether  such  contract  be  part  of  a  developed 
legal  system  or  not,  is  a  relation  between  two  wills,  and  is  but 
the  reflex  of  the  real  economical  relation  between  the  two.  It 
is  this  economical  relation  that  determines  the  subject  matter 
comprised  in  each  such  juridical  act.^     The  persons  exist  for 

*  In  the  12th  century,  so  renowned  for  its  piety,  they  included  amongst  com- 
modities some  very  delicate  things.  Thus  a  French  poet  of  the  period  enumerates 
amongst  the  goods  to  be  fund  in  the  market  of  Landit,  not  only  clothing,  shoes, 
leather,    agricultural    implements,    &c.,    but    also    "  femmes    folles   de    leur    corps." 

*  Proudhon  begins  by  taking  his  ideal  of  justice,  of  "justice  eternelle,"  from  the 
juridical  relations  that  correspond  to  the  production  of  commodities:  thereby, 
it  may  be  noted,  he  proves,  to  the  consolation  of  all  good  citizens,  that  the 
production  of  commodities  is  a  form  of  production  as  everlasting  as  justice. 
Then  he  turns  round  and  seeks  to  reform  the  actual  production  of  commodities, 
and  the  actual   legal   system   corresponding   thereto,   in  accordance   with   this   ideal. 


Exchange.  97 

one  another  merely  as  representatives  of,  and,  therefore,  as 
owners  of,  commodities.  In  the  course  of  our  investigation  we 
shall  find,  in  general,  that  the  characters  who  appear  on  the 
economic  stage  are  but  the  personifications  of  the  economical 
relations  that  exist  between  them. 

What  chiefly  distinguishes  a  commodity  from  its  owner  is 
the  fact,  that  it  looks  upon  every  other  commodity  as  but  the 
form  of  appearance  of  its  own  value.  A  born  leveller  and  a 
cynic,  it  is  always  ready  to  exchange  not  bnly  soul,  but  body, 
with  any  and  every  other  comnioJity,  be  the  same  more  repul- 
sive than  Maritomes  herself.  The  owner  makes  up  for  this 
lack  in  the  commodity  of  a  sense  of  the  concrete,  by  his  own 
five  and  more  senses.  His  commodity  possesses  for  himself  no 
immediate  use-value.  Otherwise,  he  would  not  bring  it  to  the 
market  It  has  use-value  for  others;  but  for  himself  its  only 
direct  use-value  is  that  of  being  a  depository  of  exchange 
value,  and  consequently,  a  means  of  exchange.^  Therefore, 
he  makes  up  his  mind  to  part  with  it  for  commodities  whose 
value  in  use  is  of  service  to  him.  All  commodities  are  non-use- 
values  for  their  owners,  and  use-values  for  their  non-owners. 
Consequently,  they  must  all  change  hands.  But  this  change 
of  hands  is  what  constitutes  their  exchange,  and  the  latter 
puts  them  in  relation  with  each  other  as  values,  and  realises 
them  as  values.  Hence  commodities  must  be  realised  as  values 
before  they  can  be  realised  as  use-values. 

On  the  other  hand,  they  must  show  that  they  are  use- 
values  before  they  can  be  realised  as  values.  For  the  labour 
spent  upon  them  counts  effectively,  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  spent 

What  opinion  should  we  have  of  a  chemist,  who,  instead  of  studying  the  actual 
laws  of  the  molecular  changes  in  the  composition  and  decomposition  of  matter,  and 
on  that  foundation  solving  definite  problems,  claimed  to  regulate  the  composition 
and  decomposition  of  matter  by  means  of  the  "eternal  ideas,"  of  "naturalite" 
and  "affinite?"  Do  we  really  know  any  more  about  "usury,"  when  we  say  it 
contradicts  "justice  eternelle,"  "equite  eternelle,"  "mutualite  eternelle,"  and  other 
"verites  eternelles"  than  the  fathers  of  the  church  did  when  they  said  it  was  incom- 
patible with  "grace  eternelle,"  "foi  eternelle,"  and  "la  volonte  eternelle  de  Dieu?" 

^  "  For  two-fold  is  the  use  of  every  object.  .  .  .  The  one  is  peculiar  to  the 
object  as  such,  the  other  is  not,  as  a  sandal  which  may  be  worn,  and  is  also  ex- 
changeable. Both  are  uses  of  the  sandal,  for  even  he  who  exchanges  the  sandal  for 
the  money  or  food  he  is  in  want  of,  makes  use  of  the  sandal  as  a  sandal.  But  not 
in  its  natural  way.  For  it  has  not  been  made  for  the  sake  of  being  exchanged." 
(Aristoteles,  de  Rep.,  1.   i.   c.   9.) 

G 


98  Capitalist  Production. 

in  a  form  tliat  is  useful  for  others.  Whether  that  labour  is  use- 
ful for  others  and  its  product  consequently  capable  of  satisfying 
the  wants  of  others,  can  be  proved  only  by  the  act  of  exchange. 

Every  owner  of  a  commodity  wishes  to  part  with  it  in  ex- 
change only  for  those  commodities  whose  use-value  satisfies 
some  want  of  his.  Looked  at  in  this  way,  exchange  is  for 
him  simply  a  private  transaction.  On  the  other  hand,  he  de- 
sires to  realise  the  value  of  his  commodity,  to  convert  it  into 
any  other  suitable  commodity  of  equal  value,  irrespective  of 
whether  his  own  commodity  has  or  has  not  any  use-value  for 
the  owner  of  the  other.  From  this  point  of  view,  exchange  is 
for  him  a  social  transaction  of  a  general  character.  But  one 
and  the  same  set  of  transactions  cannot  be  simultaneously  for 
all  owners  of  commodities  both  exclusively  private  and  ex- 
clusively social  and  general. 

Let  us  look  at  the  matter  a  little  closer.  To  the  owner  of  a 
commodity,  every  other  commodity  is,  in  regard  to  his  own,  a 
particular  equivalent,  and  consequently  his  own  commodity  is 
the  universal  equivalent  for  all  the  others.  But  since  this 
applies  to  every  owner,  there  is,  in  fact,  no  commodity  acting 
as  universal  equivalent,  and  the  relative  value  of  commodities 
possesses  no  general  form  under  which  they  can  be  equated  as 
values  and  have  the  magnitude  of  their  values  compared.  So 
far,  therefore,  they  do  not  confront  each  other  as  commodities, 
but  only  as  products  or  use-values.  In  their  difficulties  our 
commodity-owners  think  like  Faust:  "Im  Anfang  war  die 
That."  They  therefore  acted  and  transacted  before  they 
thought.  Instinctively  they  conform  to  the  laws  imposed  by 
the  nature  of  commodities.  They  cannot  bring  their  com- 
modities into  relation  as  values,  and  therefore  as  commodities, 
except  by  comparing  them  with  some  one  other  commodity 
as  the  universal  equivalent.  That  we  saw  from  the  analysis 
of  a  commodity.  But  a  particular  commodity  cannot  become 
the  universal  equivalent  except  by  a  social  act  The  social 
action  therefore  of  all  other  commodities,  sets  apart  the  par- 
ticular commodity  in  which  they  all  represent  their  values. 
Thereby  the  bodily  form  of  this  Commodity  becomes  the  form 
of  the  socially  recognised  universal  equivalent.     To  be  the 


Exchange.  99 

universal  equivalent,  becomes,  by  this  social  process,  the 
specific  function  of  the  commodity  thus  excluded  by  the  rest. 
Thus  it  becomes — money.  '^Illi  unum  consilium  habent  et 
virtutem  et  potestatem  suam  bestise  tradunt.  Et  ne  quis 
possit  emere  aut  venderc',  nisi  qui  habet  characterem  aut 
nomen  bestise,  aut  numerum  nominis  ejus."      {Ayocalyppe.^ 

Money  is  a  crystal  formed  of  necessity  in  the  course  of  the 
exchanges,  whereby  different  products  of  labour  are  practically 
equated  to  one  another  and  thus  by  practice  converted  into 
commodities.  The  historical  progress  and  extension  of  ex- 
changes develops  the  contrast,  latent  in  commodities,  between 
use-value  and  value.  The  necessity  for  giving  an  external 
expression  to  this  contrast  for  the  purposes  of  commercial  in- 
tercourse, urges  on  the  establishment  of  an  independent  form 
of  value,  and  finds  no  rest  until  it  is  once  for  all  satisfied  by 
the  differentiation  of  commodities  into  commodities  and  money. 
At  the  same  rate,  then^  as  the  conversion  of  products  into 
commodities  is  being  accomplished,  so  also  is  the  conversion  of 
one  special  commodity  into  money.  ^ 

The  direct  barter  of  products  attains  the  elementary  form 
of  the  relative  expression  of  value  in  one  respect,  but  not  in 
another.  That  form  is  x  Commodity  A=:y  Commodity  B. 
The  form  of  direct  barter  is  x  use-value  A=y  use-value  B.^ 
The  articles  A  and  B  in  this  case  are  not  as  yet  commodities, 
but  become  so  only  by  the  act  of  barter.  The  first  step  made 
by  an  object  of  utility  towards  acquiring  exchange-value  ' 
is  when  it  forms  a  non-use-value  for  its  owner,  and  that  hap- 
pens when  it  forms  a  superfluous  portion  of  some  article 
required  for  his  immediate  wants.  Objects  in  themselves  are 
external  to  man,  and  consequently  alienable  by  him.  In  order 
that  this  alienation  may  be  reciprocal,  it  is  only  necessary  for 

*  From  this  we  may  form  an  estimate  of  the  shrewdness  of  the  petit-bourgeois 
socialism,  which,  while  perpetuating  the  production  of  commodities,  aims  at 
abolishing  the  "  antagonism  "  between  money  and  commodities,  and  consequently, 
since  money  exists  only  by  virtue  of  this  antagonism,  at  abolishing  money  itself. 
We  might  just  as  well  try  to  retain  Catholicism  without  the  Pope.  For  more 
on  this  point  see  my  work,   "Critique  of  Political   Economy,"   p.   73,   ff. 

'  So  long  as,  instead  of  two  distinct  use-values  being  exchanged,  a  chaotic  mass 
of  articles  are  offered  as  the  equivalent  of  a  single  article,  which  is  often  the  case 
with  savages,  even  the  direct  barter  of  products  is  in  its  first  infancy. 


lOO  Capitalist  Production. 

men,  by  a  tacit  understanding,  to  treat  each  other  as  private 
owners  of  those  alienable  objects,  and  by  implication  as  inde- 
pendent individuals.  But  such  a  state  of  reciprocal  indepen- 
dence has  no  existence  in  a  primitive  society  based  on  pro- 
perty in  common,  whether  such  a  society  takes  the  form  of  a 
patriarchal  family,  an  ancient  Indian  community,  or  a  Peru- 
vian Inca  State.  The  exchange  of  commodities,  therefore,  first 
begins  on  the  boundaries  of  such  ^communities,  at  their  ix)ints 
of  contact  with  other  similar  communities,  or  with  members  of 
the  latter.  So  soon,  however,  as  products  once  become  com- 
modities in  the  external  relations  of  a  community,  they  also, 
by  reaction,  become  so  in  its  internal  intercourse.  The  pro- 
portions in  which  they  are  exchangeable  are  at  first  quite  a 
matter  of  chance.  What  makes  them  exchangeable  is  the 
mutual  desire  of  their  owners  to  alienate  them.  Meantime  the 
need  for  foreign  objects  of  utility  gradually  establishes  itself. 
The  constant  repetition  of  exchange  makes  it  a  normal  social 
act.  In  the  course  of  time,  therefore,  some  portion  at  least  of 
the  products  of  labour  must  be  produced  with  a  special  view 
to  exchange.  From  tliat  moment  the  distinction  becomes 
firmly  established  between  the  utility  of  an  object  for  the  pur- 
poses of  consumption,  and  its  utility  for  the  purposes  of  ex- 
change. Its  use-value  becomes  distinguished  from  its  ex- 
change value.  On  the  other  hand,  the  quantitative  proportion 
in  which  the  articles  are  exchangeable,  becomes  dependent  on 
their  production  itself.  Custom  stamps  them  as  values  yfiih 
definite  magnitudes. 

In  the  direct  barter  of  products,  each  commodity  is  directly 
a  means  of  exchange  to  its  owner,  and  to  all  other  persons  an 
equivalent,  but  that  only  in  so  far  as  it  has  use-value  for  them. 
At  this  stage,  therefore,  the  articles  exchanged  do  not  acquire 
a  value-form  independent  of  their  own  use-value,  or  of  the 
individual  needs  of  the  exchangers.  The  necessity  for  a  value- 
form  grows  with  the  increasing  number  and  variety  of  the 
commodities  exchanged.  The  problem  and  the  means  of  solu- 
tion arise  simultaneously.  Commodity-owners  never  equate 
their  own  commodities  to  those  of  others,  and  exchange  them 
on  a  large  scale,  without  different  kinds  of  commodities  belong- 


Exchange.  lOi 

ing  to  different  owners  being  exchangeable  for,  and  equated  as 
values  to,  one  and  tbe  same  special  article.  Such  last-men- 
tioned article,  by  becoming  the  equivalent  of  various  other 
commodities,  acquires  at  once,  though  within  narrow  limits, 
the  character  of  a  general  social  equivalent.  This  character 
comes  and  goes  with  the  momentary  social  acts  that  called  it 
into  life.  In  turns  and  transiently  it  attaches  itself  first  to  this 
and  then  to  that  commodity.  But  with  the  development  of 
exchange  it  fixes  itself  firmly  and  exclusively  to  particular 
sorts  of  commodities,  and  becomes  crystallised  by  assuming  the 
money-form.  The  particular  kind  of  commodity  to  which  it 
sticks  is  at  first  a  matter  of  accident.  Nevertheless  there  are 
two  circumstances  whose  influence  is  decisive.  The  money- 
form  attaches  itself  either  to  the  most  important  articles  of  ex- 
change from  outside,  and  these  in  fact  are  primitive  and  nat- 
ural forms  in  which  the  exchange-value  of  home  products  finds 
expression;  or  else  it  attaches  itself  to  the  object  of  utility 
that  forms,  like  cattle,  the  chief  portion  of  indigenous  alienable 
wealth.  Nomad  races  are  the  first  to  develop  the  money-form, 
because  all  their  worldly  goods  consist  of  movable  objects 
and  are  therefore  directly  alienable ;  and  because  their  mode  of 
life,  by  continually  bringing  them  into  contact  with  foreign 
communities,  solicits  the  exchange  of  products.  Man  has  often 
made  man  himself,  under  the  form  of  slaves,  serve  as  the  prim- 
itive material  of  money,  but  has  never  used  land  for  that 
purpose.  Such  an  idea  could  only  spring  up  in  a  bourgeois 
society  already  well  developed.  It  dates  from  the  last  third  of 
the  1 7th  century,  and  the  first  attempt  to  put  it  in  practice  on  a 
national  scale  was  made  a  century  afterwards,  during  the 
French  bourgeois  revolution. 

In  proportion  as  exchange  bursts  its  local  bonds,  and  the 
value  of  commodities  more  and  more  expands  into  an  embodi- 
ment of  human  labour  in  the  abstract,  in  the  same  proportion 
the  character  of  money  attaches  itself  to  commodities  that  are 
by  nature  fitted  to  perform  the  social  function  of  a  universal 
equivalent.     Those  commodities  are  the  precious  metals. 

The  truth  of  the  proposition  that,  "although  gold  and  silver 
are   not  by    nature   money,    money    is   by   nature   gold    and 


I02  Capitalist  Production. 

silver,"  ^  is  shown  by  the  fitness  of  the  physical  properties  of 
these  metals  for  the  functions  of  money. ^  Up  to  this  point, 
however,  we  are  acquainted  only  with  one  function  of  money, 
namely,  to  serve  as  the  form  of  manifestation  of  the  value  of 
commodities,  or  as  the  material  in  which  the  magnitudes  of 
their  values  are  socially  expressed.  An  adequate  form  of 
manifestation  of  value,  a  fit  embodiment  of  abstract,  undiffer- 
entiated, and  therefore  equal  human  labour,  that  material 
alone  can  be  whose  every  sample  exhibits  the  same  uniform 
qualities.  On  the  other  hand,  since  the  difference  between  the 
magnitudes  of  value  is  purely  quantitative,  the  money  com- 
modity must  be  susceptible  of  merely  quantitative  differences, 
must  therefore  be  divisible  at  will,  and  equally  capable  of  being 
re-united.     Gold  and  silver  possess  these  properties  by  nature. 

The  use-value  of  the  money  commodity  becomes  twofold. 
In  addition  to  its  special  uscrvalue  as  a  commodity  (gold, 
for  instance,  serving  to  stop  teeth,  to  form  the  raw  material  of 
articles  of  luxury,  &c.),  it  acquires  a  formal  use-value,  origina- 
ting in  its  specific  social  function. 

Since  all  commodities  are  merely  particular  equivalents  of 
money,  the  latter  being  their  universal  equivalent,  they,  with 
regard  to  the  latter  as  the  universal  commodity,  play  the  parts 
of  particular  commodities.^ 

We  have  seen  that  the  money-form  is  but  the  reflex,  thrown 
upon  one  single  commodity,  of  the  value  relations  between  all 
the  rest.    That  money  is  a  commodity  ^  is  therefore  a  new  dis- 

*Karl  Marx,  1.  c.  p.  212.  "I  metalli.  .  .  naturalmente  moneta,"  (Galiani. 
"Delia    moneta"    in    Custodi's    Collection:    Parte    Moderna    t.    iii.)- 

"  For  further  details  on  this  subject  see  in  my  work  cited  above,  the  chapter  on 
"  The    precious    metals." 

*  "II  danaro  i  la  merce  universale   (Verri,  L   c,  p.   16). 

*  "Silver  and  gold  themselves  (which  we  may  call  by  the  general  name  of 
bullion),  are  .  .  .  commodities  .  .  .  rising  and  falling  in  ,  .  .  value.  .  .  Bullion, 
then,  may  be  reckoned  to  be  of  higher  value  where  the  smaller  'weight  will  purchase 
the  greatest  quantity  of  the  product  or  manufacture  of  the  countrey,"  &c.  ("A 
Discourse  of  the  General  Notions  of  Money,  Trade,  and  Exchange,  as  they  stand 
in  relations  to  each  other."  By  a  Merchant.  Lond.,  1695,  p.  7.)  "Silver  and 
gold,  coined  or  uncoined,  though  they  are  used  for  a  measure  of  all  other  things, 
are  no  less  a  commodity  than  wine,  oyl,  tobacco,  cloth,  or  stuffs."  ("  A  Discourse 
concerning  Trade,  and  that  in  particular  of  the  East  Indies,"  &c.  London,  1689, 
p.  2.)  "The  stock  and  riches  of  the  kingdom  cannot  properly  be  confined  to 
money,  nor  ought  gold  and  silver  to   be  excluded   from  being  merchandize."     ("A 


Exchange.  103 

covery  only  for  those  who,  when  they  analyse  it,  start  from  its 
fully  developed  shape.  The  act  of  exchange  gives  to  the  com- 
modity converted  into  money,  not  its  value,  but  its  specific 
value-form.  By  confoimding  these  two  distinct  things  some 
.  writers  have  been  led  to  hold  that  the  value  of  gold  and  silver 
is  imaginary.^  The  fact  that  money  can,  in  certain  functions, 
be  replaced  by  mere  symbols  of  itself,  gave  rise  to  that  other 
mistaken  notion,  that  it  is  itself  a  mere  symbol.  Nevertheless 
Tinder  this  error  lurked  a  presentiment  that  the  money-form  of 
an  object  is  not  an  inseparable  part  of  that  object,  but  is  simply 
the  form  under  which  certain  social  relations  manifest  them- 
selves. In  this  sense  every  commodity  is  a  smybol,  since,  in  so 
far  as  it  is  value,  it  is  only  the  material  envelope  of  the  human 
labour  spent  upon  it.^  But  if  it  be  declared  that  the  social 
characters  assumed  by  objects,  or  the  material  forms  assumed 
by  the  social  qualities  of  labour  under  the  regime  of  a  definite 
mode  of  production,  are  mere  symbols,  it  is  in  the  same  breath 
also  declared  that  these  characteristics  are  arbitrary  fictions 
sanctioned  by  the  so-called  universal  consent  of  mankind.    This 

Treatise  concerning  the  East  India  Trade  being  a  most  profitable  Trade."  Lon- 
don,  1680,   Reprint   1696,   p.    4.) 

1  "L'oro  e  I'argento  hanno  valore  come  metalli  anteriore  all'  esser  moneta." 
(Galiani,  I.e.).  Locke  says,  "  The  universal  consent  of  mankind  gave  to  silver,  on 
account  of  its  qualities  which  made  it  suitable  for  money,  an.  imaginary  value." 
Law,  on  the  other  hand,  "  How  could  different  nations  give  an  imaginary  value 
to  any  single  thing  ...  or  how  could  this  imaginary  value  have  maintained  itself?" 
But  the  following  shows  how  little  he  himself  understood  about  the  matter:  "  Sil- 
ver was  exchanged  in  proportion  to  the  value  in  use  it  possessed,  consequently  in 
proportion  to  its  real  value.  By  its  adoption  as  money  it  received  an  additional 
value  (une  valeur  additionelle)"  (Jean  Law:  "Considerations  sur  le  numeraire 
et  le  commerce"  in  E.  Daire's  Edit,  of  "Economistes  Financiers  du  XVIII.  siecle.," 
p.    470). 

^  L' Argent  en  (des  denrees)  est  le  eigne."  (V.  de  Forbonnais:  "Elements  du 
Commerce,  Nouv.  Edit.  Leyde,  1776,"  t.  II.,  p.  143.)  "Comme  signe  il  est  attire 
par  les  denrees."  (I.e.,  p.  155).  "  L'argent  est  un  signe  d'une  chose  et  la 
represente."  (Montesquieu:  "Esprit  des  Lois,"  Oeuvres,  Lond.  1767,  t.  XL,  p.  2.) 
"L'argent  n'est  pas  simple  signe,  car  il  est  lui-meme  richesse;  il  ne  represente 
pas  les  valeurs,  il  les  equivaut."  (Le  Trosne,  I.e.,  p.  910.)  "The  notion  of  value 
contemplates  the  valuable  article  as  a  mere  symbol;  the  article  counts  not  for  what 
it  is,  but  for  what  it  is  worth."  (Hegel,  I.e.,  p.  100.)  Lawyers  started  long 
before  economists  the  idea  that  money  is  a  mere  symbol,  and  that  the  value  of  the 
precious  metals  is  purely  imaginary.  This  they  did  in  the  sycophantic  service  of 
the  crowned  heads,  supporting  the  right  of  the  latter  to  debase  the  coinage,  during 
the  whole  of  the  middle  ages,  by  the  traditions  of  the  Roman  Empire  and  the 
conceptions  of  money  to  be  found  in  the  Pandects.  "Qu'  aucun  puisse  ni  doive 
faire  doute,"  says  an  apt  scholar  of  theirs,  Philip  of  Valois,  in  a  decree  of 
1346,    "  que   a    nous    et   a   notre    majeste    royale   n'    appartiennent    seulement.  .  .  le 


104  Capitalist  Production. 

suited  the  mode  of  explanation  in  favour  during  the  18th 
century.  Unable  to  account  for  the  origin  of  the  puzzling 
forms  assumed  by  social  relations  between  man  and  man,  peo- 
ple sought  to  denude  them  of  their  strange  appearance  by 
ascribing  to  them  a  conventional  origin. 

It  has  already  been  remarked  above  that  the  equivalent  form 
of  a  commodity  does  not  imply  the  determination  of  the  magni- 
tude of  its  value.  Therefore,  although  we  may  be  aware  that 
gold  is  money,  and  consequently  directly  exchangeable  for  all 
other  commodities,  yet  that  fact  by  no  means  tells  how  much 
10  lbs.,  for  instance,  of  gold  is  worth.  Money,  like  every  other 
commodity,  cannot  express  the  magnitude  of  its  value  except 
relatively  in  other  commodities.  This  value  is  determined  by 
the  labour-time  required  for  its  production,  and  is  expressed  by 
the  quantity  of  any  other  commodity  that  costs  the  same 
amount  of  labour-time.^  Such  quantitative  determination  of 
its  relative  value  takes  place  at  the  source  of  its  production  by 
means  of  barter.  When  it  steps  into  circulation  as  money,  its 
value  is  already  given.  In  the  last  decades  of  the  17  th  cen- 
tury it  had  already  been  shown  that  money  is  a  commodity, 
but  this  step  marks  only  the  infancy  of  the  analysis.  The 
difficulty  lies,  not  in  comprehending  that  money  is  a  commo- 
dity, but  in  discovering  how,  why  and  by  what  means  a  com- 
modity becomes  money.^ 

mestier,  le  fait,  I'^tat,  la  provision  et  toute  rordonnance  des  monnaies,  de  donner 
tel  cours,  et  pour  tel  prix  comme  il  nous  plait  et  bon  nous  semble."  It  was 
a  maxim  of  the  Roman  Law  that  the  value  of  money  was  fixed  by  decree  of  the 
emperor.  It  was  expressly  forbidden  to  treat  money  as  a  commodity.  "  Pecunias 
vero  nulH  emere  fas  erit,  nam  in  usu  publico  constitutas  oportet  non  esse 
mercem."  Some  good  work  on  this  question  has  been  done  by  G.  F.  Pagnini: 
"Saggio  sopra  il  giusto  pregfio  delle  cose,  1751";  Custodi  "Parte  Moderna,"  t. 
II.  In  the  second  part  of  his  work  Pagnini  directs  his  polemics  especially  against 
the  lawyers. 

* "  If  a  man  can  bring  to  London  an  ounce  of  Silver  out  of  the  Earth  in 
Peru,  in  the  same  time  that  he  can  produce  a  bushel  of  Corn,  then  the  one  is  the 
natural  price  of  the  other;  now,  if  by  reason  of  new  or  more  easie  mines  a  man 
can  procure  two  ounces  of  silver  as  easily  as  he  formerly  did  one,  the  corn  will 
be  as  cheap  at  ten  shillings  the  bushel  as  it  was  before  at  five  shillings,  ceteris 
paribus."  William  Petty:  "A  Treatise  on  Taxes  and  Contributions."  Lond.,  1662, 
p.   32. 

*  The  learned  Professor  Roscher,  after  first  informing  us  that  "  the  false  defini- 
tions of  money  may  be  divided  into  two  main  groups:  those  which  make  it  more, 
and  those  which  make  it  less,  than  a  commodity,"  gives  us  a  long  and  very  mixed 
catalogue  of  works   on   the  nature   of  money,    from   which  it  appears   that   he  has 


Exchange.  105 

We  have  already  seen,  from  tlie  most  elementary  expres- 
sion of  value,  x  commodity  A=y  commodity  B,  that  the  object 
in  which  the  magnitude  of  the  value  of  another  object  is  repre- 
sented, appears  to  have  the  equivalent  form  independently  of 
this  relation,  as  a  social  property  given  to  it  by  Nature.  We 
followed  up  this  false  appearance  to  its  final  establishment, 
which  is  complete  so  soon  as  the  universal  equivalent  form 
becomes  identified  with  the  bodily  form  of  a  particular  com- 
modity, and  thus  crystallised  into  the  money-form.  What 
appears  to  happen  is,  not  that  gold  becomes  money,  in  conse- 
quence of  all  other  commodities  expressing  their  values  in  it, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  that  all  other  commodities  universally 
express  their  values  in  gold,  because  it  is  money.  The  inter- 
mediate steps  of  the  process  vanish  in  the  result  and  leave  no 
trace  behind.  Commodities  find  their  own  value  already  com- 
pletely represented,  without  any  initiative  on  their  part,  in 
another  commodity  existing  in  company  with  them.  These 
objects,  gold  and  silver,  just  as  they  come  out  of  the  bowels  of 
the  earth,  are  forthwith  the  direct  incarnation  of  all  human 
labour.  Hence  the  magic  of  money.  In  the  form  of  society 
now  under  consideration,  the  behaviour  of  men  in  the  social 
process  of  production  is  purely  atomic.  Hence  their  relations 
to  each  other  in  production  assume  a  material  character  inde- 
pendent of  their  control  and  conscious  individual  action. 
These  facts  manifest  themselves  at  first  by  products  as  a  gen- 
eral rule  taking  the  form  of  commodities.  We  have  seen  how 
the  progressive  development  of  a  society  of  commodity-pro- 
ducers stamps  one  privileged  commodity  with  the  character  of 
money.     Hence  the  riddle  presented  by  money  is  but  the  riddle 

not  the  remotest  idea  of  the  real  history  of  the  theory;  and  then  he  moralises 
thus:  "  For  the  rest,  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  most  of  the  later  economists  do  not 
bear  sufficiently  in  mind  the  peculiarities  that  distinguish  money  from  other  com- 
modities" (it  is  then,  after  all,  either  more  or  less  than  a  commodity!)  .  .  .  "So 
far,  the  semi-mercantilist  reaction  of  Ganilh  is  not  altogether  without  foundation." 
(Wilhelm  Roscher:  "  Die  Grundlagen  der  Nationaloekonomie,"  3rd  Edn.,  1858,  pp. 
277-210)  More!  less!  not  sufficiently!  so  far!  not  altogether!  What  clearness  and 
precision  of  ideas  and  language!  And  such  eclectic  professorial  twaddle  is  mod- 
estly baptised  by  Mr.  Roscher,  "  the  anatomico-physiological  method  "  of  political 
economy!  One  discovery  however,  he  must  have  credit  for,  namely,  that  money  is 
"a   pleasant  commodity." 


io6  Capitalist  Production. 

presented  by  commodities;  only  it  now  strikes  us  in  its  most 
glaring  form. 


CHAPTEK  III. 

MONEY,  OR  THE  CIRCULATION  OF  COMMODITIES. 
SECTION   1.      THE  MEAST7EB  OF  VALUES. 

Throughout  this  work,  I  assume^  for  the  sake  of  simplicity, 
gold  as  the  money-commodity. 

The  first  chief  function  of  money  is  to  supply  commodities 
with  the  material  for  the  expression  of  their  values,  or  to  re- 
present their  values  as  magnitudes  of  the  same  denomination, 
qualitatively  equal,  and  quantitatively  comparable.  It  thus 
serves  as  a  universal  measure  of  value.  And  only  by  virtue  of 
this  function  does  gold,  the  equivalent  commodity  par  excel- 
lence, become  money. 

It  is  not  money  that  renders  commodities  commensurable. 
Just  the  contrary.  It  is  because  all  commodities,  as  values,  are 
realised  human  labour,  and  therefore  commensurable,  that 
their  values  can  be  measured  by  one  and  the  same  special  com- 
modity, and  the  latter  be  converted  into  the  common  measure 
of  their  values,  i.e.,  into  money.  Money  as  a  measure  of 
value,  is  the  phenomenal  form  that  must  of  necessity  be  as- 
sumed by  that  measure  of  value  which  is  immanent  in  com- 
modities, labour-time.^ 

The  expression  of  the  value  of  a  commodity  in  gold — ^x 

*  The  question  —  Why  does  not  money  directly  represent  labour-time,  so  that  a 
piece  of  paper  may  represent,  for  instance,  x  hour's  labour,  is  at  bottom  the  same 
83  the  question  why,  given  the  production  of  commodities,  must  products  take  the 
form  of  commodities?  This  is  evident,  since  their  taking  the  form  of  commodities 
implies  their  differentiation  into  commodities  and  money.  Or,  why  cannot  pri- 
vate labour — labour  for  the  account  of  private  individuals — be  treated  as  its  oppo- 
site, immediate  social  labour?  I  have  elsewhere  examined  thoroughly  the  Utopian 
idea  of  "labour-money"  in  a  society  founded  on  the  production  of  commodities 
(1.  c,  p.  61,  seq.).  On  this  point  I  will  only  say  further,  that  Owen's  "  labour- 
money,"  for  instance,  is  no  more  "money"  than  a  ticket  for  the  theatre.  Owen 
presupposes  directly  associated  labour,  a  form  of  production  that  is  entirely  in- 
consistent with  the  production  of  commodities.  The  certificate  of  labour  is  merely 
evidence  of  the  part  taken  by  the  individual  in  the  common  labour,  and  of  his 
right  to  a  certain  portion  of  the  common  produce  destined  for  consumption.  But 
it  never  enters  into  Owen's  head  to  presuppose  the  production  of  commodities, 
and  at  the  same  time, .by  juggling  with  money,  to  try  to  evade  the  necessary  con- 
ditions of  that  production. 


.    Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.        107 

commodity  A=y  money-commodity — is  its  money-form  or 
price.  A  single  equation,  such  as  1  ton  of  iron=2  ounces  of 
gold,  now  suffices  to  express  the  value  of  the  iron  in  a  socially 
valid  manner.  There  is  no  longer  any  need  for  this  equation 
to  figure  as  a  link  in  the  chain  of  equations  that  express  the 
values  of  all  other  commodities,  because  the  equivalent  com- 
modity, gold,  now  has  the  character  of  money.  The  general 
form  of  relative  value  has  resumed  its  original  shape  of  simple 
or  isolated  relative  value.  On  the  other  hand,  tlie  expanded 
expression  of  relative  value,  the  endless  series  of  equations,  has 
now  become  the  form  peculiar  to  the  relative  value  of  the. 
money-commodity.  The  series  itself,  too,  is  now  given,  and 
has  social  recognition  in  the  prices  of  actual  commodities.  We 
have  only  to  read  the  quotations  of  a  price-list  backwards,  to 
find  the  magnitude  of  the  yalue  of  money  expressed  in  all  sorts 
of  commodities.  But  money  itself  has  no  price.  In  order  to 
put  it  on  an  equal  footing  with  all  other  commodities  in  this 
respect,  we  should  be  obliged  to  equate  it  to  itself  as  its  own 
equivalent. 

The  price  or  money-form  of  commodities  is,  like  their  form 
of  value  generally,  a  form  quite  distinct  from  their  palpable 
bodily  form ;  it  is,  therefore,  a  purely  ideal  or  mental  form. 
Although  invisible,  the  value  of  iron,  linen  and  com  has  actual 
existence  in  these  very  articles :  it  is  ideally  made  perceptible 
by  their  equality  with  gold,  a  relation  that,  so  to  say,  exists 
only  in  their  own  heads.  Their  owner  must,  therefore,  lend 
them  his  tongue,  or  hang  a  ticket  on  them,  before  their  prices 
can  be  communicated  to  the  outside  world.  ^  Since  the  ex- 
pression of  the  value  of  commodities  in  gold  is  a  merely  ideal 

^  Savages  and  half -civilised  races  use  the  tong  differently.  Captain  Parry  says 
of  the  inhabitants  on  the  west  coast  of  Baffin's  Bay:  "  In  this  case  (he  refers  to 
barter)  they  licked  it  (the  thing  represented  to  them)  twice  to  their  tongues,  after 
which  they  seemed  to  consider  the  bargain  satisfactorily  concluded."  In  the  same 
way,  the  Eastern  Esquimaux  licked  the  articles  they  received  in  exchange.  If  the 
tongue  is  thus  used  in  the  North  as  the  organ  of  appropriation,  no  wonder  that,  in 
the  South,  the  stomach  serves  as  the  organ  of  accumulated  property,  and  that  a 
Kaffir  estimates  the  wealth  of  a  man  by  the  size  of  his  belly.  That  the  Kaffirs 
know  what  they  are  about  is  shown  by  the  following:  at  the  same  time  that  the 
official  British  Health  Report  of  1864  disclosed  the  deficiency  of  fat- forming  food 
among  a  large  part  of  the  working  class,  a  certain  Dr.  Harvey  (not,  however,  the 
celebrated  discoverer  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood),  made  a  good  thing  by  adver- 
tising recipes  for  reducing  the  superfluous  fat  of  the  bourgeoisie  and  aristocracy. 


io8  Capitalist  Production. 

act,  we  may  use  for  this  purpose  imaginary  or  ideal  money. 
Every  trader  knows,  that  he  is  far  from  having  turned  his 
goods  into  money,  when  he  has  expressed  their  value  in  a  price 
or  in  imaginary  money,  and  that  it  does  not  require  the  least 
bit  of  real  gold,  to  estimate  in  that  metal  millions  of  pounds' 
worth  of  goods.  When,  therefore,  money  serves  as  a  measure 
of  value,  it  is  employed  only  as  imaginary  or  ideal  money. 
This  circumstance  has  given  rise  to  the  wildest  theories.*  But, 
although  the  money  that  performs  the  functions  of  a  measure 
of  value  is  only  ideal  money,  price  depends  entirely  upon  the 
actual  substance  that  is  money.  The  value,  or  in  other  words, 
the  quantity  of  human  labour  contained  in  a  ton  of  iron,  is 
expressed  in  imagination  by  such  a  quantity  of  the  money- 
commodity  as  contains  the  same  amount  of  labour  as  the  iron. 
According,  therefore,  as  the  measure^  of  value  is  gold,  silver,  or 
copper,  the  value  of  the  ton  of  iron  will  be  expressed  by  very 
different  prices,  or  will  be  represented  by  very  different  quan- 
tities of  those  metals  respectively. 

If,  therefore,  two  different  commodities,  such  as  gold  and 
silver,  are  simultaneously  measures  of  value,  all  commodities 
have  two  prices — one  a  gold-price,  the  other  a  silver-price. 
These  exist  quietly  side  by  side,  so  long  as  the  ratio  of  the 
value  of  silver  to  that  of  gold  remains  unchanged,  say,  at  15  : 1. 
Every  change  in  their  ratio  disturbs  the  ratio  which  exists 
between  the  gold-prices  and  the  silver-prices  of  commodities, 
and  thus  proves,  by  facts,  that  a  double  standard  of  value  is 
inconsistent  with  the  functions  of  a  standard.^ 

*  See  Karl  Marx:  "Critique,  etc.,  chapter  II.  B.,  Theories  of  the  Unit  of  Meas- 
ure of  Money,"  p.  91,  fiE. 

*  "  Wherever  gold  and  silver  have  by  law  been  made  to  perform  the  function  of 
money  or  of  a  measure  of  value  side  by  side,  it  has  always  been  tried,  but  in 
vain,  to  treat  them  as  one  and  the  same  material.  To  assume  that  there  is  an 
invariable  ratio  between  the  quantities  of  gold  and  silver  in  which  a  given  quantity 
of  labour-time  is  incorporated,  is  to  assume,  in  fact,  that  gold  and  silver  are  of 
one  and  the  same  material,  and  that  a  given  mass  of  the  less  valuable  metal, 
silver,  is  a  constant  fraction  of  a  given  mass  of  gold.  From  the  reign  of  Edward 
III.  to  the  time  of  George  II.,  the  history  of  money  in  England  consists  of  one 
long  series  of  perturbations  caused  by  the  clashing  of  the  legally  fixed  ratio  be- 
tween the  values  of  gold  and  silver,  with  the  fluctuations  in  their  real  values.  At 
one  time  gold  was  too  high,  at  another,  silver.  The  metal  that  for  the  time  being 
was  estimated  below  its  value,  was  withdrawn  from  circulation,  melted  and  ex- 
ported. The  ratio  between  the  two  metals  was  then  again  altered  by  law,  but 
the  new  nominal  ratio  soon  came  into  conflict  again  with  the  real  one.     In  our  own 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.       109 

Commodities  with  definite  prices  present  themselves  under 
the  form:  a  commodity  A=x  gold;  b  commodity  B=z  gold; 
c  commodity  C=y  gold,  &c.,  where  a,  b,  c,  represent  definite 
quantities  of  the  commodities  A,  B^  C  and  x,  z,  j,  definite 
quantities  of  gold.  The  values  of  these  commodities  are, 
therefore,  changed  in  imagination  into  so  many  different  quan- 
tities of  gold.  Hence,  in  spite  of  the  confusing  variety  of 
the  commodities  themselves,  their  values  become  magnitudes 
of  the  same  denomination,  gold-magnitudes.  They  are  now 
capable  of  being  compared  with  each  other  and  measured,  and 
the  want  becomes  technically  felt  of  comparing  them  with 
some  fixed  quantity  of  gold  as  a  unit  measure.  This  unit,  by 
subsequent  division  into  aliquot  parts,  becomes  itself  thje 
standard  or  scale.  Before  they  become  money,  gold,  silver, 
and  copper  already  possess  such  standard  measures  in  their 
standards  of  weight,  so  that,  for  example,  a  pound  weight, 
while  serving  as  the  unit,  is,  on  the  one  hand,  divisible  into 
ounces,  and,  on  the  other,  may  be  combined  to  make  up 
hundredweights.^  It  is  owing  to  this  that,  in  all  metallic 
currencies,  the  names  given  to  the  standards  of  money  or  of 
price  were  originally  taken  from  the  pre-existing  names  of  the 
standards  of  weight. 

As  measure  of  value  and  as  standard  of  price,  money  has  two 

times,  the  slight  and  transient  fall  in  the  value  of  gold  compared  with  silver,  which 
was  a  consequence  of  the  Indo-Chinese  demand  for  silver,  produced  on  a  far 
more  extended  scale  in  France  the  same  phenomena,  export  of  silver,  and  its  ex- 
pulsion from  circulation  by  gold.  During  the  years  1855,  1856  and  1857,  the  excess 
in  France  of  gold-imports  over  gold  exports  amounted  to  £41,580,000,  while  the 
excess  of  silver-exports  over  silver-imports  was  £14,704,000.  In  fact,  in  those 
countries  in  which  both  metals  are  legally  measures  of  value,  and  therefore  both 
legal  tender,  so  that  everyone  has  the  option  of  paying  in  either  metal,  the  metal 
that  rises  in  value  is  at  a  premium,  and,  like  every  other  commodity,  measures  its 
price  in  the  over-estimated  metal  which  alone  serves  in  reality  as  the  standard 
of  value.  The  result  of  all  experience  and  history  with  regard  to  this  question  is 
simply  that,  where  two  commodities  perform  by  law  the  functions  of  a  measure  of 
value,  in  practice  one  alone  maintains  that  position."  (Karl  Marx,  1.  c.  pp.  90—91.) 
^  The  peculiar  circumstance,  that  while  the  ounce  of  gold  serves  in  England  as 
the  unit  of  the  standard  of  money,  the  pound  sterling  does  not  form  an  aliquot 
part  of  it,  has  been  explained  as  follows:  "  Our  coinage  was  originally  adapted 
to  the  employment  of  silver  only,  hence,  an  ounce  of  silver  can  always  be  divided 
into  a  certain  adequate  number  of  pieces  of  coin;  but  as  gold  was  introduced 
at  a  later  period  into  a  coinage  adapted  only  to  silver,  an  ounce  of  gold  cannot  be 
coined  into  an  aliquot  number  of  pieces."  Maclaren,  "A  Sketch  of  the  History 
of   the    Currency."     London,    1858,    p.    16. 


no  Capitalist  Production. 

entirely  distinct  functions  to  perform.  It  is  the  measure 
of  value  inasmuch  as  it  is  the  socially  recognised  incarnation 
of  human  labour ;  it  is  the  standard  of  price  inasmuch  as  it  is 
a  fixed  weight  of  metal.  As  the  measure  of  value  it  serves  to 
convert  the  values  of  all  the  manifold  commodities  into  prices, 
into  imaginary  quantities  of  gold ;  as  the  standard  of  price  it 
measures  those  quantities  of  gold.  The  measure  of  values 
measures  commodities  considered  as  values ;  the  standard  of 
price  measures,  on  the  contrary,  quantities  of  gold  by  a  unit 
quantity  of  gold,  not  the  value  of  one  quantity  of  gold  by  the 
weight  of  another.  In  order  to  make  gold  a  standard  of  price, 
a  certain  weight  must  be  fixed  upon  as  the  unit  In  this  case, 
as  in  all  cases  of  measuring  quantities  of  the  same  denomina- 
tion, the  establishment  of  an  unvarying  unit  of  measure  is  all- 
important.  Hence,  the  less  the  unit  is  subject  to  variation,  so 
much  the  better  does  the  standard  of  price  fulfill  its  office.  But 
only  in  so  far  as  it  is  itself  a  product  of  labour,  and,  therefore, 
potentially  variable  in  value,  can  gold  serve  as  a  measure  of 
value.  ^ 

It  is,  in  the  first  place,  quite  clear  that  a  change  in  the  value 
of  gold  does  not,  in  any  way,  affect  its  function  as  a  standard 
of  price.  No  matter  how  this  value  varies,  the  proportions 
between  the  values  of  different  quantities  of  the  metal  remain 
constant.  However  great  the  fall  in  its  value,  12  ounces  of 
gold  still  have  12  times  the  value  of  1  ounce;  and  in  prices, 
the  only  thing  considered  is  the  relation  between  different 
quantities  of  gold.  Since,  on  the  other  hand,  no  rise  or  fall  in 
the  value  of  an  ounce  of  gold  can  alter  its  weight,  no  alteration 
can  take  place  in  the  weight  of  its  aliquot  parts.  Thus  gold 
always  renders  the  same  service  as  an  invariable  standard  of 
price,  however  much  its  value  may  vary. 

In  the  second  place,  a  change  in  the  value  of  gold  does  not 
interfere  with  its  functions  as  a  measure  of  value.  The 
change  affects  all  commodities  simultaneously,  and,  therefore, 
coeteris  paribus,  leaves  their  relative  values  inter  se,  unaltered, 

*  With  English  writers  the  confusion  between  measure  of  value  and  standard  of 
price  (standard  of  value)  is  indescribable.  Their  functions,  as  well  as  their  names, 
are  constantly   interchanged. 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.       iii 

although  those  values  are  now  expressed  in  higher  or  lower 
gold-prices. 

Just  as  when  we  estimate  the  value  of  any  coijimodity  by 
a  definite  quantity  of  the  use-value  of  some  other  commodity, 
so  in  estimating  the  value  of  the  former  in  gold,  we  assume 
nothing  more  than  that  the  production  of  a  given  quantity  of 
gold  costs,  at  the  given  period,  a  given  amount  of  labour.  As 
regards  the  fluctuations  of  prices  generally,  they  are  subject  to 
the  laws  of  elementary  relative  value  investigated  in  a  former 
chapter. 

A  general  rise  in  the  prices  of  commodities  can  result  only, 
either  from  a  rise  in  their  values — the  value  of  money  remain- 
ing constant — or  from  a  fall  in  the  value  of  money,  the  values 
of  commodities  remaining  constant  On  the  other  hand,  a 
general  fall  in  prices  can  result  only,  either  from  a  fall  in  the 
values  of  commodities — the  value  of  money  remaining  con- 
stant— or  from  a  rise  in  the  value  of  money,  the  values  of 
commodities  remaining  constant.  It  therefore  by  no  means 
follows,  that  a  rise  in  the  value  of  money  necessarily  implies  a 
proportional  fall  in  the  prices  of  commodities ;  or  that  a  fall  in 
the  value  of  money  implies  a  proportional  rise  in  prices. 
Such  change,  of  price  holds  good  only  in  the  case  of  com- 
modities whose  value  remains  constant.  With  those,  for  ex- 
ample whose  value  rises,  simultaneously  with,  and  propor- 
tionally to,  that  of  money,  there  is  no  alteration  in  price. 
And  if  their  value  rise  either  slower  or  faster  than  that  of 
money,  the  fall  or  rise  in  their  prices  will  be  determined  by 
the  difference  between  the  change  in  their  value  and  that  of 
money ;  and  so  on. 

Let  us  now  go  back  to  the  consideration  of  the  price-form. 

By  degrees  there  arises  a  discrepancy  between  the  current 
money  names  of  the  various  weights  of  the  precious  metal 
figuring  as  money,  and  the  actual  weights  which  those  names 
originally  represented.  This  discrepancy  is  the  result  of  his- 
torical causes,  among  which  the  chief  are: — (1)  The  im- 
portation of  foreign  money  into  an  imperfectly  developed 
community.  This  happened  in  Rome  in  its  early  days,  where 
gold  and  silver  coins  circulated  at  first  as  foreign  commodities. 


112  Capitalist  Production. 

The  names  of  these  foreign  coins  never  coincide  with  those  of 
the  indigenous  weights.  (2)  As  wealth  increases,  the  less 
precious  metal  is  thrust  out  by  the  more  precious  from  its  place 
as  a  measure  of  value,  copper  by  silver,  silver  by  gold,  however 
much  this  order  of  sequence  may  be  in  contradiction  with 
poetical  chronology.^  The  word  pound,  for  instance,  was  the 
money-name  given  to  an  actual  pound  weight  of  silver.  Wlien 
gold  replaced  silver  as.  a  measure  of  value,  the  same  name  was 
applied  according  to  the  ratio  between  the  values  of  silver  and 
gold,  to  perhaps  l-15th  of  a  pound  of  gold.  The  word  pound, 
as  a  money-name,  thus  becomes  differentiated  from  the  same 
word  as  a  weight-name.^  (3)  The  debasing  of  money  carried 
on  for  centuries  by  kings  and  princes  to  such  an  extent  that,  of 
the  original  weights  of  the  coins,  nothing  in  fact  remained  but 
the  names. 

These  historical  causes  convert  the  separation  of  the  money- 
name  from  the  weight-name  into  an  established  habit  with  the 
community.^  Since  the  standard  of  money  is  on  the  one  hand 
purely  conventional,  and  must  on  the  other  hand  find  general 
acceptance,  it  is  in  the  end  regulated  by  law.  A  given  weight 
of  one  of  the  precious  metals,  an  ounce  of  gold,  for  instance, 
becomes  officially  divided  into  aliquot  parts,  with  legally  be- 
stowed names,  such  as  pound,  dollar,  &c.  These  aliquot  parts, 
which  henceforth  serve  as  units  of  money,  are  then  sub- 
divided into  other  aliquot  parts  with  legal  names,  such  as 
shilling,  penny,  fee*  But,  both,  before  and  after  these 
divisions  are  made,  a  definite  weight  of  metal  is  the  standard 
of  metallic  money.  The  sole  alteration  consists  in  the  sub- 
division and  denomination. 

'  Moreover,  it  has  not  general  historical  validity. 

*It  is  thus  that  the  pound  sterling  in  English  denotes  less  than  one-third  of  its 
original  weight;  the  pound  Scot,  before  the  union,  only  l-a6th;  the  French  livre, 
l-74th;  the  Spanish  maravedi,  less  than  1-lOOOth;  and  the  Portuguese  rei  a  still 
smaller    fraction. 

•  "Lc  monete  le  quali  oggi  sono  ideali  sono  le  piu  antiche  d'ogni  nazione,  e  tutte 
furono  un  tempo  reali,  e  perchc  erano  reali  con  esse  si  contava."  (Galiani: 
Delia  moneta,    1.   c,    p.    153.) 

*  David  Urquhart  remarks  in  his  "Familiar  Words"  on  the  monstrosity  (!) 
that  now-a-days  a  pound  (sterling),  which  is  the  unit  of  the  English  standard 
of  money,  is  equal  to  about  a  quarter  of  an  ounce  of  gold.  "This  is  falsify- 
ing a  measure,  not  establishing  a  standard."  He  sees  in  this  "  false  denomination  " 
of  the  weight  of  gold,  as  in  everything  else,  the  falsifying  hand  of  civilisation. 


Money,  vr  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.       113 

The  prices,  or  quantities  of  gold,  into  which  the  values  of 
commodities  are  ideally  changed,  are  therefore  now  expressed 
vn  the  names  of  coins,  or  in  the  legally  valid  names  of  the  sub- 
divisions of  the  gold  standard.  Hence,  instead  of  saying :  A 
quarter  of  wheat  is  worth  an  ounce  of  gold ;  we  say,  it  is  worth 
£3  17s.  10|-d.  In  this  way  commodities  express  by  their  prices 
how  much  they  are  worth,  and  money  serves  as  money  of 
acconnt  whenever  it  is  a  question  of  fixing  the  value  of  an 
article  in  its  money-form.-' 

The  name  of  a  thing  is  something  distinct  from  the  qualities 
of  that  thing.  I  know  nothing  of  a  man,  by  knowing  that  his 
name  is  Jacob.  In  the  same  way  with  regard  to  money,  every 
trace  of  a  value-relation  disappears  in  the  names  pound,  dollar, 
franc,  ducat,  &c.  The  confusion  caused  by  attributing  a  hidden 
meaning  to  these  cabalistic  signs  is  all  the  greater,  because 
these  money-names  express  both  the  values  of  commodities, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  aliquot  parts  of  the  weight  of  the  metal 
that  is  the  standard  of  money.^  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
absolutely  necessary  that  valu'e,  in  order  that  it  may  be  distin- 
guished from  the  varied  bodily  forms  of  commodities,  should 
assume  this  material  and  unmeaning,  but,  at  the  same  time, 
purely  social  form.^ 

*  When  Anacharsis  was  asked  for  what  purposes  the  Greeks  used  money,  he  re- 
plied, "  For  reckoning."     (Athen.  Deipn.  1.  "iv.  49  v.  2.  ed  Schweighauser,  1802.) 

^  "  Owing  to  the  fact  that  money,  when  serving  as  the  standard  of  price,  appears 
under  the  same  reckoning  names  as  do  the  prices  of  commodities,  and  that 
therefore  the  sum  of  £3  17s.  lOJ^d.  may  signify  on  the  one  hand  an  ounce  weight 
of  gold,  and  on  the  other,  the  value  of  a  ton  of  iron,  this  reckoning  name  of  money 
has  been  called  its  mint-price.  Hence  there  sprang  up  the  extraordinary  notion, 
that  the  value  of  gold  is  estimated  in  its  own  material,  and  that,  in  contra-distinc- 
tion  to  all  other  commodities,  its  price  is  fixed  by  the  State.  It  was  erroneously 
thought  that  the  giving  of  reckoning  names  to  definite  weights  of  gold,  is  the 
same  thing  as  fixing  the  value  of  those   weights."     (Karl  Marx.   1.   c,  p.    89.) 

*  See  "Theories  of  the  Unit  of  Measure  of  Money"  in  "Critique  of  Political 
Economy,"  p.  91,  ff.  The  fantastic  notions  about  raising  or  lowering  the  mint- 
price  of  money  by  transferring  to  greater  or  smaller  weights  of  gold  or  silver 
the  names  already  legally  appropriated  to  fixed  weights  of  those  metals;  such  no- 
tions, at  least  in  those  cases  in  which  they  aim,  not  at  clumsy  financial  operations 
against  creditors,  both  public  and  private,  but  at  economical  quack  remedies  have 
been  so  exhaustively  treated  by  Wm.  Petty  in  his  "  Quantulumcunque  concerning 
money:  To  the  Lord  Marquis  of  Halifax,  1682,"  that  even  his  immediate  followers. 
Sir  Dudley  North  and  John  Locke,  not  to  mention  later  ones,  could  only  dilute 
him.  "  If  the  wealth  of  a  nation,"  he  remarks,  "  could  be  decupled  by  a  proclama- 
tion, it  were  strange  that  such  proclamations  have  not  long  since  been  made  by  our 
Governors."     (1.  c,  p.  36.) 

H 


114  Capitalist  Production. 

Price  is  the  money-name  of  the  labour  realised  in  a  commo- 
dity. Hence  the  expression  of  the  equivalence  of  a  commodity 
with  the  sum  of  money  constituting  its  price,  is  a  tautology,^ 
just  as  in  general  the  expression  of  the  relative  value  of  a 
commodity  is  a  statement  of  the  equivalence  of  two  commod- 
ities. But  although  price,  being  the  exponent  of  the  magni- 
tude of  a'  commodity's  value,  is  the  exponent  of  its  exchange- 
ratio  with  money,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  exponent  of  this 
exchange-ratio  is  necessarily  the  exponent  of  the  magnitude  of 
the  commodity's  value.  Suppose  two  equal  quantities  of  social- 
ly necessary  labour  to  be  respectively  represented  by  1  quarter 
of  wheat  and  £2  (nearly  ^  oz.  of  gold),  £2  is  the  expression  in 
money  of  the  magnitude  of  the  value  of  the  quarter  of  wheat, 
or  is  its  price.  If  now  circumstances  allow  of  this  price  being 
raised  to  £3,  or  compel  it  to  be  reduced  to  £1,  then  although 
£1  and  £3  may  be  too  small  or  too  great  properly  to  express 
the  magnitude  of  the  wheat's  value,  nevertheless  they  are  its 
prices,  for  they  are,  in  the  first  place,  the  form  under  which  its 
value  appears,  i.e.,  money;  and  in  the  second  place,  the  ex- 
ponents of  its  exchange-ratio  with  money.  If  the  conditions 
of  production,  in  other  words,  if  the  productive  power  of 
labour  remain  constant,  the  same  amount  of  social  labour-time 
must,  both  before  and  after  the  change  in  price,  be  expended  in 
the  reproduction  of  a  quarter  of  wheat.  This  circumstance  de- 
pends, neither  on  the  will  of  the  wheat  producer,  nor  on  that 
of  the  owners  of  other  commodities. 

Magnitude  of  value  expresses  a  relation  of  social  production, 
it  expresses  the  connection  that  necessarily  exists  between  a 
certain  article  and  the  portion  of  the  total  labour-time  of  society 
required  to  produce  it.  As  soon  as  magnitude  of  value  is  con- 
verted into  price,  the  above  necessary  relation  takes  the  shape 
of  a  more  or  less  accidental  exchange-ratio  between  a  single 
commodity  and  another,  the  money-commodity.  But  this  ex- 
change-ratio may  express  either  the  real  magnitude  of  that 
commodity's  value,  or  the  quantity  of  gold  deviating  from  that 
value,  for  which,  according  to  circumstances,  it  may  be  parted 

* "  Ou  bicn,  jl  faut  consentir  a  dire  qu'une  valcur  d'un  million  en  argent  vaut 
plus  qu'une  valeur  egale  en  marchandises."  (Le  Trosne  1.  c.  p.  919),  which 
amounts  to  saying,  "qu'une  valeur  vaut  plus  qu'une  valeur  ^gale." 


Money  J  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.       115 

with.  The  possibility,  therefore,  of  quantitative  incongruity 
between  price  and  magnitude  of  value,  or  the  deviation  of  the 
former  from  the  latter,  is  inherent  in  the  price-form  itself. 
This  is  no  defect,  but,  on  the  contrary,  admirably  adapts  the 
price-form  to  a  mode  of  production  whose  inherent  laws  impose 
themselves  only  as  the  mean  of  apparently  lawless  irregulari- 
ties that  compensate  one  another. 

The  price-form,  however,  is  not  only  compatible  with  the 
possibility  of  a  quantitative  incongruity  between  magnitude 
of  value  and  price,  i.e.,  between  the  former  and  its  expression 
in  money,  but  it  may  also  conceal  a  qualitative  inconsistency,  so 
much  so,  that,  although  money  is  nothing  but  the  value-form  of 
commodities,  price  ceases  altogether  to  express  value.  Objects 
that  in  themselves  are  no  commodities,  such  as  conscience, 
honour,  &c.,  are  capable  of  being  offered  for  sale  by  their  hold- 
ers, and  of  thus  acquiring,  through  their  price,  the  form  of  com- 
modities. Hence  an  object  may  have  a  price  without  having 
value.  The  price  in  that  case  is  imaginary,  like  certain  quan- 
tities in  mathematics.  On  the  other  hand,  the  imaginary  price- 
form  may  sometimes  conceal  either  a  direct  or  indirect  real 
value-relation ;  for  instance,  the  price  of  uncultivated  land, 
which  is  without  value,  because  no  human  labour  has  been  in- 
corporated in  it. 

Price,  like  relative  value  in  general,  expresses  the  value  of 
a  commodity  {e.g.,  a  ton  of  iron),  by  stating  that  a  given  quan- 
tity of  the  equivalent  {e.g.,  an  ounce  of  gold),  is  directly  ex- 
changeable for  iron.  But  it  by  no  means  states  the  converse, 
that  iron  is  directly  exchangeable  for  gold.  In  order,  there- 
fore, that  a  commodity  may  in  practice  act  effectively  as  ex- 
change value,  it  must  quit  its  bodily  shape,  must  transform  it- 
self from  mere  imaginary  into  real  gold,  although  to  the  com- 
modity such  transubstantiation  may  be  more  difficult  than  to 
the  Hegelian  "concept,"  the  transition  from  "necessity"  to 
"freedom,"  or  to  a  lobster  the  casting  of  his  shell,  or  to  Saint 
Jerome  the  putting  off  of  the  old  Adam.^     Though  a  commod- 

*  Jerome  had  to  wrestle  hard,  not  only  in  his  youth  with  the  bodily  flesh,  as  is 
shown  by  his  fight  in  the  desert  with  the  handsome  women  of  his  imagination,  but 
also  in  his  old  age  with  the  spiritual  flesh.  "  I  thought,"  he  says,  "  I  was  in  the 
spirit  before  the  Judge  of  the  Universe."     "Who  art  thou?"  asked  a  voice.     "I  am 


ii6     '  Capitalist  Production. 

ity  may,  side  by  side  with  its  actual  form  (iron,  for  in- 
stance), take  in  our  imagination  the  form  of  gold,  yet  it  cannot 
at  one  and  the  same  time  actually  be  both  iron  and  gold.  To 
fix  its  price,  it  suffices  to  equate  it  to  gold  in  imagination.  But 
to  enable  it  to  render  to  its  owner  the  service  of  a  universal 
equivalent,  it  must  be  actually  replaced  by  gold.  If  the  owner 
of  the  iron  were  to  go  to  the  owner  of  some  other  commodity 
offered  for  exchange,  and  were  to  refer  him  to  the  price  of  the 
iron  as  proof  that  it  was  already  money,  he  would  get  the  same 
answer  as  St.  Peter  gave  in  heaven  to  Dante,  when  the  latter 

recited  the  creed — • 

"  Assai  bene  6  trascorsa 
D'esta  moneta  gift  la  lega  e'l  peso, 
Ma  dimmi  se  tu  I'hai  nella  tua  borsa." 

A  price  therefore  implies  both  that  a  commodity  is  exchange- 
able for  money,  and  also  that  it  must  be  so  exchanged.  On 
the  other  hand,  gold  serves  as  an  ideal  measure  of  value,  only 
because  it  has  already,  in  the  process  of  exchange,  established 
itself  as  the  money-commodity.  Under  the  ideal  measure  of 
values  there  lurks  the  hard  cash. 

SECTION  2. THE  MEDIUM  OF  CIRCI]XATION. 

a.  The  Metamiorphosis  of  Commodities. 

We  saw  in  a  former  chapter  that  the  exchange  of  commodi- 
ties implies  contradictory  and  mutually  exclusive  conditions. 
The  differentiation  of  commodities  into  commodities  and 
money  does  not  sweep  away  these  inconsistencies,  but  develops 
a  m/)dus  vivendi,  a  form  in  which  they  can  exist  side  by  side. 
This  is  generally  the  way  in  which  real  contradictions  are 
reconciled.  For  instance,  it  is  a  contradiction  to  depict  one 
body  as  constantly  falling  towards  another,  and  as,  at  the 
same  time,  constantly  flying  away  from  it.  The  ellipse  is  a 
form  of  motion  which,  while  allowing  this  contradiction  to  go 
on,  at  the  same  time  reconciles  it. 

In  so  far  as  exchange  is  a  process,  by  which  commodities  are 
transferred  from  hands  in  which  they  are  non-use-values,  to 

a  Christian."  "Thou  liest,"  thundered  back  the  great  Judge,  "thou  art  nought  but 
a  Ciceronian." 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.       117 

hands  in  which  they  become  use-values,  it  is  a  social  circula- 
tion of  matter.  The  product  of  one  form  of  useful  labour 
replaces  that  of  another.  When  once  a  commodity  has  found 
a  resting-place,  where  it  can  serve  as  a  use-value,  it  falls  out 
of  the  sphere  of  exchange  into  that  of  consumption.  But  the 
former  sphere  alone  interests  us  at  present.  We  have,  there- 
fore, now  to  consider  exchange  from  a  formal  point  of  view ;  to 
investigate  the  change  of  form  or  metamorphosis  of  commodi- 
ties which  effectuates  the  social  circulation  of  matter. 

The  comprehension  of  this  change  of  form  is,  as  a  rule,  very 
imperfect.  The  cause  of  this  imperfection  is,  apart  from  indis- 
tinct notions  of  value  itself,  that  every  change  of  form  in  a 
commodity  results  from  the  exchange  of  two  commodities,  an 
ordinary  one  and  the  money-commodity.  If  we  keep  in  view  the 
material  fact  alone  that  a  commodity  has  been  exchanged  for  gold 
we  overlook  the  very  thing  that  we  ought  to  observe — namely, 
what  has  happened  to  the  form  of  the  commodity.  We  overlook 
the  facts  that  gold,  when  a  mere  commodity,  is  not  money,  and 
that  when  other  commodities  express  their  prices  in  gold,  this 
gold  is  but  the  money-form  of  those  commodities  themselves. 

Commodities,  first  of  all,  enter  into  the  process  of  exchange 
just  as  they  are.  The  process  then  differentiates  them  into 
commodities  and  money,  and  thus  produces  an  external  oppo- 
sition corresponding  to  the  internal  opposition  inherent  in 
them,  as  being  at  once  use-values  and  values.  Commodities  as 
use-values  now  stand  opposed  to  money  as  exchange  value. 
On  the  other  hand,  both  opposing  sides  are  commodities, 
unities  of  use-value  and  value.  But  this  unity  of  differences 
manifests  itself  at  two  opposite  poles,  and  at  each  pole  in  an 
opposite  way.  Being  poles  they  are  as  necessarily  opposite  as 
they  are  connected.  On  the  one  side  of  the  equation  we  have 
an  ordinary  commodity,  which  is  in  reality  a  use-value.  Its 
value  is  expressed  only  ideally  in  its  price,  by  which  it  is 
equated  to  its  opponent,  the  gold,  as  to  the  real  embodiment 
of  its  value.  On  the  other  hand,  the  gold,  in  its  metallic 
reality  ranks  as  the  embodiment  of  value,  as  money.  Gold, 
as  gold,  is  exchange  value  itself.  As  to  its  use-value,  that  has 
only  an  ideal  existence,  represented  by  the  series  of  expres- 


ii8  Capitalist  Production. 

sions  of  relative  value  in  which  it  stands  face  to  face  with  all 
other  commodities,  the  sum  of  whose  uses  makes  up  the  sum 
of  the  various  uses  of  gold.  These  antagonistic  forms  of  com- 
modities are  the  real  forms  in  which  the  process  of  their 
exchange  moves  and  takes  place. 

Let  us  now  accompany  the  owner  of  some  commodity — say, 
our  old  friend  the  weaver  of  linen — to  the  scene  of  action,  the 
market.  His  20  yards  of  linen  has  a  definite  price,  £2.  He 
exchanges  it  for  the  £2,  and  then,  like  a  man  of  the  good  old 
stamp  that  he  is^,  he  parts  with  the  £2  for  a  family  Bible  of  the 
same  price.  The  linen,  which  in  his  eyes  is  a  mere  commodity, 
a  depository  of  value,  he  alienates  in  exchange  for  gold,  which 
is  the  linen's  value-form,  and  this  form  he  again  parts  with  for 
another  commodity,  the  Bible,  which  is  destined  to  enter  his 
house  as  an  object  of  utility  and  of  edification  to  its  inmates. 
The  exchange  becomes  an  accomplished  fact  by  two  metamor- 
phoses of  opposite  yet  supplementary  character — the  conversion 
of  the  commodity  into  money,  and  the  re-conversion  of  the 
money  into  a  commodity.^  The  two  phases  of  this  metamor- 
phosis are  both  of  them  distinct  transactions  of  the  weaver — • 
selling,  or  the  exchange  of  the  commodity  for  money ;  buying, 
or  the  exchange  of  the  money  for  a  commodity ;  and,  the  unity 
of  the  two  acts,  selling  in  order  to  buy. 

The  result  of  the  whole  transaction,  as  regards  the  weaver, 
is  this,  that  instead  of  being  in  possession  of  the  linen,  he  now 
has  the  Bible;  instead  of  his  original  commodity,  he  now 
possesses  another  of  the  same  value  but  of  different  utility. 
In  like  manner  he  procures  his  other  means  of  subsistence  and 
means  of  production.  From  his  point  of  view,  the  whole  pro- 
cess effectuates  nothing  more  than  the  exchange  of  the  product 
of  his  labour  for  the  product  of  some  one  else's,  nothing  more 
than  an  exchange  of  products. 

The  exchange  of  commodities  is  therefore  accompanied  by 
the  following  changes  in  their  form. 

^"  ix  Si  Tov irvpbs  dvra/jxipecrOat  trivra,  <f>ff(rlv,6  'Hpd/cXetTOj,  Kal  irvp 

iirdvrwv,  &ffvep  xpvffoO  xP'^M-<^'''ci-Kalxpriiid.T(,}»  XP^*^^^-"  (F.  Lassalle:  Die  Philosophic 
llerakleitos  des  Dunkeln.  Berlin,  1845.  Vol.  I,  p.  222.)  Lassalle,  in  his  note  on 
this  passage,   p.   224,  n.   3,  erroneously  makes  gold  a   mere  symbol  of   value. 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.       119 

Commodity — Money — Commodity. 

C M C. 

The  result  of  the  whole  process  is;  so  far  as  concerns  the 
objects  themselves^  C — C,  the  exchange  of  one  commodity  for 
another,  the  circulation  of  materialised  social  labour.  When 
this  result  is  attained,  the  process  is  at  an  end. 

C — M.     First  metamorphosis,  or  sale. 

The  leap  taken  by  value  from  the  body  of  the  commodity, 
into  the  body  of  the  gold,  is^  as  I  have  elsewhere  called  it,  the 
salto  mortale  of  the  commodity.  If  it  falls  short,  then,  al- 
though the  commodity  itself  is  not  harmed,  its  owner  decidedly 
is.  The  social  division  of  labour  causes  his  labour  to  be  as  one- 
sided as  his  wants  are  many-sided.  This  is  precisely  the  reason 
why  the  product  of  his  labour  serves  him  solely  as  exchange 
value.  But  it  cannot  acquire  the  properties  of  a  socially  recog- 
nised universal  equivalent,  except  by  being  converted  into 
money.  That  money,  however,  is  in  some  one  else's  pocket.  In 
order  to  entice  the  money  out  of  that  pocket,  our  friend's  com- 
modity must,  above  all  things,  be  a  use-value  to  the  owner  of  the 
money.  For  this,  it  is  necessary  that  the  labour  expended  upon 
it,  be  of  a  kind  that  is  socially  useful,  of  a  kind  that  constitutes 
a  branch  of  the  social  division  of  labour.  But  division  of  labour 
is  a  system  of  production  which  has  grown  up  spontaneously 
and  continues  to  grow  behind  the  backs  of  the  producers.  The 
commodity  to  be  exchanged  may  possibly  be  the  product  of 
some  new  kind  of  labour,  that  pretends  to  satisfy  newly  arisen 
requirements,  or  even  to  give  rise  itself  to  new  requirements.  A 
particular  operation,  though  yesterday,  perhaps,  forming  one 
out  of  the  many  operations  conducted  by  one  producer  in  creat- 
ing a  given  commodity,  may  to-day  separate  itself  from  this 
connection,  may  establish  itself  as  an  independent  branch  of 
labour  and  send  its  incomplete  product  to  market  as  an  inde- 
pendent commodity.  The  circumstances  may  or  may  not  be  ripe 
for  such  a  separation.  To-day  the  product  satisfies  a  social 
want.  To-morrow  the  article  may,  either  altogether  or  partial- 
ly, be  superseded  by  some  other  appropriate  product.  Moreover, 
although  our  weaver's  labour  may  be  a  recognised  branch  of 


I20  Capitalist  Produdicn. 

the  social  division  of  labour,  yet  tLat  fact  :s  by  no  mehnd  sviffi- 
cient  to  guarantee  the  utility  of  his  20  yardt  of  liiien.  If  the 
community's  want  of  linen,  and  such  a  want  has  a  limit  like 
every  other  want,  should  already  be  saturated  by  the  products 
of  rival  weavers,  our  friend's  product  is  superfluous,  redundant, 
and  consequently  useless.  Although  people  do  not  look  a  gift- 
horse  in  the  mouth,  our  friend  does  not  frequent  the  market  for 
the  purpose  of  making  presents.  But  suppose  his  product  turn 
out  a  real  use-value,  and  thereby  attracts  money  ?  The  question 
arises,  how  much  will  it  attract  'i  No  doubt  the  answer  is  al- 
ready anticipated  in  the  price  of  the  article,  in  the  exponent  of 
the  magnitude  of  its  value.  We  leave  out  of  consideration  here 
any  accidental  miscalculation  of  value  by  our  friend,  a  mistake 
that  is  soon  rectified  in  the  market.  We  suppose  him  to  have 
spent  on  his  product  only  that  amount  of  labour-time  that  is  on 
an  average  socially  necessary  The  price  then,  is  merely  the 
money-name  of  the  quantity  of  social  labour  realised  in  his 
commodity.  But  without  the  leave,  and  behind  the  back,  of  our 
weaver,  the  old  fashioned  mode  of  weaving  undergoes  a  change. 
The  labour-time  that  yesterday  was  without  doubt  socially  nec- 
essary to  the  production  of  a  yard  of  linen,  ceases  to  be  so  to-/ 
day,  a  fact  which  the  owner  of  the  money  is  only  too  eager  to 
prove  from  the  prices  quoted  by  our  friend's  competitors.  Un- 
luckily for  him,  weavers  are  not  few  and  far  between.  Lastly, 
suppose  that  every  piece  of  linen  in  the  market  contains  no 
more  labour-time  than  is  socially  necessary.  In  spite  of  this, 
all  these  pieces  taken  as  a  whole,  may  have  had  superfluous 
labour-time  spent  upon  them.  If  the  market  cannot  stomach 
the  whole  quantity  at  the  normal  price  of  2  shillings  a  yard, 
this  proves  that  too  great  a  portion  of  the  total  labour  of  the 
community  has  been  expended  in  the  form  of  weaving.  The 
^ffect  is  the  same  as  if  each  individual  weaver  had  expended 
more  labour-time  upon  his  particular  product  than  is  socially 
necessary.  Here  we  may  say,  with  the  German  proverb: 
caught  together,  hung  together.  All  the  linen  in  the  market 
counts  but  as  one  article  of  commerce,  of  which  each  piece  is 
only  an  aliquot  part.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  value  also  of 
each  single  yard  is  but  the  materialised  form  of  the  same  def- 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.       121 

inite  and  socially  fixed  quantity  of  homogeneous  human  labour. 

We  see  then,  commodities  are  in  love  with  money,  but  "the 
course  of  true  love  never  did  run  smooth."  The  quantitative 
division  of  labour  is  brought  about  in  exactly  the  same  spon- 
taneous and  accidental  manner  as  its  qualitative  division.  The 
owners  of  commodities  therefore  find  out,  that  the  same  divi- 
sion of  labour  that  turns  them  into  independent  private  pro- 
ducers, also  frees  the  social  process  of  production  and  the 
relations  of  the  individual  producers  to  each  other  within  that 
process,  from  all  dependence  on  the  will  of  those  producers, 
and  that  the  seeming  mutual  independence  of  the  individuals 
is  supplemented  by  a  system  of  general  and  mutual  dependence 
through  or  by  means  of  the  products. 

The  division  of  labour  converts  the  product  of  labour  into  a 
commodity,  and  thereby  makes  necessary  its  further  conversion 
into  money.  At  the  same  time  it  also  makes  the  accomplish- 
ment of  this  trans-substantiation  quite  accidental.  Here,  how- 
ever, we  are  only  concerned  with  the  phenomenon  in  its 
integrity,  and  we  therefore  assume  its  progress  to  be  normal. 
Moreover,  if  the  conversion  take  place  at  all,  that  is,  if  the 
commodity  be  not  absolutely  unsaleable,  its  metamorphosis 
does  take  place  although  the  price  realised  may  be  abnormally 
above  or  below  the  value. 

The  seller  has  his  commodity  replaced  by  gold,  the  buyer 
has  his  gold  replaced  by  a  commodity.  The  fact  which  here 
stares  us  in  the  face  is,  that  a  commodity  and  gold,  20  yards 
of  linen  and  £2,  have  changed  hands  and  places,  in  other  words, 
that  they  have  been  exchanged.  But  for  what  is  the  com- 
modity exchanged  ?  For  the  shape  assumed  by  its  own  value, 
for  the  universal  equivalent.  And  for  what  is  the  gold 
exchanged  ?  For  a  particular  form  of  its  own  use-value. 
Why  does  gold  take  the  form  of  money  face  to  face  with  the 
linen  ?  Because  the  linen's  price  of  £2,  its  denomination  in 
money,  has  already  equated  the  linen  to  gold  in  its  character 
of  money.  A  commodity  strips  off  its  original  commodity-form 
on  being  alienated,  i.e.,  on  the  instant  its  use-value  actually 
attracts  the  gold,  that  before  existed  only  ideally  in  its  price. 
The  realisation  of  a  commodity's  price,  or  of  its  ideal  value- 


122  Capitalist  Production. 

form,  is  therefore  at  the  same  time  the  realisation  of  the  ideal 
use-value  of  money;  the  conversion  of  a  commodity  into 
money,  is  the  simultaneous  conversion  of  money  into  a  com- 
modity. The  apparently  single  process  is  in  reality  a  double 
one.  From  the  pole  of  the  commodity  owner  it  is  a  sale,  from 
the  opposite  pole  of  the  money  owner,  it  is  a  purchase.  In 
other  words,  a  sale  is  a  purchase,  C — M  is  also  M — C.^ 

Up  to  this  point  we  have  considered  men  in  only  one  econom- 
ical capacity,  that  of  owners  of  commodities,  a  capacity  in 
which  they  appropriate  the  prod  ace  of  the  labour  of  others,  by 
alienating  that  of  their  own  labour.  Hence,  for  one  commodity 
owner  to  meet  with  another  who  has  money,  it  is  necessary, 
either,  that  the  product  of  the  labour  of  the  latter  person,  the 
buyer,  should  be  in  itself  money,  should  be  gold,  the  material 
of  which  money  consists,  or  that  his  product  should  already 
have  changed  its  skin  and  have  stripped  off  its  original  form 
of  a  useful  object.  In  order  that  it  may  play  the  part  of 
money,  gold  must  of  course  enter  the  market  at  some  point  or 
other.  This  point  is  to  be  found  at  the  source  of  production 
of  the  metal,  at  which  place  gold  is  bartered,  as  the  immediate 
product  of  labour,  for  some  other  product  of  equal  value. 
From  that  moment  it  always  represents  the  realised  price  of 
some  commodity.^  Apart  from  its  exchange  for  other  com- 
modities at  the  source  of  its  production,  gold,  in  whose-so-ever 
hands  it  may  be,  is  the  transformed  shape  of  some  commodity 
alienated  by  its  owner ;  it  is  the  product  of  a  sale  or  of  the  first 
metamorphosis  C — M.^  Gold,  as  we  saw,  became  ideal  money, 
or  a  measure  of  values,  in  consequence  of  all  commodities 
measuring  their  values  by  it,  and  thus  contrasting  it  ideally 
with  their  natural  shape  as  useful  objects,  and  making  it  the 
shape  of  their  value.  It  became  real  money,  by  the  general 
alienation  of  commodities,  by  actually  changing  places  with 
their  natural  forms  as  useful  objects,  and  thus  becoming  in 

*  "  Toute  vente  est  achat."  (Dr.  Quesnay:  "Dialogues  sur  le  Commerce  et  les 
Travaux  des  Artisans."  Physiocrates  ed.  Daire  I.  Partie,  Paris,  1846,  p.  170),  or 
as  Quesnay  in  his  "Maximes  generales"  puts  it,   "Vendre  est  acheter." 

*  "Le  prix  d'une  marchandise  ne  pouvant  etre  paye  que  par  le  prix  d'une  autre 
marchandise."  (Mercier  de  la  Riviere:  "L'Ordre  natural  et  essentiel  des  societes 
politiqucs."     Physiocrates,  ed.   Daire   II.   Partie,  p.   554.) 

*  "Pour  avoir  cet  argent,  il  faut  avoir  vendu,"  1.  c,  p.  543. 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.       123 

reality  the  embodiment  of  their  values.  When  they  assume  this 
money-shape,  commodities  strip  off  every  trace  of  their  natural 
use-value,  and  of  the  particular  kind  of  labour  to  which  they 
owe  their  creation,  in  order  to  transform  themselves  into  the 
uniform,  socially  recognised  incarnation  of  homogeneous  hu- 
man labour.  We  cannot  tell  from  the  mere  look  of  a  piece  of 
money,  for  what  particular  commodity  it  has  been  exchanged. 
Under  their  money-form  all  commodities  look  alike.  Hence, 
money  may  be  dirt,  although  dirt  is  not  money.  We  will 
assume  that  the  two  gold  pieces,  in  consideration  of  which  our 
weaver  has  parted  with  his  linen,  are  the  metamorphosed  shape 
of  a  quarter  of  wheat.  The  sale  of  the  linen,  C — ^M,  is  at  the 
same  time  its  purchase,  M — C.  But  the  sale  is  the  first  act  of 
a  process  that  ends  with  a  transaction  of  an  opposite  nature, 
namely,  the  purchase  of  a  Bible ;  the  purchase  of  the  linen,  on 
the  other  hand,  ends  a  movement  that  began  with  a  transac- 
tion of  an  opposite  nature,  namely,  with  the  sale  of  the  wheat. 
O — ^M  (linen — ^money),  which  is  the  first  phase  of  C — ^M — C 
(linen — money — ^Bible),  is  also  M— C  (money — ^linen),  the 
last  phase  of  another  movement  C — M — C  (wheat — money — 
linen).  The  first  metamorphosis  of  one  commodity,  its  trans- 
formation from  a  commodity  into  money,  is  therefore  also  in- 
variably the  second  metamorphosis  of  some  other  commodity, 
the  retransformation  of  the  latter  from  money  into  a  com- 
modity.^ 

M — C,  or  purchase.     The  second  and  concluding  metamor- 
phosis of  a  commodity. 

Because  money  is  the  metamorphosed  shape  of  all  other 
commodities,  the  result  of  their  general  alienation,  for  this 
reason  it  is  alienable  itself  without  restriction  or  condition. 
It  reads  all  prices  backwards,  and  thus,  so  to  say,  depicts  itself 
in  the  bodies  of  all  other  commodities,  which  off^  to  it  the 
material  for  the  realisation  of  its  own  use-value.  At  the  same 
time  the  prices,  wooing  glances  cast  at  money  by  commodities, 

^  As  before  remarked,  the  actual  producer  of  gold  or  silver  forms  an  exception. 
He  exchanges  his  product  directly  for  another  commodity,  without  having  first  sold 
it. 


124  Capitalist  Production. 

define  tLe  limits  of  its  convertibility,  by  pointing  to  its  quan- 
tity. Since  every  commodity,  on  becoming  money,  disappears 
as  a  commodity,  it  is  impossible  to  tell  from  the  money  itself, 
how  it  got  into  the  hands  of  its  possessor,  or  what  article  has 
been  changed  into  it.  Non  olet,  from  whatever  source  it  may 
come.  Representing  on  the  other  hand  a  sold  commodity,  it 
represents  on  the  other  hand  a  commodity  to  be  bought.^ 

M — C,  a  purchase,  is,  at  the  same  time,  C — M,  a  sale;  the 
concluding  metamorphosis  of  one  commodity  is  the  first  meta- 
morphosis of  another.  With  regard  to  our  weaver,  the  life  of 
his  commodity  ends  with  the  Bible,  into  which  he  has  recon- 
verted hi^  £2.  But  suppose  the  seller  of  the  Bible  turns  the  £2 
set  free  by  the  weaver  into  brandy.  M — C,  the  concluding 
phase  of  C — M — C  (linen,  money,  Bible),  is  also  C — ]M,  the 
first  phase  of  C — M — C  (Bible,  money,  brandy).  The  pro- 
ducer of  a  particular  commodity  has  that  one  article  alone  to 
offer ;  this  he  sells  very  often  in  large  quantities,  but  his  many 
and  various  wants  compel  him  to  split  up  the  price  realised,  the 
sum  of  money  set  free,  into  numerous  purchases.  Hence  a  sale 
leads  to  many  purchases  of  various  articles.  The  concluding 
metamorphosis  of  a  commodity  thus  constitutes  an  aggregation 
of  first  metamorphoses  of  various  other  commodities. 

If  we  now  consider  the  completed  metamorphosis  of  a  com- 
modity, as  a  whole,  it  appears  in  the  first  place,  that  it  is  made 
up  of  two  opposite  and  complementary  movements,  C — M  and 
M — C.  These  two  antithetical  transmutations  of  a  commodity 
are  brought  about  by  two  antithetical  social  acts  on  the  part 
of  the  owner,  and  these  acts  in  their  turn  stamp  the  character 
of  the  economical  parts  played  by  him.  As  the  person  who 
makes  a  sale,  he  is  a  seller;  as  the  person  who  makes  a  pur- 
chase, he  is  a  buyer.  But  just  as,  upon  every  such  transmu- 
tation of  a  commodity,  its  two  forms,  comimodity-form  and 
money-form,  exist  simultaneously  but  at  opposite  poles,  so 
every  seller  has  a  buyer  opposed  to  him,  and  every  buyer  a 
seller.     While  one  particular  commodity  is  going  through  its 

* "  Si  I'argent  represente,  dans  nos  mains,  les  choses  que  nous  pouvons  dcsirer 
d'acheter,  il  y  represente  aussi  les  choses  que  nous  avons  vendues  pour  cet  argent." 
(Mercicr  dc  la  Rivi&re  1.  c) 


Money,  or  the  C*rcula4ion  of  Commodities.        125 

two  transmutations  in  succession,  from  a  commodity  into 
money  and  from  money  into  another  commodity,  the  owner  of 
the  commodity  changes  in  succession  his  part  from  that  of 
seller  to  that  of  buyer.  These  characters  of  seller  and  buyer 
are  therefore  not  permanent,  but  attach  themselves  in  turns  to 
the  various  persons  engaged  in  the  circulation  of  commodities. 

The  complete  metamorphosis  of  a  commodity,  in  its  simplest 
form,  implies  four  extremes,  and  three  dramatis  personse. 
First,  a  commodity  comes  face  to  face  with  money ;  the  latter 
is  the  form  taken  by  the  value  of  the  former,  and  exists  in  all 
its  hard  reality,  in  the  pocket  of  the  buyer.  A  commodity- 
owner  is  thus  brought  into  contact  with  a  possessor  of  money. 
So  soon,  now,  as  the  commodity  has  been  changed  into 
money,  the  money  becomes  its  transient  equivalent-form,  the 
use-value  of  which  equivalent-form  is  to  be  found  in  the 
bodies  of  other  commodities.  Money,  the  final  term  of  the 
first  transmutation^  is  at  the  same  time  the  starting  point  for 
the  second.  The  person  who  is  a  seller  in  the  first  transac- 
tion thus  becomes  a  buyer  in  the  second,  in  which  a  third 
commodity-owner  appears  on  the  scene  as  a  seller.-^ 

The  two  phases,  each  inverse  to  the  other,  that  make  up  the 
metamorphosis  of  a  commodity  constitute  together  a  circular 
movement,  a  circuit:  commodity-form,  stripping  off  of  this 
form,  and  return  to  the  commodity-form.  No  doubt,  the  com- 
modity appears  here  under  two  different  aspects.  At  the  start- 
ing point  it  is  not  a  use-value  to  its  owner;  at  the  finishing 
point  it  is.  So,  too,  the  money  appears  in  the  first  phase  as  a 
solid  crystal  of  value,  a  crystal  into  which  the  commodity 
eagerly  solidifies,  and  in  the  second^  dissolves  into  the  mere 
transient  equivalent-form  destined  to  be  replaced  by  a  use- 
value. 

The  two  metamorphoses  constituting  the  circuit  are  at  the 
same  time  two  inverse  partial  metamorphoses  of  two  other 
commodities.  One  and  the  same  commodity,  the  linen,  opens 
the  series  of  its  own  metamorphoses,  and  completes  the  meta- 
morphosis of  another  (the  wheat).     In  the  first  phase  or  sale, 

*  "II  y  a  done  ...  quatre  termes  et  trois  contractants,  dont  I'un  intervient  deux 
fois."     (Le  Trosne  1.   c.    p.   909.) 


126  Capitalist  Production. 

the  linen  plays  these  two  parts  in  its  own  person.  But,  then, 
changed  into  gold,  it  completes  its  own  second  and  final  meta- 
morphosis, and  helps  at  the  same  time  to  accomplish  the  first 
metamorphosis  of  a  third  commodity.  Hence  the  circuit  made 
Dy  one  commodity  in  the  course  of  its  metamorphoses  is  inextri- 
cably mixed  up  with  the  circuits  of  other  commodities.  The 
total  of  all  the  different  circuits  constitutes  the  circulation  of 
commodities. 

The  circulation  of  commodities  differs  from  the  direct  ex- 
change of  products  (barter),  not  otily  in  form,  but  in  substance. 
Only  consider  the  course  of  events.  The  weaver  has,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  exchanged  his  linen  for  a  Bible,  his  own  com- 
modity for  that  of  some  one  else.  But  this  is  true  only  so  far 
as  he  himself  is  concerned.  The  seller  of  the  Bible,  who  pre- 
fers something  to  warm  his  inside,  no  more  thought  of  exchang- 
ing his  Bible  for  linen  than  our  weaver  knew  that  wheat  had 
been  exchanged  for  his  linen.  B's  commodity  replaces  that  of 
A,  but  A  and  B  do  not  mutually  exchange  those  commodities. 
It  may,  of  course,  happen  that  A  and  B  make  simultaneous 
purchases,  the  one  from  the  other ;  but  such  exceptional  trans- 
actions are  by  no  means  the  necessary  result  of  the  general  con- 
ditions of  the  circulation  of  commodities.  We  see  here,  on 
the  one  hand,  how  the  exchange  of  commodities  breaks  through 
all  local  and  personal  bounds  inseparable  from  direct  barter, 
and  develops  the  circulation  of  the  products  of  social  labor; 
and  on  the  other  hand,  how  it  develops  a  whole  network  of  so- 
cial relations  spontaneous  in  their  growth  and  entirely  beyond 
the  control  of  the  actors.  It  is  only  because  the  farmer  has 
sold  his  wheat  that  the  weaver  is  enabled  to  sell  his  linen,  only 
because  the  weaver  has  sold  his  linen  that  our  Hotspur  is 
enabled  to  sell  his  Bible,  and  only  because  the  latter  has  sold 
the  water  of  everlasting  life  that  the  distiller  is  enabled  to  sell 
his  eau-de-vie,  and  so  on. 

The  process  of  circulation,  therefore,  does  not,  like  direct 
barter  of  products,  become  extinguished  upon  the  use  values 
changing  places  and  hands.  The  money  does  not  vanish  on 
dropping  out  of  the  circuit  of  the  metamorphosis  of  a  given 
commodity.     It   is    constantly    being   precipitated    into   new 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.       127 

places  in  the  arena  of  circulation  vacated  by  other  commodities. 
In  the  complete  metamorphosis  of  the  linen,  for  example,  linen 
— 'money — Bible,  the  linen  first  falls  out  of  circulation,  and 
money  steps  into  its  place.  Then  the  Bible  falls  out  of  circula- 
tion, and  again  money  takes  its  place.  When  one  commodity 
replaces  another,  the  money  commodity  always  sticks  to  the 
hands  of  some  third  person.^  Circulation  sweats  money  from 
every  pore. 

Nothing  can  be  more  childish  than  the  dogma,  that  because 
every  sale  is  a  purchase,  and  every  purchase  a  sale,  therefore 
the  circulation  of  commodities  necessarily  implies  an  equili- 
brium of  sales  and  purchases.  If  this  means  that  the  number 
of  actual  sales  is  equal  to  the  number  of  purchases,  it  is  mere 
tautology.  But  its  real  purport  is  to  prove  that  every  seller 
brings  his  buyer  to  market  with  him.  Nothing  of  the  kind. 
The  sale  and  the  purchase  constitute  one  identical  act,  an 
exchange  between  a  commodity-owned  and  an  owner  of  money, 
between  two  persons  as  opposed  to  each  other  as  the  two  poles 
of  a  magnet.  They  form  two  distinct  acts,  of  polar  and  oppo- 
site characters,  when  performed  by  one  single  person.  Hence 
the  identity  of  sale  and  purchase  implies  that  the  commodity 
is  useless,  if,  on  being  thrown  into  the  alchemistical  retort  of 
circulation,  it  does  not  come  out  again  in  the  shape  of  money ; 
if,  in  other  words,  it  cannot  be  sold  by  its  owner,  and  there- 
fore be  bought  by  the  owner  of  the  money  That  identity  fur- 
ther implies  that  the  exchange,  if  it  does  take  place,  constitutes 
a  period  of  rest,  an  interval,  long  or  short,  in  the  life  of  the 
commodity.  Since  the  first  metamorphosis  of  a  commodity  is 
at  once  a  sale  and  a  purchase,  it  is  also  an  independent  process 
in  itself.  The  purchaser  has  the  commodity,  the  seller  has  the 
money,  i.e.,  a  commodity  ready  to  go  into  circulation  at  any 
time.  No  one  can  sell  unless  some  one  else  purchases.  But 
no  one  is  forthwith  bound  to  purchase,  because  he  has  just  sold. 
Circulation  bursts  through  all  restrictions  as  to  time,  place, 
and  individuals,  imposed  by  direct  barter,  and  this  it  effects  by 
splitting  up,  into  the  antithesis  of  a  sale  and  a  purchase,  the 

*  Self-evident  as  this  may  be,  it  is  nevertheless   for  the  most  part  unobserved  by 
political  economists,  and  especially  by  the  "  Freetrader  Vulgaris." 


128  Capitalist  Production. 

direct  identity  that  in  barter  does  exist  between  the  alienation 
of  one's  own  and  the  acquisition  of  some  other  man's  product. 
To  say  that  these  two  independent  and  antithetical  acts  have 
an  intrinsic  unity,  are  essentially  one,  is  the  same  as  to  say 
that  this  intrinsic  oneness  expresses  itself  in  an  external 
antithesis.  If  the  interval  in  time  between  the  two  comple- 
mentary phases  of  the  complete  metamorphosis  of  a  commodity 
becomes  too  great,  if  the  split  between  the  sale  and  the  purchase 
becomes  too  pronounced,  the  intimate  connexion  between  them, 
their  oneness,  asserts  itself  by  producing — a  crisis.  The 
antithesis,  use-value  and  value ;  the  contradictions  that  private 
labour  is  bound  to  manifest  itself  as  direct  social  labour,  that  a 
particularized  concrete  kind  of  labour  has  to  pass  for  abstract 
human  labour;  the  contradiction  between  the  personification 
of  objects  and  the  representation  of  persons  by  things ;  all  these 
antitheses  and  contradictions,  which  are  immanent  in  com- 
modities, assert  themselves,  and  develop  their  modes  of  motion, 
in  the  antithetical  phases  of  the  metamorphosis  of  a  commod- 
ity. These  modes  therefore  imply  the  possibility,  and  no  more 
than  the  possibility,  of  crisis.  The  conversion  of  this  mere 
possibility  into  a  reality  is  the  result  of  a  long  series  of  rela- 
tions, that,  from  our  present  standpoint  of  simple  circulation, 
have  as  yet  no  existence.^ 

h.  The  currency  ^  of  money. 

The  change  of  form,  C — M — C,  by  which  the  circulation  of 
the  material  products  of  labour  is  brought  about,  requires  that 

1  See  my  observations  on  James  Mill  in  "Critique,  &c.,"  p.  123-126.  With  regard 
to  this  subject,  we  may  notice  two  methods  characteristic  of  apologetic  economy. 
The  first  is  the  identification  of  the  circulation  of  commodities  with  the  direct  bar- 
ter of  products,  by  simple  abstraction  from  their  points  of  difference;  the  second  is, 
the  attempt  to  explain  away  the  contradictions  of  capitalist  production,  by  reducing 
the  relations  between  the  persons  engaged  in  that  mode  of  production,  to  the  simple 
relations  arising  out  of  the  circulation  of  commodities.  The  production  and  circula- 
tion of  commodities  are,  however,  phenomena  that  occur  to  a  greater  or  less  extent 
in  modes  of  production  the  most  diverse.  If  we  are  acquainted  with  nothing  but 
the  abstract  categories  of  circulation,  which  are  common  to  all  these  modes  of  pro- 
duction, we  cannot  possibly  know  anything  of  the  specific  points  of  difference  of 
those  modes,  nor  pronounce  any  judgment  upon  them.  In  no  science  is  such  a  big 
fuss  made  with  commonplace  truisms  as  in  political  economy.  For  instance,  J.  B. 
Say  sets  himself  up  as  a  judge  of  crises,  because,  forsooth,  he  knows  that  a  com- 
modity is  a  product 

*  Translator's  note.  —  This  word  is  here  used  in  its  original  signification  of  the 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.      129 

a  given  value  in  tlie  shape  of  a  commodity  shall  begin  the  pro- 
cess, and  shall,  also  in  the  shape  of  a  commodity,  end  it.  The 
movement  of  the  commodity  is  therefore  a  circuit.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  form  of  this  movement  precludes  a  circuit  from 
being  made  by  the  money.  The  result  is  not  the  return  of  the 
money,  but  its  continued  removal  further  and  further  away 
from  its  starting-point.  So  long  as  the  seller  sticks  fast  to  his 
money,  which  is  the  transformed  shape  of  his  commodity,  that 
commodity  is  still  in  the  first  phase  of  its  metamorphosis,  and 
has  completed  only  half  its  course.  But  so  soon  as  he  com- 
pletes the  process,  so  soon  as  he  supplements  his  sale  by  a  pur- 
chase, the  money  again  leaves  the  hands  of  its  possessor.  It 
is  true  that  if  the  weaver,  after  buying  the  Bible,  sells  more 
linen,  money  comes  back  into  his  hands.  But  this  return  is  not 
owing  to  the  circulation  of  the  first  20  yards  of  linen ;  that  cir- 
culation resulted  in  the  money  getting  into  the  hands  of  the 
seller  of  the  Bible.  The  return  of  money  into  the  hands  of  the 
weaver  is  brought  about  only  by  the  renewal  or  repetition  of 
the  process  of  circulation  with  a  fresh  commodity,  which 
renewed  process  ends  with  the  same  result  as  its  predecessor 
did.  Hence  the  movement  directly  imparted  to  money  by  th'e 
circulation  of  commodities  takes  the  form  of  a  constant  motion 
away  from  its  starting  point,  of  course  from  the  hands  of  one 
commodity  owner  into  those  of  another.  This  course  consti- 
tutes its  currency  (cours  de  la  monnaie). 

The  currency  of  money  is  the  constant  and  monotonous  re^ 
petition  of  the  same  process.  The  commodity  is  always  in  the 
hands  of  the  seller ;  the  money,  as  a  means  of  purchase,  always 
in  the  hands  of  the  buyer.  And  money  serves  as  a  means  of 
purchase  by  realising  the  price  of  the  commodity.  This  reali- 
sation transfers  the  commodity  from  the  seller  to  the  buyer, 
and  removes  the  money  from  the  hands  of  the  buyer  into  those 
of  the  seller,  where  it  again  goes  through  the  same  process  with 
another  commodity  That  this  one-sided  character  of  the 
moneys  motion  arises  out  of  the  two-sided  character  of  the 
commodity's  motion,   13  a   circumstance  that   is  veiled  over. 

course  or  track  pursued  by  money  as  it  changes  from  hand  to  hand,  a  course  which 
essentially  differs  from   circulation. 

I 


130  Capitalist  Production, 

The  very  nature  of  the  circulation  of  commodities  begets  the  op- 
posite appearance.  The  first  metamorphosis  of  a  commodity  is 
visibly,  not  only  the  money's  movement,  but  also  that  of  the 
commodity  itself;  in  the  second  metamorphosis,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  movement  appears  to  us  as  the  movement  of  the 
money  alone.  In  the  first  phase  of  its  circulation  the  com- 
modity changes  place  with  the  money.  Thereupon  the  com- 
modity, under  its  aspect  of  a  useful  object,  falls  out  of 
circulation  into  consumption.^  In  its  stead  we  have  its  value- 
shape — the  money.  It  then  goes  through  the  second  phase  of 
its  circulation,  not  under  its  own  natural  shape,  but  under  the 
shape  of  money.  The  continuity  of  the  movement  is  therefore 
kept  up  by  the  money  alone,  and  the  same  movement  that  as 
regards  the  commodity  consists  of  two  processes  of  an  anti- 
thetical character,  is,  when  considered  as  the  movement  of 
the  money,  always  one  and  the  same  process,  a  continued 
change  of  places  with  ever  fresh  commodities.  Hence  the 
result  brought  about  by  the  circulation  of  commodities,  namely, 
the  replacing  of  one  commodity  by  another,  takes  the  appear- 
ance of  having  been  effected  not  by  means  of  the  change  of 
form  of  the  commodities,  but  rather  by  the  money  acting  as  a 
medium  of  circulation,  by  an  action  that  circulates  commodi- 
ties, to  all  appearance  motionless  in  themselves,  and  transfers 
them  from  hands  in  which  they  are  non-use-values,  to  hands  in 
which  they  are  use-values;  and  that  in  a  direction  constantly 
opposed  to  the  direction  of  the  money.  The  latter  is  con- 
tinually withdrawing  commodities  from  circulation  and  step- 
ping into  their  places,  and  in  this  way  continually  moving 
further  and  further  from  its  starting-point.  Hence,  although 
the  movement  of  the  money  is  merely  the  expression  of 
the  circulation  of  commodities,  yet  the  contrary  appears  to  be 
the  actual  fact,  and  the  circulation  of  commodities  seems  to  be 
the  result  of  the  movement  of  the  money.* 

*  Even  when  the  commodity  is  sold  over  and  over  again,  a  phenomenon  that  at 
present  has  no  existence  for  us,  it  falls,  when  definitely  sold  for  the  last  time,  out 
of  the  sphere  of  circulation  into  that  of  consumption,  where  it  serves  either  as 
means  of  subsistence  or  means  of  production. 

*  "  II  (I'argent)  n'a  d'autre  mouvement  que  celui  qui  lui  est  imprim^  par  les  pro- 
ductions."    (Le  Trosne  Lc.p.  885.) 


'Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.       131 

Again,  money  functions  as  a  means  of  circulation,  only 
because  in  it  the  values  of  commodities  liave  independent 
reality.  Hence  its  movement,  as  the  medium  of  circulation,  is, 
in  fact,  merely  the  movement  of  commodities  while  changing 
their  forms.  This  fact  must  therefore  make  itself  plainly  vis- 
ible in  the  currency  of  money.  The  twofold  change  of  form  in 
a  commodity  is  reflected  in  the  twice  repeated  change  of  place 
of  the  same  piece  of  money  during  the  complete  metamorphosis 
of  a  commodity,  and  in  its  constantly  repeated  change  of  place, 
as  metamorphosis  follows  metamorphosis,  and  each  becomes 
interlaced  with  the  others. 

The  linen,  for  instance,  first  of  all  exchanges  its  commodity- 
form  for  its  money-form.  The  last  term  of  its  first  metamor- 
phosis (C — M),  or  the  money-form,  is  the  first  term  of  its  final 
metamorphosis  (M — ^C),  of  its  re-conversion  into  a  useful 
commodity,  the  Bible.  But  each  of  these  changes  of  form  is 
accomplished  by  an  exchange  between  commodity  and  money, 
by  their  reciprocal  displacement.  The  same  pieces  of  coin,  in 
the  first  act,  changed  places  with  the  linen,  in  the  second,  with 
the  Bible.  They  are  displaced  twice.  The  first  metamorpho- 
sis puts  them  into  the  weaver's  pocket,  the  second  draws  them 
out  of  it.  The  two  inverse  changes  undergone  by  the  same 
commodity  are  reflected  in  the  displacement,  twice  repeated, 
but  in  opposite  directions,  of  the  same  pieces  of  coin. 

If,  on  the  contrary,  only  one  phase  of  the  metamorphosis  is 
gone  through,  if  there  are  only  sales  or  only  purchases,  then  a 
given  piece  of  money  changes  its  place  only  once.  Its  second 
change  corresponds  to  and  expresses  the  second  metamorphosis 
of  the  commodity,  its  re-conversion  from  money  into  another 
commodity  intended  for  use.  It  is  a  matter  of  course,  that  all 
this  is  applicable  to  the  simple  circulation  of  commodities 
alone,  the  only  form  that  we  are  now  considering. 

Every  commodity,  when  it  first  steps  into  circulation,  and 
undergoes  its  first  change  of  form,  does  so  only  to  fall  out  of 
circulation  again  and  to  be  replaced  by  other  commodities. 
Money,  on  the  contrary,  as  the  medium  of  circulation,  keeps 
continually  within  the  sphere  of  circulation,  and  moves  about 


132  Capitalist  Production. 

in  it.     The  question  therefore  arises,  how  much  money  this 
sphere  constantly  absorbs  ? 

In  a  given  country  there  take  place  every  day  at  the  same 
time,  but  in  different  localities,  numerous  one-sided  metamor- 
phoses of  commodities,  or,  in  other  words,  numerous  sales  and 
numerous  purchases.  The  commodities  are  equated  before- 
hand in  imagination,  by  their  prices,  to  definite  quantities  of 
money.  And  since,  in  the  form  of  circulation  now  under  con- 
sideration, money  and  commodities  always  come  bodily  face  to 
face,  one  at  the  positive  pole  of  purchase,  the  other  at  the 
negative  pole  of  sale,  it  is  clear  that  the  amount  of  the  means 
of  circulation  required,  is  determined  beforehand  by  the  sum  of 
the  prices  of  all  these  commodities.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
money  in  reality  represents  the  quantity  or  sum  of  gold  ideally 
expressed  beforehand  by  the  sum  of  the  prices  of  the  com- 
modities. The  equality  of  these  two  sums  is  therefore  self- 
evident.  We  know,  however,  that,  the  values  of  commodities 
remaining  constant,  their  prices  vary  with  the  value  of  gold 
(the  material  of  money),  rising  in  proportion  as  it  falls,  and 
.  falling  in  proportion  as  it  rises.  Now  if,  in  consequence  of 
such  a  rise  or  fall  in  the  value  of  gold,  the  sum  of  the  prices  of 
commodities  fall  or  rise,  the  quantity  of  money  in  currency 
must  fall  or  rise  to  the  same  extent'  The  change  in  the 
quantity  of  the  circulating  medium  is,  in  this  case,  it  is  true, 
caused  by  money  itself,  yet  not  in  virtue  of  its  function 
as  a  medium  of  circulation,  but  of  its  function  as  a  measure  of 
value.  First,  the  price  of  the  commodities  varies  inversely 
as  the  value  of  the  money,  and  then  the  quantity  of  the 
medium  of  circulation  varies  directly  as  the  price  of  the 
comnwdities.  Exactly  the  same  thing  would  happen  if,  for 
instance,  instead  of  the  value  of  gold  falling,  gold  were  re- 
placed by  silver  as  the  measure  of  value,  or  if,  instead  of  the 
value  of  silver  rising,  gold  were  to  thrust  silver  out  from  being 
the  measure  of  value.  In  the  one  case,  more  silver  would  be 
current  than  gold  was  before;  in  the  other  case,  less  gold 
would  be  current  than  silver  was  before.  In  each  case  the 
value  of  the  material  of  money,  i.e.,  the  value  of  the  com- 
modity that  serves  as  the  measure  of  value,  vv^ould  have  under- 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.      133 

gone  a  change,  and  therefore,  so,  too,  would  the  prices  of  com- 
modities which  express  their  values  in  money,  and  so,  too, 
would  the  quantity  of  money  current  whose  function  it  is  to 
realise  those  prices.  We  have  already  seen,  that  the  sphere  of 
circulation  has  an  opening  through  which  gold  (or  the  material 
of  money  generally)  enters  into  it  as  a  commodity  with  a  given 
value.  Hence,  when  money  enters  on  its  functions  as  a 
measure  of  value,  when  it  expresses  prices,  its  value  is  already 
determined.  If  now  its  value  fall,  this  fact  is  first  evidenced 
by  a  change  in  the  prices  of  those  commodities  that  are 
directly  bartered  for  the  precious  metals  at  the  sources  of 
their  production.  The  greater  part  of  all  other  commodities, 
especially  in  the  imperfectly  developed  stages  of  civil  society, 
will  continue  for  a  long  time  to  be  estimated  by  the  former 
antiquated  and  illusory  value  of  the  measure  of  value. 
INTevertheless,  one  commodity  infects  another  through  their 
common  value-relation,  so  that  their  prices,  expressed  in  gold 
or  in  silver,  gradually  settle  down  into  the  proportions  deter- 
mined by  their  comparative  values,  until  finally  the  values  of 
all  commodities  are  estimated  in  terms  of  the  new  value  of  the 
metal  that  constitutes  money.  This  process  is  accompanied  by 
the  continued  increase  in  the  quantity  of  the  precious  metals, 
an  increase  caused  by  their  streaming  in  to  replace  the  articles 
directly  bartered  for  them  at  their  sources  of  production.  In 
proportion  therefore  as  commodities  in  general  acquire  their 
true  prices,  in  proportion  as  their  values  become  estimated 
according  to  the  fallen  value  of  the  precious  metal,  in  the 
same  proportion  the  quantity  of  that  metal  necessary  for  realis- 
ing those  new  prices  is  provided  beforehand.  A  one-sided 
observation  of  the  results  that  followed  upon  the  discovery  of 
fresh  supplies  of  gold  and  silver,  led  some  economists  in  the 
17th,  and  particularly  in  the  18th  century,  to  the  false  con- 
clusion, that  the  prices  of  commodities  had  gone  up  in  conse- 
quence of  the  increased  quantity  of  gold  and  silver  serving  as 
means  of  circulation.  Henceforth  we  shall  consider  the  value 
of  gold  to  be  given,  as,  in  fact,  it  is  momentarily  whenever  we 
estimate  the  price  of  a  commodity. 

On  this  supposition  then,  the  quantity  of  the  medium  of 


134  Capitalist  Production. 

circulation  is  determined  by  the  sum  of  the  prices  that  have  to 
be  realised.  If  now  we  further  suppose  the  price  of  each  com- 
modity to  be  given,  the  sum  of  the  prices  clearly  depends  on 
the  mass  of  commodities  in  circulation.  It  requires  but  little 
racking  of  brains  to  comprehend  that  if  one  quarter  of  wheat 
cost  £2,  100  quarters  will  cost  £200,  200  quarters  £400,  and 
so  on,  that  consequently  the  quantity  of  money  that  changes 
place  with  the  wheat,  when  sold,  must  increase  with  the  quan- 
tity of  that  wheat. 

If  the  mass  of  commodities  remain  constant,  the  quantity  of 
circulating  money  varies  with  the  fluctuations  in  the  prices  of 
those  commodities.  It  increases  and  diminishes  because  the 
sum  of  the  prices  increases  or  diminishes  in  consequence  of  the 
change  of  price.  To  produce  this  effect,  it  is  by  no  means 
requisite  that  the  prices  of  all  commodities  should  rise  or  fall 
simultaneously.  A  rise  or  a  fall  in  the  prices  of  a  number  of 
leading  articles,  is  sufficient  in  the  one  case  to  increase,  in  the 
other  to  diminish,  the  sum  of  the  prices  of  all  commodities, 
and,  therefore,  to  put  more  or  less  money  in  circulation. 
Whether  the  change  in  the  price  correspond  to  an  actual 
change  of  value  in  the  commodities,  or  whether  it  be  the  result 
of  mere  fluctuations  in  market  prices,  the  effect  on  the  quan- 
tity of  the  medium  of  circulation  remains  the  same. 

Suppose  the  following  articles  to  be  sold  or  partially  meta- 
morphosed simultaneously  in  different  localities:  say,  one 
quarter  of  wheat,  20  yards  of  linen,  one  Bible,  and  4  gallons  of 
brandy.  If  the  price  of  each  article  be  £2,  and  the  sum  of  the 
prices  to  be  realised  be  consequently  £8,  it  follows  that  £8  in 
money  must  go  into  circulation.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  these 
same  articles  are  links  in  the  following  chain  of  metamor- 
phoses: 1  quarter  of  wheat — £2 — 20  yards  of  linen — £2 — 1 
Bible — ^£2 — i  gallons  of  brandy — £2,  a  chain  that  is  already 
well-known  to  us,  in  that  case  the  £2  cause  the  different  com- 
modities to  circulate  one  after  the  other,  and  after  realizing 
their  prices  successively,  and  therefore  the  sum  of  those  prices, 
£8,  they  come  to  rest  at  last  in  the  pocket  of  the  distiller. 
The  £2  thus  make  four  moves.  This  repeated  change  of  place 
of  the  same  pieces  of  money  corresponds  to  the  double  change 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.       135 

in  form  of  the  commodities,  to  their  motion  in  opposite  direc- 
tions through  two  stages  of  circulation,  and  to  the  interlacing 
of  the  metamorphoses  of  different  commodities.^  These  anti- 
thetic and  complementary  phases,  of  which  the  process  of  met- 
amorphosis consists,  are  gone  through,  not  simultaneously,  but 
successively.  Time  is  therefore  required  for  the  completion  of 
the  series.  Hence  the  velocity  of  the  currency  of  money  is 
measured  by  the  number  of  moves  made  by  a  given  piece  of 
money  in  a  given  time.  Suppose  the  circulation  of  the  4  ar- 
ticles takes  a  day.  The  sum  of  the  prices  to  be  realised  in  the 
day  is  £8,  the  number  of  moves  of  the  two  pieces  of  money  is 
four,  and  the  quantity  of  money  circulating  is  £2.  Hence,  for 
a  given  interval  of  time  during  the  process  of  circulation,  we 
have  the  following  relation  :  the  quantity  of  money  functioning 
as  the  circulating  medium  is  equal  to  the  sum  of  the  prices  of 
the  commodities  divided  by  the  number  of  moves  made  by  coins 
of  the  same  denomination.     This  law  holds  generally. 

The  total  circulation  of  commodities  in  a  given  country 
during  a  given  period  is  made  up  on  the  one  hand  of  numerous 
isolated  and  simultaneous  partial  metamorphoses,  sales  which 
are  at  the  same  time  purchases,  in  which  each  coin  changes  its 
place  only  once,  or  makes  only  one  move ;  on  the  other  hand, 
of  numerous  distinct  series  of  metamorphoses  partly  running 
side  by  side,  and  partly  coalescing  with  each  other,  in  each  of 
which  series  each  coin  makes  a  number  of  moves,  the  number 
being  greater  or  less  according  to  circumstances.  The  total 
number  of  moves  made  by  all  the  circulating  coins  of  one 
denomination  being  given,  we  can  arrive  at  the  average  num- 
ber of  moves  made  by  a  single  coin  of  that  denomination,  or.^ 
the  average  velocity  of  the  currency  of  money.  The  quanti'ty 
of  money  thrown  into  the  circulation  at  the  beginning  of  reayi 
day  is  of  course  determined  by  the  sum  of  the  prices  of  allrthe 
commodities  circulating  simultaneously  side  by  side.  Bffrt  onte 
in  circulation,  coins  are,  so  to  say,  made  responsible//^fp>^[a(ime 
another.     If  the  one  increase  its  velocity,   the  otl^ejifeiJbhasr 

* "  Ce  sont  les  productions  qui  le  (I'argent)  mettent  en  mouveifierif^leBTUf  JftiHt 
circular  ...  La  celerite  de  son  mouvement  (sc.  de  I'argent)  supI^lee^.J^<5a  AW[jnd^6. 
Lorsqu'il  en  est  be§oin,  il  ne  fait  que  glisser  d'une  main  dans  I'autre  sans  s  arreter 
un  instant."     (Le  Trosne  1.  c.  pp.  915,  916.)  .     gnisd  x^fo^  * 


1^6  Capitalist  Production. 

retards  its  own,  or  altogether  falls  out  of  circulation ;  for  the 
circulation  can  absorb  only  such  a^  quantity  of  gold  as  when 
multiplied  by  the  mean  number  of  moves  made  by  one  single 
coin  or  element,  is  equal  to  the  sum  of  the  prices  to  be  real- 
ised. Hence  if  the  number  of  moves  made  by  the  separate 
pieces  increase,  the  total  number  of  those  pieces  in  circulation 
diminishes.  If  the  number  of  the  moves  diminish,  the  total 
number  of  pieces  increases.  Since  the  quantity  of  money  cap- 
able of  being  absorbed  by  the  circulation  is  given  for  a  given 
mean  velocity  of  currency,  all  that  is  necessary  in  order  to  ab- 
stract a  given  number  of  sovereigns  from  the  circulation  is  to 
throw  the  same  number  of  one-pound  notes  into  it,  a  trick  well 
known  to  all  bankers. 

Just  as  the  currency  of  money,  generally  considered,  is  but 
a  reflex  of  the  circulation  of  commodities,  or  of  the  antithetical 
metamorphoses  tbey  undergo,  so,  too,  the  velocity  of  that  cur- 
rency reflects  the  rapidity  with  which  commodities  change 
their  forms,  the  continued  interlacing  of  one  series  of  meta- 
morphoses with-  another,  the  hurried  social  interchange  of 
matter,  the  rapid  disappearance  of  commodities  from  the 
sphere  of  circulation,  and  the  equally  rapid  substitution  of 
fresh  ones  in  their  places.  Hence,  in  the  velocity  of  the  cur- 
rency we  have  the  fluent  unity  of  the  antithetical  and  com- 
plementary phases,  the  unity  of  the  conversion  of  the  useful 
aspect  of  commodities  into  their  value-aspect,  and  their  re-con- 
version from  the  latter  aspect  to  the  former,  or  the  unity  of  the 
two  processes  of  sale  and  purchase.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
retardaj:ion  of  the  curreney^  reflects  the  separation  of  these  two 
processes  into  isolated  antithetical  phases,  reflects  the  stagna- 
tion in  the  change  of  form,  and  therefore,  in  the  social  inter- 
change of  matter.  The  circulation  itself,  of  course,  gives  no 
clue  to  the  origin  of  this  stagnation ;  it  merely  puts  in  evidence 
the  phenomenon  itself.  ^The  general  public,  who,  simultane- 
ously, with  the  retardation  of  the  currency,  see  money  appear 
and  disappear  less  frequently  at  the  periphery  of  circulation, 
naturally  attribute  this  retardation  to  a  quantitive  deficiency 
in  the  circulating  medium.*. 

*  Money  being     ,  ,  .  the  common  measure  of  buying  and  selling,  every  body  who 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities,        137 

The  total  quantity  of  money  functioning  during  a  given 
period  as  the  circulating  medium,  is  determined,  on  the  one 
hand,  by  the  sum  of  the  prices  of  the  circulating  commodities, 
and  on  the  other  hand,  by  the  rapidity  with  which  the  anti- 
thetical phases  of  the  metamorphoses  follow  one  another.  On 
this  rapidity  depends  what  proportion  of  the  sum  of  the  prices 
can,  on  the  average,  be  realised  by  each  single  coin.  But  the 
sum  of  the  prices  of  the  circulating  commodities  depends  on 
the  quantity,  as  well  as  on  the  prices,  of  the  commodities. 
These  three  factors,  however,  state  of  prices,  quantity  of  circu- 
lating commodities,  and  velocity  of  money-currency,  are  all 
variable.  Hence,  the  sum  of  the  prices  to  be  realised,  and 
consequently  the  quantity  of  the  circulating  medium  depend- 
ing on  that  sum,  will  vary  with  the  numerous  variations  of 
these  three  factors  in  combination.  Of  these  variations  we 
shall  consider  those  alone  that  have  been  the  most  important 
in  the  history  of  prices. 

While  prices  remain  constant,  the  quantity  of  the  circulat- 
ing medium  may  increase  owing  to  the  number  of  circulating 
commodities  increasing,  or  to  the  velocity  of  currency  decrease 
ing,  or  to  a  combination  of  the  two.     On  the  other  hand  the 

hath  anything  to  sell,  and  cannot  procure  chapmen  for  it,  is  presently  apt  to  think, 
that  want  of  money  in  the  kingdom,  or  country,  is  the  cause  why  his  goods  do  not 
go  off;  and  so,  want  of  money  is  the  common  cry;  which  is  a  great  mistake.  .  . 
What  do  these  people  want,  who  cry  out  for  money?  .  .  .  The  farmer  complains 
...  he  thinks  that  were  more  money  in  the  country,  he  should  have  a  price  for  his 
goods.  Then  it  seems  money  is  not  his  want,  but  a  price  for  his  corn  and  cattel, 
which  he  would  sell,  but  cannot.  .  .  Why  cannot  he  get  a  price?  .  .  .  (1)  Either 
there  is  too  much  corn  and  cattel  in  the  country,  so  that  most  who  come  to  market 
have  need  of  selling,  as  he  hath,  and  few  of  buying;  or  (2)  There  wants  the  usual 
vent  abroad  by  transportation.  .  .  ;  or  (3)  The  consumption  fails,  as  when  men, 
by  reason  of  poverty,  do  not  spend  so  much  in  their  houses  as  formerly  they  did; 
wherefore  it  is  not  the  increase  of  specific  money,  which  would  at  all  advance  the 
farmer's  goods,  but  the  removal  of  any  of  these  three  causes,  which  do  truly  keep 
down  the  market.  .  .  .  The  merchant  and  shopkeeper  want  money  in  the  same 
manner,  that  is,  they  want  a  vent  for  the  goods  they  deal  in,  by  reason  that  the 
markets  fail  "...  [A  nation]  "  never  thrives  better,  than  when  riches  are  tost 
from  hand  to  hand."  (Sir  Dudley  North:  "  Discourses  upon  Trade,"  Lond.  1691, 
pp.  11-15,  passim.)  Herrenschwand's  fanciful  notions  amount  merely  to  this,  that 
the  antagonism,  which  has  its  origin  in  the  nature  of  commodities,  and  is  repro- 
duced in  their  circulation,  can  be  removed  by  increasing  the  circulating  medium. 
But  if,  on  the  one  hand,  it  is  a  popular  delusion  to  ascribe  stagnation  in  production 
and  circulation  to  insufficiency  of  the  circulating  medium,  it  by  no  means  follows, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  an  actual  paucity  of  the  medium  in  consequence,  e.g.,  of 
bungling  legislative  interference  with  the  regulation  of  currency,  may  not  give  rise 
to    such    stagnation. 


138  Capitalist  Production. 

quantity  of  the  circulating  medium  may  decrease  with  a 
decreasing  number  of  commodities,  or  with  an  increasing 
rapidity  of  their  circulation. 

With  a  general  rise  in  the  prices  of  commodities,  the  quan- 
tity of  the  circulating  medium  will  remain  constant,  provided 
the  number  of  commodities  in  the  circulation  decrease  propor- 
tionally to  the  increase  in  their  prices,  or  provided  the  velocity 
of  currency  increase  at  the  same  rate  as  prices  rise,  the  number 
of  commodities  in  circulation  remaining  constant.  The  quan- 
tity of  the  circulating  medium  may  decrease,  owing  to  the  num- 
ber of  commodities  decreasing  more  rapidly ;  or  to  the  veloc- 
ity of  currency  increasing  more  rapidly,  than  prices  rise. 

With  a  general  fall  in  the  prices  of  commodities,  the  quantity 
of  the  circulating  medium  will  remain  constant,  provided  the 
number  of  commodities  increase  proportionately  to  their  fall  in 
price,  or  provided  the  velocity  of  currency  decrease  in  the  same 
proportion.  The  quantity  of  the  circulating  medium  will 
increase,  provided  the  number  of  commodities  increase  quicker, 
or  the  rapidity  of  circulation  decrease  quicker,  than  the  prices 
fall. 

The  variations  of  the  different  factors  may  mutually  compen- 
sate each  other,  so  that  notwithstanding  their  continued  in- 
stability, the  sum  of  the  prices  to  be  realised  and  the  quantity 
of  money  in  circulation  remains  constant;  consequently,  we 
find,  especially  if  we  take  long  periods  into  consideration,  that 
the  deviations  from  the  average  level,  of  the  quantity  of  money 
current  in  any  country,  are  much  smaller  than  we  should  at 
first  sight  expect,  apart  of  course  from  excessive  perturbations 
periodically  arising  from  industrial  and  commercial  crises,  or, 
less  frequently,  from  fluctuations  in  the  value  of  money. 

The  law,  that  the  quantity  of  the  circulating  medium  is 
determined  by  the  sum  of  the  prices  of  the  commodities 
circulating,  and  the  average  velocity  of  currency^  may  also  be 

* "  There  is  a  certain  measure  and  proportion  of  money  requisite  to  drive  the 
trade  of  a  nation,  more  or  less  than  which  would  prejudice  the  same.  Just  as  there 
is  a  certain  proportion  of  farthings  necessary  in  a  small  retail  trade,  to  change  sil- 
ver money,  and  to  even  such  reckonings  as  cannot  be  adjusted  with  the  smallest 
silver  pieces.  .  .  .  Now,  as  the  proportion  of  the  number  of  farthings  requisite 
in   commerce  is  to   be   taken    from   the  number   of   people,   the    frequency   of   their 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.       139 

stated  as  follows :  given  the  sum  of  the  values  of  commodities, 
and  the  average  rapidity  of  their  metamorphoses,  the  quantity 
of  precious  metal  current  as  money  depends  on  the  value  of 
that  precious  metal.  The  erroneous  opinion  that  it  is,  on  the 
contrary,  prices  that  are  determined  by  the  quantity  of  the 
circulating  medium,  and  that  the  latter  depends  on  the 
quantity  of  the  precious  metals  in  a  country;^  this  opinion  was 
based  by  those  who  first  beheld  it,  on  the  absurd  hypothesis  that 
commodities  are  without  a  price,  and  money  without  a  value, 
when  they  first  enter  into  circulation,  and  that,  once  in  the 
circulation,  an  aliquot  part  of  the  medley  of  commodities  is 
exchanged  for  an  aliquot  part  of  the  heap  of  precious  metals.^ 

exchanges:  as  also,  and  principally,  from  the  value  of  the  smallest  silver  pieces  of 
money;  so  in  like  manner,  the  proportion  of  money  [gold  and  silver  specie]  requis- 
ite in  our  trade,  is  to  be  likewise  taken  from  the  frequency  of  commutations,  and 
from  the  bigness  of  the  payments."  (William  Petty.  "  A  Treatise  on  Taxes  and 
Contributions."  Lond.  1662,  p.  17.)  The  Theory  of  Hume  was  defended  against 
the  attacks  of  J.  Steuart  and  others,  by  A.  Young,  in  his  '"  Political  Arithmetic," 
Lond.  1774,  in  which  work  there  is  a  special  chapter  entitled  "  Prices  depend  on 
quantity  of  money,"  at  p.  112,  sqq.  I  have  stated  in  "Critique,  &c.,"  p.  232: 
"  He  (Adam  Smith)  passes  over  without  remark  the  question  as  to  the  quantity 
of  coin  in  circulation,  and  treats  money  quite  wrongly  as  a  mere  commodity." 
This  statement  applies  only  in  so  far  as  Adam  Smith,  ex  officio,  treats  of  money. 
Now  and  then,  however,  as  in  his  criticism  of  the  earlier  systems  of  political 
economy,  he  takes  the  right  view.  "  The  quantity  of  coin  in  every  country  is 
regulated  by  the  value  of  the  commodities  which  are  to  be  circulated  by  it.  .  .  . 
The  value  of  the  goods  annually  bought  and  sold  in  any  country  requires  a  certain 
quantity  of  money  to  circulate  and  distribute  them  to  their  proper  consumers,  and 
can  give  employment  to  no  more.  The  channel  of  circulation  necessarily  draws  to 
itself  a  sum  sufficient  to  fill  it,  and  never  admits  any  more."  ("  Wealth  of  Na- 
tions." Bk.  IV.,  ch.  I.)  In  like  manner,  ex  officio,  he  opens  his  work  with  an 
apotheosis  on  the  division  of  labour.  Afterwards,  in  the  last  book  which  treats 
of  the  sources  of  public  revenue,  he  occasionally  repeats  the  denunciations  of  the 
division  of  labour   made  by  his  teacher,  A.    Ferguson. 

1  "The  prices  of  things  will  certainly  rise  in  every  nation,  as  the  gold  and  silver 
increase  amongst  the  people ;  and  consequently,  where  the  gold  and  silver  de- 
crease in  any  nation,  the  prices  of  all  things  must  fall  proportionably  to  such 
decrease  of  money."  (Jacob  Vanderlint:  "Money  answers  all  Things."  Lond. 
1734,  p.  5.)  A  careful  comparison  of  this  book  with  Hume's  "Essays,"  proves 
to  my  mind  without  doubt  that  Hume  was  acquainted  with  and  made  use  of  Van- 
derlint's  work,  which  is  certainly  an  important  one.  The  opinion  that  prices  are 
determined  by  the  quantity  of  the  circulating  medium,  was  also  held  by  Barbon 
and  other  much  earlier  writers.  "  No  inconvenience,"  says  Vanderlint,  "  can  arise 
by  an  unrestrained  trade,  but  very  great  advantage;  since,  if  the  cash  of  the  na- 
tion be  decreased  by  it,  which  prohibitions  are  designed  to  prevent,  those  nations 
that  get  the  cash  will  certainly  find  everything  advance  in  price,  as  the  cash  in- 
creases amongst  them.  And  .  .  .  our  manufactures,  and  everything  else,  will 
soon  become  so  moderate  as  to  turn  the  balance  of  trade  in  our  favour,  and 
thereby  fetch  the  money  back  again."      (1.   c,   pp.   43,  44.) 

^.That  the  price  of  each  single  kind  of  commodity  forms  part  of  the  sum  of  the 


140  Capitalist  Production. 

c.  Coin  and  symbols  of  value. 

That  money  takes  the  shape  of  coin,  springs  from  its  function 
as  the  circulating  medium.  The  weight  of  gold  represented  in 
imagination  by  the  prices  or  money-names  of  commodities, 
must  confront  those  commodities,  within  the  circulation,  in 
the  shape  of  coins  or  pieces  of  gold  of  a  given  denomination. 
Coining,  like  the  establishment  of  a  standard  of  prices,  is  the 
business  of  the  State.  The  different  national  uniforms  worn 
at  home  by  gold  and  silver  as  coins,  and  doffed  again  in  the 
market  of  the  world,  indicate  the  separation  between  the 
internal  or  national  spheres  of  the  circulation  of  commodities, 
and  their  universal  sphere. 

The  only  difference,  therefore,  between  coin  and  bullion,  is 
one  of  shape,  and  gold  can  at  any  time  pass  from  one  form  to 

prices  of  all  the  commodities  in  circulation,  is  a  self-evident  proposition.  But  how 
use-values,  which  are  incommensurable  with  regard  to  each  other,  are  to  be  ex- 
changed, en  masse,  for  the  total  sum  of  gold  and  silver  in  a  country,  is  quite 
incomprehensible.  If  we  start  from  the  notion  that  all  commodities  together  form 
one  single  commodity,  of  which  each  is  but  an  aliquot  part,  we  get  the  following 
beautiful  result:  The  total  commodity  =  x  cwt.  of  gold;  commodity  A  =  an  aliquot 
part  of  the  total  commodity  =  the  same  aliquot  part  of  x  cwt.  of  gold.  This  is 
stated  in  all  seriousness  by  Montesquieu:  "  Si  Ton  compare  la  masse  de  I'or  et  de 
I'argent  qui  est  dans  le  monde  avec  la  somme  des  marchandises  qui  y  sont,  il  est 
certain  que  chaque  denree  ou  marchandise,  en  particulier,  pourra  etre  comparee  a 
une  certaine  portion  de  le  masse  entiere.  Supposons  qu'il  n'y  ait  qu'une  seule 
denree  ou  marchandise  dans  le  monde,  ou  qu'il  n'y  ait  qu'une  seule  qui  s'achete, 
et  qu'elle  se  divise  comme  I'argent:  Cette  partie  de  cette  marchandise  repondra 
a  une  partie  de  la  masse  de  I'argent;  la  moitie  du  total  de  I'une  a  la  moitie  du 
total  de  I'autre,  &c.  .  .  .  I'etablissement  du  prix  des  choses  depend  toujours 
fondamentalement  de  la  raison  du  total  des  choses  au  total  des  signes."  (Montes- 
quieu 1.  c.  t  III.,  pp.  122,  13.)  As  to  the  further  development  of  this  theory 
by  Ricardo  and  his  disciples,  James  Mill,  Lord  Overstone,  and  others,  see 
"Critique  of  Political  Economy,"  pp.  235,  ff.  John  Stuart  Mill,  with  his  usual 
eclectic  logic,  understands  how  to  hold  at  the  same  time  the  view  of  his  father, 
James  Mill,  and  the  opposite  view.  On  a  comparison  of  the  text  of  his  compen- 
dium, "Principles  of  Pol.  Econ.,"  with  his  preface  to  the  first  edition,  in  which 
preface  he  announces  himself  as  the  Adam  Smith  of  his  day  —  we  do  not  know 
whether  to  admire  more  the  simplicity  of  the  man,  or  that  of  the  public,  who  took 
him,  in  good  faith,  for  the  Adam  Smith  he  announced  himself  to  be,  although 
he  bears  about  as  much  resemblance  to  Adam  Smith  as  say  General  Williams,  of 
Kars,  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington.  The  original  researches  of  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill,  which 
are  neither  extensive  nor  profound,  in  the  domain  of  political  economy,  will  be 
found  mustered  in  rank  and  file  in  his  little  work,  "  Some  Unsettled  Questions  of 
Political  Economy,"  which  appeared  in  1844.  Locke  asserts  point  blank  the  con- 
nexion between  the  absence  of  value  in  gold  and  silver,  and  the  determination  of 
their  values  by  quantity  alone,  "Mankind  having  consented  to  put  an  imaginary 
value  upon  gold  and  silver  .  .  .  the  intrinsik  value,  regarded  in  these  metals, 
is  nothing  but  the  quantity."  ("Some  considerations,"  &c.,  1691,  Works  Ed.  1777, 
vol.    II.,    p.    15.) 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.       141 

the  other.  ^  But  no  sooner  does  coin  leave  the  mint,  than  it 
immediately  finds  itself  on  the  high-road  to  the  melting  pot. 
Dnring  their  currency,  coins  wear  away,  some  more,  others 
less.  J^ame  and  substance,  nominal  weight  and  real  weight, 
begin  their  process  of  separation.  Coins  of  the  same  denom- 
ination become  different  in  value,  because  they  are  different  in 
weight.  The  weight  of  gold  fixed  upon  as  the  standard  of 
prices,  deviates  from  the  weight  that  serves  as  the  circulating 
medium,  and  the  latter  thereby  ceases  any  longer  to  be  a  real 
equivalent  of  the  commodities  whose  prices  it  realises.  The 
history  of  coinage  during  the  middle  ages  and  down  into  the 
18th  century,  records  the  ever  renewed  confusion  arising  from 
this  cause.  The  natural  tendency  of  circulation  to  convert 
coins  into  a  mere  semblance  of  what  they  profess  to  be,  into  a 
symbol  of  the  weight  of  metal  they  are  officially  supposed  to 
contain,  is  recognised  by  modern  legislation,  which  fixes  the 
loss  of  weight  sufficient  to  demonetise  a  gold  coin,  or  to  make 
it  no  longer  legal  tender. 

The  fact  that  the  currency  of  coins  itself  effects  a  separation 
between  their  nominal  and  their  real  weight,  creating  a  dis- 
tinction between  them  as  mere  pieces  of  metal  on  the  one  hand, 
and  as  coins  with  a  definite  function  on  the  other — this  fact 
implies  the  latent  possibility  of  replacing  metallic  coins  by 
tokens  of  some  other  material,  by  symbols  serving  the  same 
purposes  as  coins.  The  practical  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
coining  extremely  minute  quantities  of  gold  or  silver,  and  the 
circumstance  that  at  first  the  less  precious  metal  is  used  as  a 
measure  of  value  instead  of  the  more  precious,  copper  instead 

*  It  lies,  of  course,  entirely  beyond  my  purpose  to  take  into  consideration  such 
details  as  the  seigniorage  on  minting.  I  will,  however,  cite  for  the  benefit  of  the 
romantic  sycophant,  Adam  Miiller,  who  admires  the  "  generous  liberality "  with 
which  the  English  Government  coins  gratuitously,  the  following  opinion  of  Sir 
Dudley  North:  "Silver  and  gold,  like  other  commodities,  have  their  ebbings  and 
flowings.  Upon  the  arrival  of  quantities  from  Spain  .  .  .  it  is  carried  into  the 
Tower,  and  coined.  Not  long  after  there  will  come  a  demand  for  bullion  to  be 
exported  again.  If  there  is  none,  but  all  happens  to  be  in  coin,  what  then?  Melt 
it  down  again;  there's  no  loss  in  it,  for  the  coining  costs  the  owner  nothing.  Thus 
the  nation  has  been  abused,  and  made  to  pay  for  the  twisting  of  straw  for  asses 
to  eat.  If  the  merchant  were  made  to  pay  the  price  of  the  coinage,  he  would 
not  have  sent  his  silver  to  the  Tower  without  consideration;  and  coined  money 
would  always  keep  a  value  above  uncoined  silver."  (North,  1.  c,  p.  18.)  North 
was  himself   one  of  the   foremost  merchants  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II. 


1^2  Capitalist  Production. 

of  silver,  silver  instead  of  gold,  and  that  the  less  precious 
circulates  as  money  until  dethroned  by  the  more  precious — all 
these  facts  explain  the  parts  historically  played  by  silver  and 
copper  tokens  as  substitutes  for  gold  coins.  Silver  and  copper 
tokens  take  the  place  of  gold  in  those  regions  of  the  circulation 
where  coins  pass  from  hand  to  hand  most  rapidly,  and  are  sub- 
ject to  the  maximum  amount  of  wear  and  tear.  This  occurs 
where  sales  and  purchases  on  a  very  small  scale  are  continually 
happening.  In  order  to  prevent  these  satellites  from  establish- 
ing themselves  permanently  in  the  place  of  gold,  positive 
enactments  determine  the  extent  to  which  they  must  be  com- 
pulsorily  received  as  payment  instead  of  gold.  The  particular 
tracks  pursued  by  the  different  species  of  coin  in  currency,  run 
naturally  into  each  other.  The  tokens  keep  company  with 
gold,  to  pay  fractional  parts  of  the  smallest  gold  coin ;  gold  is, 
on  the  one  hand,  constantly  pouring  into  retail  circulation,  and 
on  the  other  hand  is  as  constantly  being  thrown  out  again  by 
being  changed  into  tokens.^ 

The  weight  of  metal  in  the  silver  and  copper  tokens  is 
arbitrarily  fixed  by  law.  When  in  currency,  they  wear  away 
even  more  rapidly  than  gold  coins.  Hence  their  functions 
are  totally  independent  of  their  weight,  and  consequently  of  all 
value.  The  function  of  gold  as  coin  becomes  completely  inde- 
pendent of  the  metallic  value  of  that  gold.  Therefore  things 
that  are  relatively  without  value,  such  as  paper  notes,  can 
serve  as  coins  in  its  place.  This  purely  symbolic  character  is 
to  a  certain  extent  masked  in  metal  tokens.  In  paper  money 
it  stands  out  plainly.  In  fact,  ce  n'est  oue  le  premier  pas  qui 
coute. 

We  allude  here  only  to  inconvertible  paper  money  issued  by 

'  If  silver  never  exceed  what  is  wanted  for  the  smaller  payments,  it  cannot  be 
collected  in  sufficient  quantities  for  the  larger  payments  .  .  .  the  use  ot  gold  in 
the  main  payments  necessarily  implies  also  its  use  in  the  retail  trade:  those  who 
have  gold  coin  offering  them  for  small  purchases,  and  receiving  with  the  com- 
modity purchased  a  balance  of  silver  in  return;  by  which  means  the  surplus  of 
silver  that  would  otherwise  encumber  the  retail  dealer,  is  drawn  off  and  dis- 
persed into  general  circulation.  But  if  there  is  as  much  silver  as  will  transact 
the  small  payments  independent  of  gold,  the  retail  trader  must  then  receive  silver 
for  small  purchases;  and  it  must  ifi  necessity  accumulate  in  his  hands."  (David 
Buchanan.  "  Inquiry  into  the  Taxation  and  Commercial  Policy  of  Great  Britain." 
Edinburgh,  1844.  pp.  848,  849.) 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.       143 

the  State  and  having  compulsory  circulation.  It  has  its 
immediate  origin  in  the  metallic  currenc3\  Money  based  upon 
credit  implies  on  the  other  hand  conditions,  which  from  our 
standpoint  of  the  simple  circulation  of  commodities,  are  as  yet 
totally  unknown  to  us.  But  we  may  affirm  this  much,  that 
just  as  true  paper  money  takes  its  rise  in  the  function  of  money 
as  the  circulating  medium,  so  money  based  upon  credit  takes 
root  spontaneously  in  the  function  of  money  as  the  means  of 
payment.^ 

The  State  puts  in  circulation  bits  of  paper  on  which  their 
various  denominations,  say  £1,  £5,  &c.,  are  printed.  In  so  far 
as  they  actually  take  the  place  of  gold  to  the  same  amount, 
their  movement  is  subject  to  the  laws  that  regulate  the  currency 
of  money  itself.  A  law  peculiar  to  the  circulation  of  paper 
money  can  spring  up  only  from  the  proportion  in  which  that 
paper  money  represents  gold.  Such  a  law  exists;  stated 
simply,  it  is  as  follows:  the  issue  of  paper  money  must  not 
exceed  in  amount  the  gold  (or  silver  as  the  case  may  be)  which 
would  actually  circulate  if  not  replaced  by  symbols.  Now  the 
quantity  of  gold  which  the  circulation  can  absorb,  constantly 
fluctuates  about  a  given  level.  Still,  the  mass  of  the  circulat- 
ing medium  in  a  given  country  never  sinks  below  a  certain 
minimum  easily  ascertained  by  actual  experience.  The  fact 
that  this  minimum  mass  continually  undergoes  changes  in  its 
constituent  parts,  or  that  the  pieces  of  gold  of  which  it  consists 
are  being  constantly  replaced  by  fresh  ones,  causes  of  course  no 
change  either  in  its  amount  or  in  the  continuity  of  its  circula- 

^  The  mandarin  Wan-mao-in,  the  Chinese  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  took  it 
into  his  head  one  day  to  lay  before  the  Son  of  Heaven  a  proposal  that  secretly 
aimed  at  converting  the  assignats  of  the  empire  into  convertible  bank  notes.  The 
assignats  Committee,  in  its  report  of  April,  1854,  pives  him  a  severe  snub- 
bing. Whether  he  also  received  the  traditional  drubbing  with  bamboos  is  not 
stated.  The  concluding  part  of  the  report  is  as  follows:  —  "The  Committee  has 
carefully  examined  his  proposal  and  finds  that  it  is  entirely  in  favour  of  the 
merchants,  and  that  no  advantage  will  result  to  the  crown."  (Arbeiten  der 
Kaiserlich  Russischen  Gesandtschaft  zu  Peking  iiber  China.  Aus  dem  Russischen 
von  Dr.  K.  Abel  und  F.  A.  Mecklenburg.  Erster  Band.  Berlin,  1858,  pp.  47,  59.) 
In  his  evidence  before  the  Committee  of  the  House  of  Lords  on  the  Bank  Acts,  a 
governor  of  the  Bank  of  England  says  with  regard  to  the  abrasion  of  gold  coins  dur- 
ing currency:  "Every  year  a  fresh  class  of  sovereigns  becomes  too  light.  The  class 
which  one  year  passes  with  full  weight,  loses  enough  by  wear  and  tear  to  draw  the 
scales  flext  year  against  it."     (House  of  Lords'  Committee,  1848,  n.   429.) 


144  Capitalist  Production. 

tion.  It  can  therefore  be  replaced  by  paper  symbols.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  all  the  conduits  of  circulation  were  to-day  filled 
with  paper  money  to  the  full  extent  of  their  capacity  for 
absorbing  money,  they  might  to-morrow  be  overflowing  in 
consequence  of  a  fluctuation  in  the  circulation  of  commodities. 
There  would  no  longer  be  any  standard.  If  the  paper  money 
exceed  its  proper  limit,  which  is  the  amount  of  gold  coins  of 
the  like  denomination  that  can  actually  be  current,  it  would, 
apart  from  the  danger  of  falling  into  general  disrepute,  re- 
present only  that  quantity  of  gold,  which,  in  accordance  with 
the  laws  of  the  circulation  of  commodities,  is  required,  and  is 
alone  capable  of  being  represented  by  paper.  If  the  quantity 
of  paper  money  issued  be  double  what  it  ought  to  be,  then,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  £1  would  be  the  money-name  not  of  ^  of  an 
ounce,  but  of  ^  of  an  ounce  of  gold.  The  effect  would  be  the 
same  as  if  an  alteration  had  taken  place  in  the  function  of  gold 
as  a  standard  of  prices.  Those  values  that  were  previously 
expressed  by  the  price  of  £1  would  now  be  expressed  by  the 
price  of  £2. 

Paper-money  is  a  token  representing  gold  or  money.  The 
relation  between  it  and  the  values  of  commodities  is  this,  that 
the  latter  are  ideally  expressed  in  the  same  quantities  of  gold 
that  are  symbolically  represented  by  the  paper.  Only  in  so 
far  as  paper-money  represents  gold,  which  like  all  other  com- 
modities has  value,  is  it  a  symbol  of  value.  ^ 

Finally,  some  one  may  ask  why  gold  is  capable  of  being 
replaced  by  tokens  that  have  no  value?  But,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  it  is  capable  of  being  so  replaced  only  in  so  far 
as   it   functions   exclusively   as   coin,    or   as   the    circulating 

*The  following  passage  from  Fullarton  shows  the  want  of  clearness  on  the  part 
of  even  the  best  writers  on  money,  in  their  comprehension  of  its  various  func- 
tions: "That,  as  far  as  concerns  our  domestic  exchanges,  all  the  monetary  func- 
tions which  are  usually  performed  by  gold  and  silver  coins,  may  be  performed  as 
effectually  by  a  circulation  of  inconvertible  notes,  having  no  value  but  that 
factitious  and  conventional  value  they  derive  from  the  law,  is  a  fact  which  admits, 
I  conceive,  of  no  denial.  Value  of  this  description  may  be  made  to  answer  all  the 
purposes  of  intrinsic  value,  and  supersede  even  the  necessity  for  a  standard,  pro- 
vided only  the  quantity  of  issues  be  kept  under  due  limitation."  (Fullarton: 
"Regulation  of  Currencies,"  London,  p.  210.)  Because  the  commodity  that 
serves  as  money  is  capable  of  being  replaced  in  circulation  by  mere  symbols  of 
value,  therefore  its  functions  as  a  measure  of  value  and  a  standard  of  prices  are 
declared  to  be  superfluous. 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.      145 

medium,  and  as  nothing  else.  Now,  money  has  other  functions 
besides  this  one,  and  the  isolated  function  of  serving  as  the 
mere  circulating  medium  is  not  necessarily  the  only  one 
attached  to  gold  coin,  although  this  is  the  case  with  those 
abraded  coins  that  continue  to  circulate.  Each  piece  of  money 
is  a  mere  coin,  or  means  of  circulation,  only  so  long  as  it  ac- 
tually circulates.  But  this  is  just  the  case  with  that  minimum 
mass  of  gold,  which  is  capable  of  being  replaced  by  paper- 
money.  That  mass  remains  constantly  within  the  sphere  of 
circulation,  continually  functions  as  a  circulating  medium,  and 
exists  exclusively  for  that  purpose.  Its  movement  therefore 
represents  nothing  but  the  continued  alteration  of  the  inverse 
phases  of  the  metamorphosis  C — ^M — ^C,  phases  in  which  com- 
modities confront  their  value-forms,  only  to  disappear  again 
immediately.  The  independent  existence  of  the  exchange 
value  of  a  commodity  is  here  a  transient  apparition,  by  means 
of  which  the  commodity  is  immediately  replaced  by  another 
commodity.  Hence,  in  this  process  which  continually  makes 
money  pass  from  hand  to  hand,  the  mere  symbolical  existence 
of  money  suffices.  Its  functional  existence  absorbs,  so  to  say, 
its  material  existence.  Being  a  transient  and  objective  reflex 
of  the  prices  of  commodities,  it  serves  only  as  a  symbol  of  itself, 
and  is  therefore  capable  of  being  replaced  by  a  token. ^  One 
thing  is,  however,  requisite ;  this  token  must  have  an  objective 
social  validity  of  its  own,  and  this  the  paper  symbol  acquires 
by  its  forced  currency.  This  compulsory  action  of  the 
State  can  take  effect  only  within  that  inner  sphere  of  circula- 
tion which  is  co-terminous  with  the  territories  of  the  com- 
munity, but  it  is  also  only  within  that  sphere  that  money 
completely  responds  to  its  function  of  being  the  circulating- 
medium,  or  becomes  coin. 

*  From  the  fact  that  gold  and  silver,  so  far  as  they  are  coins,  or  exclusively 
serve  as  the  medium  of  circulation,  become  mere  tokens  of  themselves,  Nicholas 
Barbon  deduces  the  right  of  Governments  "  to  raise  money,"  that  is,  to  give  to  the 
■weight  of  silver  that  is  called  a  shilling  the  name  of  a  greater  weight,  such  as  a 
crown;  and  so  to  pay  creditors  shillings,  instead  of  crowns.  "  Money  does  wear 
and  grow  lighter  by  often  telling  over  ...  It  is  the  denomination  and  cur- 
rency of  the  money  that  men  regard  in  bargaining,  and  not  the  quantity  of  silver 
.  .  .  'Tis  the  public  authority  upon  the  metal  that  makes  it  money."  (N. 
Barbon,  I.  c,  pp.  29,  30,  25.) 


1^5.  Capitalist  Production. 

SECTION    3. MONEY. 

The  commodity  that  functions  as  a  measure  of  value,  and, 
either  in  its  own  person  or  by  a  representative,  as  the  medium 
of  circulation,  is  money.  Gold  (or  silver)  is  therefore  money. 
It  functions  as  money,  on  the  one  hand,  when  it  has  to  be 
present  in  its  own  golden  person.  It  is  then  the  money-com- 
modity, neither  merely  ideal,  as  in  its  function  of  a  measure 
of  value,  nor  capable  of  being  represented,  as  in  its  function  of 
circulating  medium.  On  the  other  hand,  it  also  functions  aa 
money,  when  by  virtue  of  its  function,  whether  that  function 
be  performed  in  person  or  by  representative,  it  congeals  into  the 
sole  form  of  value,  the  only  adequate  form  of  existence  of 
exchange-value,  in  opposition  to  use-value,  represented  by  all 
other  commodities. 

a.  Hoarding. 

The  continual  movement  in  circuits  of  the  two  antithetical 
metamorphoses  of  commodities,  or  the  never  ceasing  alternation 
of  sale  and  purchase,  is  reflected  in  the  restless  currency  of 
money,  or  in  the  function  that  money  performs  of  a  perpetuum 
mobile  of  circulation.  But  so  soon  as  the  series  of  metamor- 
phoses is  interrupted,  so  soon  as  sales  are  not  supplemented  by 
subsequent  purchases,  money  ceases  to  be  mobilised ;  it  is  trans- 
formed, as  Boisguillebert  says,  from  "meuble"  into  "im- 
meuble,"  from  movable  into  immovable,  from  coin  into 
money. 

With  the  very  earliest  development  of  the  circulation  of 
commodities,  there  is  also  developed  the  necessity,  and  the 
passionate  desire,  to  hold  fast  the  product  of  the  first  metamor- 
phosis. This  product  is  the  transformed  shape  of  the  com- 
modity, or  its  gold-chrysalis.^  Commodities  are  thus  sold  not 
for  the  purpose  of  buying  others,  but  in  order  to  replace  their 
commodity-form  by  their  money-form.  From  being  the  mere 
means  of  effecting  the  circulation  of  commodities,  this  change 
of  form  becomes  the  end  and  aim.  The  changed  form  of  the 
commodity  is  thus  prevented  from  functioning  as  its  uncondi- 

*  "Une  richesse  en  argent  n'est  que  .  .  .  richesse  en  productions,  converties 
en  argent."  (Mercier  de  la  Riviere,  L  c.)  "Une  valeur  en  productions  n'a 
fait  que  changer  de   forme."       (Id.,  p.   486.) 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.      147 

tionally  alienable  form^  or  as  its  merely  transient  money-form. 
The  money  becomes  petrified  into  a  hoard,  and  the  seller 
becomes  a  hoarder  of  money. 

In  the  early  stages  of  the  circulation  of  commodities,  it  is 
the  surplus  use-values  alone  that  are  converted  into  money. 
Gold  and  silver  thus  become  of  themselves  social  expressions 
for  superfluity  or  wealth.  This  naive  form  of  hoarding  be- 
comes perpetuated  in  those  communities  in  which  the  tra- 
ditional mode  of  production  is  carried  on  for  the  supply  of  a 
fixed  and  limited  circle  of  home  wants.  It  is  thus,  with  the 
people  of  Asia,  and  particularly  of  the  East  Indies.  Vander- 
lint,  who  fancies  that  the  prices  of  commodities  in  a  country 
are  determined  by  the  quantity  of  gold  and  silver  to  be  found 
in  it,  asks  himself  why  Indian  commodities  are  so  cheap.  An- 
swer :  Because  the  Hindoos  bury  their  money.  From  1602  to 
1734,  he  remarks,  they  buried  150  millions  of  pounds  sterling 
of  silver,  which  originally  came  from  America  to  Europe.^ 
In  the  10  years  from  1856  to  1866,  England  exported  to  India 
and  China  £120,000,000  in  silver,  which  had  been  received  in 
exchange  for  Australian  gold.  Most  of  the  silver  exported  to 
China  makes  its  way  to  India. 

As  the  production  of  commodities  further  develops,  every 
producer  of  commodities  is  compelled  to  make  sure  of  the 
nexus  rerum  of  the  social  pledge.^  His  wants  are  constantly 
making  themselves  felt,  and  necessitate  the  continual  purchase 
of  other  people's  commodities,  while  the  production  and  sale  of 
his  own  goods  require  time,  and  depend  upon  circumstances. 
In  order  then  to  be  able  to  buy  without  selling,  he  must  have 
sold  previously  without  buying.  This  operation,  conducted 
on  a  general  scale,  appears  to  imply  a  contradiction.  But  the 
precious  metals  at  the  sources  of  their  production  are  directly 
exchanged  for  other  commodities.  And  here  we  have  sales 
(by  the  owners  of  commodities)  without  purchases  (by  the 
owners  of  gold  or  silver.)^     And  subsequent  sales,  by  other 

^  "  'Tis  by  this  practice  they  keep  all  their  goods  and  manufactures  at  such  low 
rates."     (Vanderlint,   1.  c,  p.  96.) 

°  Money  ...  is  a  pledge."  (John  Bellers:  "Essays  about  the  Poor,  Manufac- 
turers, Trade,    Plantations,  and  Immorality,"   Lond.,   1699,   p.   13.) 

*  A  purchase,  in  a  "  categorical  "  sense,  implies  that  gold  and  silver  are  already 
the  converted  form  of  commodities,  or  the  product  of  a  sale. 


1^8  Capitalist  Production. 

producers,  unfollowed  by  purchases,  merely  bring  about  tbe 
distribution  of  the  newly  produced  precious  metals  among  all 
the  owners  of  commodities.  In  this  way,  all  along  the  line  of 
exchange,  hoards  of  gold  and  silver  of  varied  extent  are  ac- 
cumulated. With  the  possibility  of  holding  and  storing  up 
exchange  value  in  the  shape  of  a  particular  commodity,  arises 
also  the  greed  for  gold.  Along  with  the  extension  of  circula- 
tion, increases  the  power  of  money,  that  absolutely  social  form 
of  wealth  ever  ready  for  use.  "Gold  is  a  wonderful  thing! 
Whoever  possesses  it  is  lord  of  all  he  wants.  By  means  of 
gold  one  can  even  get  souls  into  Paradise."  (Columbus  in  his 
letter  from  Jamaica,  1503.)  Since  gold  does  not  disclose  what 
has  been  transformed  into  it,  everything,  commodity  or  not, 
is  convertible  into  gold.  Everything  becomes  saleable  and 
buyable.  The  circulation  becomes  the  great  social  retort  into 
which  everything  is  thrown,  to  come  out  again  as  a  gold- 
crystal.  Not  even  are  the  bones  of  saints,  and  still  less  are 
more  delicate  res  sacrosanctse  extra  commercium  hominum 
able  to  withstand  this  alchemy.^  Just  as  every  qualitative 
difference  between  commodities  is  extinguished  in  money,  so 
money,  on  its  side,  like  the  radical  leveller  that  it  is,  does 
away  with  all  distinctions.*     But  money  itself  is  a  commodity, 

*  Henry  III.,  most  Christian  king  of  France,  robbed  cloisters  of  their  relics,  and 
turned  them  into  money.  It  is  well  known  what  part  the  despoiling  of  the 
Delphic  Temple,  by  the  Phocians,  played  in  the  history  of  Greece.  Temples  with 
the  ancients  served  as  the  dwellings  of  the  gods  of  commodities.  They  were 
"  sacred  banks."  With  the  Phoenicians,  a  trading  people  par  excellence,  money  was 
the  transmuted  shape  of  everything.  It  was,  therefore,  quite  in  order  that  the 
virgins,  who,  at  the  feast  of  the  Goddess  of  Love,  gave  themselves  up  to  strangers, 
should  offer  to  the  goddess  the  piece  of  money  they  received. 
*  "Gold,  yellow,  glittering,  precious  gold ! 

Thus  much  of  this,  will  make  black  white;  foul,  fair; 

Wrong  right;   base,   noble;   old,  young;   coward,  valiant. 

.  .  .  What  this,  you  gods?     Why,   this 

Will   lug   your   priests    and   servants    from    your   sides; 

Pluck  stout  men's   pillows  from  below  their  heads; 

This  yellow  slave 
Will  knit  and  break  religions;  bless  the  accurs'd; 

Make   the   hoar   leprosy   ador'd;    place    thieves. 

And    give   them    title,    knee   and   approbation, 

With  senators  on  the  bench;  this  is  it, 

That  makes  the  wappen'd  widow  wed  again: 

Come    damned    earth. 

Thou  common  whore  of  mankind." 

(Shakespeare:  Timon  of  Athens.). 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.        149 

an  external  object,  capable  of  becoming  the  private  property 
of  any  individual.  Thus  social  power  becomes  the  private 
power  of  private  persons.  The  ancients  therefore  denounced 
money  as  subversive  of  the  economical  and  moral  order  of 
things.^  Modern  society,  which  soon  after  its  birth,  pulled 
Plutus  by  the  hair  of  his  head  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth,^ 
greets  gold  as  its  Holy  Grail,  as  the  glittering  incarnation  of 
the  very  principle  of  its  own  life. 

A  commodity,  in  its  capacity  of  a  use-value,  satisfies  a 
particular  want,  and  is  a  particular  element  of  material  wealth. 
But  the  value  of  a  commodity  measures  the  degree  of  its 
attraction  for  all  other  elements  of  material  wealth,  and  there- 
fore measures  the  social  wealth  of  its  owner.  To  a  barbarian 
owner  of  commodities,  and  even  to  a  West-European  peasant, 
value  is  the  same  as  value-form,  and  therefore,  to  him  the 
increase  in  his  hoard  of  gold  and  silver  is  an  increase  in  value. 
It  is  true  that  the  value  of  money  varies,  at  one  time  in  con- 
sequence of  a  variation  in  its  own  value,  at  another,  in 
consequence  of  a  change  in  the  value  of  commodities.  But 
this,  on  the  one  hand,  does  not  prevent  200  ounces  of  gold  from 
still  containing  more  value  than  100  ounces,  nor,  on  the  other 
hand,  does  it  hinder  the  actual  metallic  form  of  this  article 
from  continuing  to  be  the  universal  equivalent  form  of  all  other 
commodities,  and  the  immediate  social  incarnation  of  all 
human  labour.  The  desire  after  hoarding  is  in  its  very  nature 
unsatiable.  In  its  qualitative  aspect,  or  formally  considered, 
money  has  no  bounds  to  its  efficacy,  i.e.,  it  is  the  universal  re- 
presentative of  material  wealth,  because  it  is  directly  convert- 
ible into  any  other  commodity.  But,  at  the  same  time,  every 
actual  sum  of  money  is  limited  in  amount,  and  therefore,  as  a 

^  "  Oddiv  yhp  dvOpdirolcriv  oXov  Apyvpoi 
KaKbv  vd/xidfia  ^^Xacrre'  toOto  Kal  7r6Xe(S 
UopOei,  t65'  dvdpas  i^avlffrrjalp  dd/iuv. 
T68'  iKdiddffKei  Kal  TrapaXXdcafi  (/ypivas 
Xpr/ffTds  Tpbt  aictxpd  dvOpdiron  ^x*"* 
Kal  iravrbs  tpyov  Svaff^^eiav  el84vai. 

(Sophocles,  Antigone.) 
'  "  'EXirffot5(T77J  T^s  7rXeoi'6|/aj  ird^eiv  iK  tuv  p.vx^v  t^j  7^s  airhv  rbv  IlXoiJrwwi.'* 
(Athen.  Deipnos.) 


I  CO  Capitalist  Production. 

means  of  purchasing,  has  only  a  limited  efficacy.  This  antag- 
onism between  the  quantitive  limits  of  money  and  its  qualita- 
tive boundlessness,  continually  acts  as  a  spur  to  the  hoarder  in 
his  Sisyphus-like  labour  of  accumulating.  It  is  with  him  as  it 
is  with  a  conqueror  who  sees  in  every  new  country  annexed, 
only  a  new  boundary. 

In  order  that  gold  may  be  held  as  money,  and  made  to  form 
a  hoard,  it  must  be  prevented  from  circulating,  or  from  trans- 
forming itself  into  a  means  of  enjoyment.  The  hoarder, 
therefore,  makes  a  sacrifice  of  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  to  his  gold 
fetish.  He  acts  in  earnest  up  to  the  Gospel  of  abstention.  On 
the  other  hand,  he  can  withdraw  from  circulation  no  more  than 
what  he  has  thrown  into  it  in  the  shape  of  commodities.  The 
more  he  produces,  the  more  he  is  able  to  sell.  Hard  work, 
saving,  and  avarice,  are,  therefore,  his  three  cardinal  virtues, 
and  to  sell  much  and  buy  little  the  sum  of  his  political 
economy.^ 

By  the  side  of  the  gross  form  of  a  hoard,  we  find  also  its 
aesthetic  form  in  th^  possession  of  gold  and  silver  articles. 
This  grows  with  the  wealth  of  civil  society.  "  Soyons  riches  ou 
paraissons  riches"  (Diderot).  In  this  way  there  is  created, 
on  the  one  hand,  a  constantly  extending  market  for  gold  and 
silver,  unconnected  with  their  functions  as  money,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  latent  source  of  supply,  to  which  recourse  is  had 
principally  in  times  of  crisis  and  social  disturbance. 

Hoarding  serves  various  purposes  in  the  economy  of  the 
metallic  circulation.  Its  first  function  arises  out  of  the  con- 
ditions to  which  the  currency  of  gold  and  silver  coins  is  sub- 
ject We  have  seen  how,  along  with  the  continual  fluctuations 
in  the  extent  and  rapidity  of  the  circulation  of  commodities 
and  in  their  prices,  the  quantity  of  money"  current  unceasingly 
ebbs  and  flows.  This  mass  must,  therefore,  be  capable  of  ex- 
pansion and  contraction.  At  one  time  money  must  be  attached 
in  order  to  act  as  circulating  coin,  at  another,  circulating  coin 
must  be  repelled  in  order  to  act  again  as  more  or  less  stagnant 

*  "Accrescere  quanto  pi&  si  pu6  il  numero  de'  venditori  d'ogni  merce,  diminuere 
quanto  piu  si  pu6  il  numero  dei  compratori,  questi  sono  i  cardini  sui  quali  si 
raggirano  tutte  le  operazioni  di  economia  politica."     (Verri,  1.  c.  p.   52.) 


Money  J  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.      151 

money.  In  order  that  the  mass  of  money,  actually  current, 
may  constantly  saturate  the  absorbing  power  of  the  circulation, 
it  is  necessary  that  the  quantity  of  gold  and  silver  in  a  country- 
be  greater  than  the  quantity  required  to  function  as  coin. 
This  condition  is  fulfilled  by  money  taking  the  form  of  hoards. 
These  reserves  serve  as  conduits  for  the  supply  or  withdrawal 
of  money  to  or  from  the  circulation,  which  in  this  way  never 
overflows  its  banks.  ^ 

b.  Means  of  Pa/yment. 

In  the  simple  form  of  the  circulation  of  commodities  hither- 
to considered,  we  found  a  given  value  always  presented  to  us  in 
a  double  shape,  as  a  commodity  at  one  pole,  as  money  at  the 
opposite  pole.  The  owners  of  commodities  came  therefore  into 
contact  as  the  respective  representatives  of  what  were  already 
equivalents.  But  with  the  development  of  circulation,  condi- 
tions arise  under  which  the  alienation  of  commodities  becomes 
separated,  by  an  interval  of  time,  from  the  realisation  of  their 
prices.  It  will  be  sufiicient  to  indicate  the  most  simple  of 
these  conditions.  One  sort  of  article  requires  a  longer,  an- 
other a  shorter  time  for  its  production.  Again,  the  production 
of  different  commodities  depends  on  different  seasons  of  the 
year.  One  sort  of  commodity  may  be  bom  on  its  own  market 
place,  another  has  to  make  a  long  journey  to  market.  Commod- 
ity-owner ISTo.  1,  may  therefore  be  ready  to  sell,  before  'No.  2  is 
ready  to  buy.  When  the  same  transactions  are  continually 
repeated  between  the  same  persons,  the  conditions  of  sale  are 

^  "There  is  required  for  carrying  on  the  trade  of  the  nation  a  determinate  sum  of 
specifick  money,  which  varies,  and  is  sometimes  more,  sometimes  less,  as  the  cir- 
cumstances we  are  in  require.  .  .  .  This  ebbing  and  flowing  of  money  supplies 
and  accommodates  itself,  without  any  aid  of  Politicians.  .  .  .  The  buckets 
work  alternately;  when  money  is  scarce,  bullion  is  coined;  when  bullion  is  scarce, 
money  is  melted."  (Sir  D.  North,  1.  c.  Postscript,  p.  3.)  John  Stuart  Mill,  who 
for  a  long  time  was  an  official  of  the  East  India  Company,  confirms  the  fact  that 
in  India  silver  ornaments  still  continue  to  perform  directly  the  functions  of  a 
hoard.  The  silver  ornaments  are  brought  out  and  coined  when  there  is  a  high 
rate  of  interest,  and  go  back  again  when  the  rate  of  interest  falls.  (J.  S.  Mill's 
Evidence.  "  Reports  on  Bank  Acts,"  1857,  2084.)  According  to  a  Parliamentary 
document  of  1864,  on  the  gold  and  silver  import  and  export  of  India,  the  im- 
port of  gold  and  silver  in  1863  exceeded  the  export  by  £19,367,764.  During  the 
8  years  immediately  preceding  1864,  the  excess  of  imports  over  exports  of  the 
precious  metals  amounted  to  £109,653,917.  During  this  century  far  more  than 
£200,000,000   has  been   coined   in   India. 


152  Capitalist  Production. 

regulated  in  accordance  with  the  conditions  of  production. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  use  of  a  given  commodity,  of  a  house, 
for  instance,  is  sold  (in  common  parlance,  let)  for  a  definite 
period.  Here,  it  is  only  at  the  end  of  the  term  that  the  buyer 
has  actually  received  the  use-value  of  the  commodity.  He 
therefore  buys  it  before  he  pays  for  it.  The  vendor  sells  an 
existing  commodity,  the  purchaser  buys  as  the  mere  represen- 
tative of  money,  or  rather  of  future  money.  The  vendor  be- 
comes a  creditor,  the  purchaser  becomes  a  debtor.  Since  the 
metamorphosis  of  commodities,  or  the  development  of  their 
value-form,  appears  here  under  a  new  aspect,  money  also  ac- 
quires a  fresh  function ;  it  becomes  the  means  of  payment. 

The  character  of  creditor,  or  of  debtor,  results  here  from  the 
simple  circulation.  The  change  in  .the  form  of  that  circula- 
tion stamps  buyer  and  seller  with  this  new  die.  At  first,  there- 
fore, these  new  parts  are  just  as  transient  and  alternating  as 
those  of  seller  and  buyer,  and  are  in  turns  played  by  the  same 
actors.  But  the  opposition  is  not  nearly  so  pleasant,  and  is  far 
more  capable  of  crystallization.^  The  same  characters  can, 
however,  be  assumed  independently  of  the  circulation  of  com- 
modities. The  class-struggles  of  the  ancient  world  took  the 
form  chiefly  of  a  contest  between  debtors  and  creditors,  which 
in  Rome  ended  in  the  ruin  of  the  plebeian  debtors.  They 
were  displaced  by  slaves.  In  the  middle-ages  the  contest 
ended  with  the  ruin  of  the  feudal  debtors,  who  lost  their  po- 
litical power  together  with  the  economical  basis  on  which  it 
was  established.  Nevertheless,  the  money  relation  of  debtor 
and  creditor  that  existed  at  these  two  periods  reflected  only  the 
deeper-lying  antagonism  between  the  general  economical  con- 
ditions of  existence  of  the  classes  in  question. 

Let  us  return  to  the  circulation  of  commodities.  The  ap- 
pearance of  the  two  equivalents,  commodities  and  money,  at 
the  two  poles  of  the  process  of  sale,  has  ceased  to  be  simulta- 
neous.    The  money  functions  now,  first  as  a  measure  of  value 

*  The  following  shows  the  debtor  and  creditor  relations  existing  between  English 
traders  at  the  beginning  of  the  ISth  century.  "  Such  a  spirit  of  cruelty  reigns 
here  in  England  among  the  men  of  trade,  that  is  not  to  be  met  with  in  any  other 
society  of  men,  nor  in  any  other  kingdom  of  the  world."  ("An  Essay  on  Credit 
and  the  Bankrupt  Act,"  Lond.,  1707,  p.  2.) 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.     153 

in  the  determination  of  the  price  of  the  commodity  sold;  the 
price  fixed  by  the  contract  measures  the  obligation  of  the 
debtor,  or  the  sum  of  money  that  he  has  to  pay  at  a  fixed 
date.  Secondly,  it  serves  as  an  ideal  means  of  purchase.  Al- 
though existing  only  in  the  promise  of  the  buyer  to  pay,  it 
causes  the  commodity  to  change  hands.  It  is  not  before  the 
day  fixed  for  payment  that  the  means  of  payment  actually 
steps  into  circulation,  leaves  the  hand  of  the  buyer  for  that  of 
the  seller.  The  circulating  medium  was  transformed  into  a 
hoard,  because  the  process  stopped  short  after  the  first  phase, 
because  the  converted  shape  of  the  commodity,  viz.,  the  money, 
was  withdrawn  from  circulation.  The  means  of  payment 
enters  the  circulation,  but  only  after  the  commodity  has  left 
it.  The  money  is  no  longer  the  means  that  brings  about  the 
process.  It  only  brings  it  to  a  close,  by  stepping  in  as  the 
absolute  form  of  existence  of  exchange  value,  or  as  the  uni- 
versal commodity.  The  seller  turned  his  commodity  into 
money,  in  order  thereby  to  satisfy  some  want ;  the  hoarder  did 
the  same  in  order  to  keep  his  commodity  in  its  money-shape, 
and  the  debtor  in  order  to  be  able  to  pay ;  if  he  do  not  pay, 
his  goods  will  be  sold  by  the  sheriff.  The  value-form  of  com- 
modities, money,  is  therefore  now  the  end  and  aim  of  a  sale, 
and  that  owing  to  a  social  necessity  springing  out  of  the 
process  of  circulation  itself. 

The  buyer  converts  money  back  into  commodities  before  he 
has  turned  commodities  into  money :  in  other  words,  he 
achieves  the  second  metamorphosis  of  commodities  before  the 
first.  The  seller's  commodity  circulates,  and  realises  its  price, 
but  only  in  the  shape  of  a  legal  claim  upon  money.  It  is  con- 
verted into  a  use-value  before  it  has  been  converted  into 
mone3\  The  completion  of  its  first  metamorphosis  follows 
only  at  a  later  period.^ 

*  It  will  be  seen  from  the  following  quotation  from  my  book  which  appeared  in 
1850,  why  I  take  no  notice  in  the  text  of  an  opposite  form:  "Contrariwise,  in  the 
process  M  —  C,  the  money  can  be  alienated  as  a  real  means  of  purchase,  and  in 
that  way,  the  price  of  the  commodity  can  be  realised  before  the  use-value  of  the 
money  is  realised  and  the  commodity  actually  delivered.  This  occurs  constantly 
under  the  every-day  form  of  pre-payments.  And  it  is  under  this  form,  that  the 
English  government  purchases  opium  from  the  ryots  of  India.  ...  In  these  cases, 
however,  the  money  always  acts  as  a  means  of  purchase.     .     .     .     Of  course  capital 


1^4  Capitalist  Production. 

The  obligations  falling  due  within  a  given  period,  rep^^^ 
sent  the  sum  of  the  prices  of  the  commodities,  the  sale  oi  which 
gave  rise  to  those  obligations.  The  quantity  of  gold  ne«:essary 
to  realise  this  sum,  depends,  in  the  first  instance,  on  the  rapid- 
ity of  currency  of  the  means  of  payment.  That  quantity  is 
conditioned  by  two  circumstances:  first  the  relations  between 
debtors  and  creditors  from  a  sort  of  chain,  in  such  a  way  that 
A,  when  he  receives  money  from  his  .debtor  B,  straightway 
hands  it  over  to  C  bis  creditor,  and  so  on;  the  second  cir- 
cumstance is  the  length  of  the  intervals  between  the  different 
due-days  of  the  obligations.  The  continuous  chain  of  pay- 
ments, or  retarded  first  metamorphoses,  is  essentially  different 
from  that  interlacing  of  the  series  of  metamorphoses  which 
we  considered  on  a  former  page.  By  the  currency  of  the 
circulating  medium,  the  connexion  between  buyers  and  sellers, 
is  not  merely  expressed.  This  connexion  is  originated  by, 
and  exists  in,  the  circulation  alone.  Contrariwise,  the  move- 
ment of  the  means  of  payment  expresses  a  social  relation  that 
was  in  existence  long  before. 

The  fact  that  a  number  of  sales  take  place  simultaneously, 
and  side  by  side,  limits  the  extent  to  which  coin  can  be  re- 
placed by  the  rapidity  of  currency.  On  the  other  hand,  this 
fact  is  a  new  lever  in  economising  the  means  of  payment.  In 
proportion  as  payments  are  concentrated  at  one  spot,  special 
institutions  and  methods  are  developed  for  ttieir  liquidation. 
Such  in  the  middle  ages  were  the  viremenis  at  Lyons.  The 
debts  due  to  A  from  B,  to  B  from  C,  to  C  from  A,  and  so  on, 
have  only  to  be  confronted  with  each  other,  in  order  to  annul 
each  other  to  a  certain  extent  like  positive  and  negative  quan- 
tities. There  thus  remains  only  a  single  balance  to  pay.  The 
greater  the  amount  of  the  payments  concentrated,  the  less  is 
this  balance  relatively  to  that  amount,  and  the  less  is  the  mass 
of  the  means  of  payment  in  circulation. 

The  function  of  money  as  the  means  of  payment  implies  a 
contradiction  without  a  terminus  medius.     In  so  far  as  the 

also  is  advanced  in  the  shape  of  money.  .  .  .  This  point  of  view,  however, 
does  not  fall  within  the  horizon  of  simple  circulation.  ("Critique,"  &c.,  pp. 
188. 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.        155 

payments  balance  one  another,  money  functions  only  ideally 
as  money  of  account,  as  a  measure  of  value.  In  so  far  as  ac- 
tual payments  have  to  be  made,  money  does  not  serve  as  a 
circulating  medium,  as  a  mere  transient  agent  in  the  inter- 
change of  products,  but  as  the  individual  incarnation  of  social 
labour,  as  the  independent  form  of  existence  of  exchange  value, 
as  the  universal  commodity.  This  contradiction  comes  to  a 
head  in  those  phases  of  industrial  and  commercial  crises  which, 
are  known  as  monetary  crises.^  Such  a  crisis  occurs  only 
where  the  ever-lengthening  chain  of  payments,  and  an  artificial 
system  of  settling  them,  has  been  fully  developed.  Whenever 
there  is  a  general  and  extensive  disturbance  of  this  mechanism, 
no  matter  what  its  cause,  money  becomes  suddenly  and  imme- 
diately transformed,  from  its  merely  ideal  shape  of  money  of 
account,  into  hard  cash.  Profane  commodities  can  no  longer 
replace  it.  The  use-value  of  commodities  becomes  value- 
less, and  their  value  vanishes  in  the  presence  of  its  own 
independent  form.  On  the  eve  of  the  crisis,  the  bourgeois, 
with  the  self-sufficiency  that  springs  from  intoxicat- 
ing prosperity,  declares  money  to  be  a  vain  imagination. 
Commodities  alone  are  money.  But  now  the  cry  is  every- 
where :  money  alone  is  a  commodity !  As  the  hart  pants  after 
fresh  water,  so  pants  his  soul  after  money,  the  only  wealth.^ 
In  a  crisis,  the  antithesis  between  commodities  and  their  value- 
form,  money,  becomes  heightened  into  an  absolute  contradic- 
tion. Hence,  in  such  events,  the  form  under  which  money 
appears  is  of  no  importance.     The  money  famine  continues, 

^  The  monetary  crisis  referred  to  in  the  text,  being  a  phase  of  every  crisis,  must 
be  clearly  distinguished  from  that  particular  form  of  crisis,  which  also  is  called  a 
monetary  crisis,  but  which  may  be  produced  by  itself  as  an  independent  phenomenon 
in  such  a  way  as  to  react  only  indirectly  on  industry  and  commerce.  The  pivot  of 
these  crises  is  to  be  found  in  moneyed*  capital,  and  their  sphere  of  direct  action  is 
therefore  the  sphere  of  that  capital,  viz.,  banking,  the  stock  exchange,  and  finance. 

*  "The  sudden  reversion  from  a  system  of  credit  to  a  system  of  hard  cash  heaps 
theoretical  fright  on  top  of  the  practical  panic;  and  the  dealers  by  whose  agency 
circulation  is  affected,  shudder  before  the  impenetrable  mystery  in  which  their  own 
economical  relations  are  involved"  (Karl  Marx,  1.  c.  p.  198).  "The  poor  stand  still, 
because  the  rich  have  no  money  to  employ  them,  though  they  have  the  same  land 
and  hands  to  provide  victuals  and  clothes,  as  ever  they  had;  .  .  .  which  is  the 
true  Riches  of  a  Nation;  and  not  the  money."  (John  Sellers :  "Proposals  for  raising 
a  College  of  Industry."     Lond.  1695.   p.  3.) 


156  Capitalist  Production. 

whether  payments  have  to  be  made  in  gold  or  in  credit  money 
such  as  bank  notes.  ^ 

If  we  now  consider  the  sum  total  of  the  money  current  dur- 
ing a  given  period,  we  shall  find  that,  given  the  rapidity  of 
currency  of  the  circulating  medium  and  of  the  means  of  pay- 
ment, it  is  equal  to  the  sum  of  the  prices  to  be  realised,  plus 
the  sum  of  the  payments  falling  due,  minus  the  payments  that 
balance  each  other,  minus  finally  the  number  of  circuits  in 
which  the  same  piece  of  coin  serves  in  turn  as  means  of 
circulation  and  of  payment.  Hence,  even  when  prices,  rapid- 
ity of  currency,  and  the  extent  of  the  economy  in  payments, 
are  given,  the  quantity  of  money  current  and  the  mass  of  com- 
modities circulating  during  a  given  period,  such  as  a  day,  no 
longer  correspond.  Money  that  represents  commodities  long 
withdrawn  from  circulation,  continues  to  be  current.  Com- 
modities circulate,  whose  equivalent  in  money  will  not  appear 
on  the  scene  till  some  future  day.  Moreover,  the  debts  con- 
tracted each  day,  and  the  payments  falling  due  on  the  same 
day,  are  quite  incommensurable  quantities.^ 

Credit-money  springs  directly  out  of  the  function  of  money 
as  a  means  of  payment.  Certificates  of  the  debts  owing  for 
the  purchased  commodities  circulate  for  the  purpose  of  trans- 

*  The  following  shows  how  such  times  are  exploited  by  the  "amis  du  commerce." 
"On  one  occasion  (1839)  an  old  grasping  banker  (in  the  city)  in  his  private  room 
raised  the  lid  of  the  desk  he  sat  over,  and  displayed  to  a  friend  rolls  of  banknotes, 
saying  with  intense  glee  there  were  £600,000  of  them,  they  were  held  to  make 
tnoney  tight,  and  would  all  be  let  out  after  three  o'clock  on  the  same  day."  ("The 
Theory  of  Exchanges.  The  Bank  Charter  Act  of  1844."  Lond.  1864.  p.  81.)  The 
Observer,  a  semi-official  government  organ,  contained  the  following  paragraph  on 
24th  April,  1864:  "Some  very  curious  rumours  are  current  of  the  means  which 
have  been  resorted  to  in  order  to  create  a  scarcity  of  Banknotes Ques- 
tionable as  it  would  seem,  to  suppose  that  any  trick  of  the  kind  would  be  adopted, 
the  report  has  been  so  universal  that  it  really  deserves  mention." 

'  "The  amount  of  purchases  or  contracts  entered  upon  during  the  course  of  any 
given  day,  will  not  affect  the  quantity  of  money  afloat  on  that  particular  day,  but, 
in  the  vast  majority  of  cases,  will  resolve  themselves  into  multifarious  drafts  upon 
the  quantity  of  money  which  may  be  afloat  at  subsequent  dates  more  or  less  distant. 
.  .  .  .  The  bills  granted  or  credits  opened,  to-day,  need  have  no  resemblance 
whatever,  either  in  quantity,  amount,  or  duration,  to  those  granted  or  entered  upon 
to-morrow  or  next  day;  nay,  many  of  to-day's  bills,  and  credits,  when  due,  fall  in 
with  a  mass  of  liabilities  whose  origins  traverse  a  range  of  antecedent  dates  alto- 
gether indefinite,  bills  at  12,  6,  3  months  or  1  often  aggregating  together  to  swell 
the  common  liabilities  of  one  particular  day.  ..."  ("The  Currency  Theory 
Reviewed:  a  letter  to  the  ScotUsh  people."  By  a  Banker  in  England.  Edinburgh, 
1846,  pp.  29,  80  passim.) 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.        157 

ferring  those  debts  to  others.  On  the  other  hand,  to  the  same 
extent  as  the  system  of  credit  is  extended,  so  is  the  function 
of  money  as  a  means  of  payment.  In  that  character  it  takes 
various  forms  peculiar  to  itself  under  which  it  makes  itself  at 
home  in  the  sphere  of  great  commercial  transactions.  Gold 
and  silver  coin,  on  the  other  hand,  are  mostly  relegated  to  the 
sphere  of  retail  trade.  ^ 

When  the  production  of  commodities  has  sufficiently  ex- 
tended itself,  money  begins  to  serve  as  the  means  of  payment 
beyond  the  sphere  of  the  circulation  of  commodities.  It  be- 
comes the  commodity  that  is  the  universal  subject-matter  of 
all  contracts.^  Eents,  taxes,  and  such  like  payments  are 
transformed  from  payments  in  kind  into  money  payments. 
To  what  extent  this  transformation  depends  upon  the  general 
conditions  of  production,  is  shown,  to  take  one  example,  by 
the  fact  that  the  Roman  Empire  twice  failed  in  its  attempt  to 
levy  all  contributions  in  money.  The  unspeakable  misery  of 
the  French  agricultural  population  under  Louis  XIV.,  a  mis- 
ery so  eloquently  denounced  by  Boisguillebert,  Marshal,  Vau- 
ban,  and  others,  was  due  not  only  to  the  weight  of  the  taxes, 
but  also  to  the  conversion  of  taxes  in  kind  into  money  taxes.^ 

^  As  an  example  of  how  little  ready  money  is  required  in  true  commercial  opera- 
tions, I  give  below  a  statement  by  one  of  the  largest  London  houses  of  its  yearly 
receipts  and  payments.  Its  transactions  during  the  year  1856,  extending  to  many 
milions  of  pounds  sterling,  are  here  reduced  to  the  scale  of  one  million. 


Receipts. 

Payments. 

Bankers'       and       Merchants' 

Bills  payable  after  date, 

£302,674 

Bills  payable  after  date, 

- 

£533,596 

Cheques  on  London  Bankers, 

663,672 

Cheques     on     Bankers, 

&c.. 

Bank  of  England  Notes, 

22,743 

payable     on     demand. 

- 

357,715 

Gold 

9,427 

Country  Notes, 

- 

9,627 

Silver  and  Copper, 

1,484 

Bank  of  England  Notes, 

- 

68,554 

Gold       - 

28,089 

Silver   and    Copper, 

. 

1,486 

Post   Office   Orders,       - 

933 

Total, 

Total, 

£1,000,000 

£1,000,000 

"Report  from  the  Select  Committee  on  the  Bank  Acts,  July,  1858,"  p.  Ixxi. 

*  "The  course  of  trade  being  thus  turned,  from  exchanging  of  goods  for  goods,  or 
delivering  and  taking,  to  selling  and  paying,  all  the  bargains  .  .  .  are  now 
stated  upon  the  foot  of  a  Prince  in  money."  "An  Essay  upon  Publick  Credit." 
3rd  Ed.     Lond.,  1710,  p.  8.) 

'  "L'argent.  .  .  est  devenu  le  bourreau  de  toutes  choses."  Finance  is  the 
"alambic,   qui   a  fait  evaporer  une  quantite  effroyable  de  biens  et  de  denrees  pour 


158  Capitalist  Production. 

In  Asia,  on  the  other  hand,  the  fact  that  state  taxes  are  chiefly 
composed  of  rents  payable  in  kind,  depends  on  conditions  of 
production  that  are  reproduced  with  the  regularity  of  natural 
phenomena.  And  this  mode  of  payment  tends  in  its  turn  to 
maintain  the  ancient  form  of  production.  It  is  one  of  the 
secrets  of  the  conservation  of  the  Ottoman  Empire.  If  the 
foreign  trade,  forced  upon  Japan  by  Europeans,  should  lead 
to  the  substitution  of  money  rents  for  rents  in  kind,  it  will  be 
all  up  with  the  exemplary  agriculture  of  that  country.  The 
narrow  economical  conditions  under  which  that  agriculture  is 
carried  on,  will  be  swept  away. 

In  every  country,  certain  days  of  the  year  become  by  habit 
recognised  settling  days  for  various  large  and  recurrent  pay- 
ments. These  dates  depend,  apart  from  other  revolutions  in 
the  wheel  of  reproduction,  on  conditions  closely  connected  with 
the  seasons.  They  also  regulate  the  dates  for  payments  that 
have  no  direct  connexion  with  the  circulation  of  commodities 
such  as  taxes,  rents,  and  so  on.  The  quantity  of  money  re- 
quisite to  make  the  payments,  falling  due  on  those  dates  all 
over  the  country,  causes  periodical,  though  merely  superficial, 
perturbations  in  the  economy  of  the  medium  of  payment.^ 

From  the  law  of  the  rapidity  of  currency  of  the  means  of 
payment,  it  follows  that  the  quantity  of  the  means  of  pay- 
ment required  for  all  periodical  payments,  whatever  their 
source,  is  in  inverse  proportion  to  the  length  of  their  periods.^ 

faire  ce  fatal  precis."  "L'argent  declare  la  guerre  a  tout  le  genre  humain."  (Bols 
guillebert:  "Dissertation  sur  la  nature  des  richesses,  de  l'argent  et  des  tributs." 
Edit.  Daire.     Economistes  financiers.     Paris,  1843,  t.  i.,  pp.  413,  419,  417.) 

^  "On  Whitsuntide,  1824,"  says  Mr.  Craig  before  the  Commons'  Committee  of 
1826,  "there  was  such  an  immense  demand  for  notes  upon  the  banks  of  Edinburgh, 
that  by  11  o'clock  they  had  not  a  note  left  in  their  custody.  They  sent  round  to  all 
the  different  banks  to  borrow,  but  could  not  get  them,  and  many  of  the  transac- 
tions were  adjusted  by  slips  of  paper  only;  yet  by  three  o'clock  the  whole  of  the 
notes  were  returned  into  the  banks  from  which  they  had  issued!  It  was  a  mere 
transfer  from  hand  to  hand."  Although  the  average  effective  circulation  of  bank- 
notes in  Scotland  is  less  than  three  millions  sterling,  yet  on  certain  pay  days  in  the 
year,  every  single  note  in  the  possession  of  the  bankers,  amounting  in  the  whole  to 
about  £7,000,000,  is  called  into  activity.  On  these  occasions  the  notes  have  a 
single  and  specific  function  to  perform,  and  so  soon  as  they  have  performed  it,  they 
flow  back  into  the  various  banks  from  which  they  issued.  (See  John  FuUarton, 
"Regulation  of  Currencies."  Lond:  1844,  p.  85  note.)  In  explanation  it  should  be 
stated,  that  in  Scotland,  at  the  date  of  Fullarton's  work,  notes  and  not  cheques  were 
used  to  withdraw  deposits. 

*  To  the  question.     "If  there  were  occasion  to  raise  40  millions  p.a.,  whether  tie 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.        159 

The  development  of  money  into  a  medium  of  payment 
makes  it  necessary  to  accumulate  money  against  the  dates 
fixed  for  the  payment  of  the  sums  owing.  While  hoarding, 
as  a  distinct  mode  of  acquiring  riches,  vanishes  with  the  prog- 
ress of  civil  society,  the  formation  of  reserves  of  the  means  of 
payment  grows  with  that  progress. 

c.  Universal  Money. 

When  money  leaves  the  home  sphere  of  circulation,  it  strips 
off  the  local  garbs  which  it  there  assumes,  of  a  standard  of 
prices,  of  coin,  of  tokens,  and  of  a  symbol  of  value,  and  re- 
turns to  its  original  form  of  bullion.  In  the  trade  between  the 
markets  of  the  world,  the  value  of  commodities  is  expressed  so 
as  to  be  universally  recognised.  Hence  their  independent 
value-form  also,  in  these  cases,  confronts  them  under  the  shape 
of  universal  money.  It  is  only  in  the  markets  of  the  world 
that  money  acquires  to  the  full  extent  the  character  of  the 
commodity  whose  bodily  form  is  also  the  immediate  social  in- 
carnation of  human  labour  in  the  abstract.  Its  real  mode  of 
existence  in  this  sphere  adequately  corresponds  to  its  ideal 
concept. 

Within  the  sphere  of  home  circulation,  there  can  be  but  one 
commodity  which,  by  serving  as  a  measure  of  value,  becomes 
money.  In  the  markets  of  the  world  a  double  measure  of 
value  holds  sway,  gold  and  silver.* 

same  6  millions  (gold)  .  .  .  would  suffice  for  such  revolutions  and  circulations 
thereof,  as  trade  requires,"  Petty  replies  in  his  usual  masterly  manner,  "I  answer 
yes:  for  the  expense  being  40  millions,  if  the  revolutions  were  in  such  short  circles, 
viz.,  weekly,  as  happens  among  poor  artizans  and  labourers,  who  receive  and  pay 
every  Saturday,  then  ^%  parts  of  1  million  of  money  would  answer  these  ends;  but 
if  the  circles  be  quarterly,  according  to  our  custom  of  paying  rent,  and  gathering 
taxes,  then  10  millions  were  requisite.  Wherefore,  supposing  payments  in  general 
to  be  of  a  mixed  circle  between  one  week  and  13,  then  add  10  millions  to  ^|, 
the  half  of  which  will  be  5^4,  so  as  if  we  have  5J^  millions  we  have  enough." 
(William  Petty:  "Political  Anatomy  of  Ireland."  1672.  Edit.:  Lond.  1691,  pp. 
13,   14.) 

*  Hence  the  absurdity  of  every  J^w  prescribing  that  the  banks  of  a  country  shall 
form  reserves  of  that  precious  metal  alone  which  circulates  at  home.  The  "pleasant 
difficulties"  thus  self-created  by  the  Bank  of  England,  are  well  known.  On  the 
subject  of  the  great  epochs  in  the  history  of  the  changes  in  the  relative  value  of  gold 
and  silver,  see  Karl  Marx,  1.  c.  p.  215  sq.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  by  his  Bank  Act  of 
1844,  sought  to  tide  over  the  difficulty,  by  allowing  the  Bank  of  England  to  issue 
notes  against  silver  bullion,  on  condition  that  the  reserve  of  silver  should  never  ex- 
ceed  more  than   one-fourth  of   the   reserve  of   gold.     The   value  of  silver  being   for 


i6o  Capitalist  Production. 

Money  of  the  world  serves  as  the  universal  medium  of  pay- 
ment, as  the  universal  means  of  purchasing,  and  as  the  uni- 
versally recognised  embodiment  of  all  wealth.  Its  function 
as  a  means  of  payment  in  the  settling  of  international  balances 
is  its  chief  one.  Hence  the  watchword  of  the  mercantilists, 
balance   of  trade.  ^     Gold   and  silver  serve    as   international 

that  purpose  estimated  at  its  price  in  the  London  market — Note  to  the  4th  German 
edition. — We  find  ourselves  once  more  in  a  period  of  a  marked  change  in  the  relative 
values  of  gold  and  silver.  About  25  years  ago  the  ratio  of  gold  to  silver  was  15.5  to 
i,  now  it  is  about  22  to  1,  and  silver  is  continually  falling  against  gold.  This  is 
essentially  a  result  of  a  revolution  in  the  processes  of  production  of  these  two  metals. 
Formerly  gold  was  obtained  almost  exclusively  by  washing  alluvial  strata  containing 
gold,  the  products  of  disintegration  of  gold-carrying  rocks.  But  now  this  method 
is  no  longer  sufficient  and  has  been  crowded  to  the  rear  by  the  mining  of  quartz 
layers  containing  gold,  a  method  formerly  considered  as  secondary,  although  well 
known  even  to  the  ancients  (Diodorus, 'III,  12-14).  On  the  other  hand,  immense 
new  silver  deposits  were  discovered  in  the  American  Rocky  Mountains,  and  these 
as  well  as  the  Mexican  silver  mines  opened  up  by  means  of  railroads,  which  per- 
mitted the  influx  of  modern  machinery  and  fuel  and  thereby  reduced  the  cost  and 
increased  the  output  of  silver  mining.  But  there  is  a  great  difference  in  the  way 
in  which  both  metals  occur  in  the  ore  beds.  The  gold  is  generally  solid,  but  scat- 
tered in  minute  particles  through  the  quartz  layers.  The  whole  diggings  must 
therefore  be  crushed  and  the  gold  washed  out  or  extracted  by  means  of  quicksilver. 
Frequently  one  million  grams  of  quartz  do  not  contain  more  than  1  to  3  grams  of 
gold,  and  rarely  more  than  30  to  60  grams.  Silver,  on  the  other  hand,  is  rarely 
found  in  the  pure  state,  but  it  occurs  in  some  ores  which  are  easily  separated  from 
the  dross  and  contain  as  much  as  40  to  90%  of  silver.  Or  smaller  quantities  of  it 
are  found  in  ores  like  copper,  lead,  etc.,  which  are  themselves  worth  mining.  This 
alone  is  sufficient  to  show  that  the  work  of  producing  gold  has  rather  increased, 
while  that  of  producing  silver  has  certainly  decreased,  and  this  quite  naturally  ex- 
plains the  fall  in  the  value  of  silver.  This  fall  in  value  would  express  itself  in  a 
still  greater  fall  of  price,  if  the  price  of  silver  were  not  held  up  even  now  by  arti- 
ficial means.  The  silver  deposits  of  America,  however,  have  been  made  accessible 
only  to  a  small  extent,  and  there  is,  consequently,  every  prospect  of  a  continued  fall 
in  the  value  of  silver.  This  must  be  further  promoted  by  the  relative  decrease  of 
the  demand  for  silver  for  articles  of  use  and  luxury,  its  displacement  by  plated 
wares,  aluminum,  etc.  Judge,  then,  of  the  utopianism  of  the  bimetallist  illusion  that 
a  forced  international  quotation  could  raise  silver  to  its  old  value  of  15.5  to  1.  The 
chances  are  rather  that  silver  will  lose  more  and  more  of  its  character  as  money  on 
the   world   market.     F.   E.  • 

^  The  opponents,  themselves,  of  the  mercantile  system,  a  system  which  consid- 
ered the  settlement  of  surplus  trade  balances  in  gold  and  silver  as  the  aim  of  inter- 
national trade,  entirely  misconceived  the  functions  of  money  of  the  world.  I  have 
shown  by  the  example  of  Ricardo  in  what  way  their  false  conception  of  the  laws 
that  regulate  the  quantity  of  the  circulating  medium,  is  reflected  in  their  equally 
false  conception  of  the  international  movement  in  the  precious  metals  (1.  c.  pp.  150 
sq.).  His  erroneous  dogma:  "An  unfavourable  balance  of  trade  never  arises  but 
from  a  redundant  currency.  .  .  .  The  exportation  of  the  coin  is  caused  by  its 
cheapness,  and  is  not  the  effect,  but  the  cause  of  an  unfavourable  balance,"  already 
occurs  in  Barbon:  "The  Balance  of  Trade,  if  there  be  one,  is  not  the  cause  of 
sending  away  the  money  out  of  a  nation;  but  that  proceeds  from  the  difference  of 
the  value  of  bullion  in  every  country."  (N.  Barbon;  1.  c.  pp.  59,  60.)  MacCul- 
loch  in   "the  Literature  of  Political   Economy,  a  classified  catalogue,   Lond.    1845," 


Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Commodities.        i6i 

means  of  purchasing  chiefly  and  necessarily  in  those  periods 
when  the  customary  equilibrium  in  the  interchange  of  products 
between  different  nations  is  suddenly  disturbed.  And  lastly, 
it  serves  as  the  universally  recognised  embodiment  of  social 
wealth,  whenever  the  question  is  not  of  buying  or  paying,  but 
of  transferring  wealth  from  one  country  to  another,  and  when- 
ever this  transference  in  the  form  of  commodities  is  rendered 
impossible,  either  by  special  conjunctures  in  the  markets,  or 
by  the  purpose  itself  that  is  intended.* 

Just  as  every  country  needs  a  reserve  of  money  for  its  home 
circulation,  so,  too,  it  requires  one  for  external  circulation  in 
the  markets  of  the  world.  The  functions  of  hoards,  therefore, 
arise  in  part  out  of  the  function  of  money,  as  the  medium  of 
the  home  circulation  and  home  payments,  and  in  part  out 
of  its  function  of  money  of  the  world.  ^  For  this  latter  func- 
tion, the  genuine  money-commodity,  actual  gold  and  silver,  is 
necessary.  On  that  account,  Sir  James  Steuart,  in  order  to 
distinguish  them  from  their  purely  local  substitutes,  calls  gold 
and  silver  "money  of  the  world." 

The  current  of  the  stream  of  gold  and  silver  is  a  double  one. 
On  the  one  hand,  it  spreads  itself  from  its  sources  over  all  the 
markets  of  the  world,  in  order  to  become  absorbed,  to  various 
extents,  into  the  different  national  spheres  of  circulation,  to 
fill  the  conduits  of  currency,  to  replace  abraded  gold  and  silver 

praises  Barbon  for  this  anticipation,  but  prudently  passes  over  the  naive  forms,  in 
which  Barbon  clothes  the  absurd  suppositoin  on  which  the  "currency  principle"  is 
based.  The  absence  of  real  criticism  and  even  of  honesty,  in  that  catalogue,  cul- 
minates in  the  sections  devoted  to  the  history  of  the  theory  of  money;  the  reason 
is  that  MacCulloch  in  this  part  of  the  work  is  flattering  Lord  Overstone  whom  he 
calls   "fecile    princeps   argentariorum." 

*  For  instance,  in  subsidies,  money  loans  for  carrying  on  wars  or  for  enabling 
banks  to  resume  cash  payments,  &c.,  it  is  the  money  form,  and  no  other,  of  value 
that  may  be  wanted. 

*  I  would  desire,  indeed,  no  more  convincing  evidence  of  the  competency  of  the 
machinery  of  the  hoards  in  specie-paying  countries  to  perform  every  necessary  office 
of  international  adjustment,  without  any  sensible  aid  from  the  general  circulation, 
than  the  facility  with  which  France,  when  but  just  recovering  from  the  shock  of  a 
destructive  foreign  invasion,  completed  within  the  space  of  27  months  the  payment 
of  her  forced  contribution  of  nearly  20  millions  to  the  allied  powers,  and  a  con- 
siderable proportion  of  the  sum  in  specie,  without  any  perceptible  contraction  or 
derangement  of  her  domestic  currency,  or  even  any  alarming  fluctuation  of  her 
exchanges."  (Fullarton,  1.  c,  p.  134.) — Note  to  the  4th  German  edition. — A  still 
more  convincing  illustration  is  given  by  the  ease  with  which  the  same  France,  in 
1871  to  1873,  was  able  to  pay  off  in  30  months  a  war  indemnity  ten  times  larger, 
and  to  a  considerable  extent  also  in  metal  money.     F.  E. 

K 


l52  Capitalist  Production. 

coins,  to  supply  the  material  of  articles  of  luxury,  and  to 
petrify  into  hoards.^  This  first  current  is  started  by  the 
countries  that  exchange  their  labour,  realise  in  commodities, 
for  the  labour  embodied  in  the  precious  metals  by  gold  and 
silver-producing  countries.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  con- 
tinual flowing  backwards  and  forwards  of  gold  and  silver  be- 
tween the  different  national  spheres  of  circulation,  a  current 
whose  motion  depends  on  the  ceaseless  fluctuations  in  the 
course  of  exchange.^ 

Countries  in  which  the  bourgeois  form  of  production  is  de- 
veloped to  a  certain  extent,  limit  the  hoards  concentrated  in 
the  strong  rooms  of  the  banks  to  the  minimum  required  for 
the  proper  performance  of  their  peculiar  functions.*  When- 
ever these  hoards  are  strikingly  above  their  average  level,  it 
is,  with  some  exceptions,  an  indication  of  stagnation  in  the 
circulation  of  commodities,  of  an  interruption  in  the  even  flow 
of  their  metamorphoses.^ 

*  "L'argent  se  partage  entre  les  nations  relativement  au  besoin  qu'elles  en  ont. 

.  .  .  etant  toujours  attire  par  les  productions."  (Le  Trosne  1.  c,  p.  916.)  "The 
mines  which  are  continually  giving  gold  and  silver,  do  give  sufficient  to  supply 
such  a  needful  balance  to  every  nation."      (J.  Vanderlint,  1.  c,  p.  40.) 

*  "Exchanges  rise  and  fall  every  week,  and  at  some  particular  times  in  the  year 
run  high  against  a  nation,  and  at  other  times  run  as  high  on  the  contrary."  (N. 
Barbon,  1.  c,  p.  39.) 

*  These  various  functions  are  liable  to  come  into  dangerous  conflict  with  one  an- 
other whenever  gold  and  silver  have  also  to  serve  as  a  fund  for  the  conversion  of 
bank-notes. 

*  "What  money  is  more  than  of  absolute  necessity  for  a  Home  Trade,  is  dead 
stock  .  .  .  and  brings  no  profit  to  that  country  it's  kept  in,  but  as  it  is  trans- 
ported in  trade,  as  well  as  imported."  (John  Bcllers,  Essays,  p.  12.)  "What  if  we 
have  too  much  coin?  We  may  melt  down  the  heaviest  and  turn  it  into  the  splendour 
of  plate,  vessels  or  utensils  of  gold  or  silver;  or  send  it  out  as  a  commodity,  where 
the  same  is  wanted  or  desired;  or  let  it  out  at  interest,  where  interest  is  high." 
(W.  Petty:  "Quantulumcunque,"  p.  39.)  "Money  is  but  the  fat  of  the  Body 
Politick,  whereof  too  much  doth  as  often  hinder  its  agility,  as  too  little  makes  it 
sick  ....  as  fat  lubricates  the  motion  of  the  muscles,  feeds  in  want  of 
victuals,  fills  up  the  uneven  cavities,  and  beautifies  the  body;  so  doth  money  in  the 
state  quicken  its  action,  feeds  from  abroad  in  time  of  dearth  at  home;  evens  ac- 
counts .  .  and  beautifies  the  whole;  altho  more  especially  the  particular  persons 
that  have  it  in  plenty."     (W.  Petty.     "Political  Anatomy  of  Ireland,"  p.  14.) 


PART  II. 

THE  TEANSFORMATION  OF  MONEY  INTO 
CAPITAL. 


CHAPTEE  IV. 

THE   GENEEAL.   FORMULA  FOR  CAPITAL. 

The  circulation  of  commodities  is  the  starting  point  of  capital. 
The  production  of  commodities,  their  circulation,  and  that 
more  developed  form  of  their  circulation  called  commerce, 
these  form  the  historical  groundwork  from  which  it  rises. 
The  modern  history  of  capital  dates  from  the  creation  in  the 
16th  century  of  a  world-embracing  commerce  and  a  world- 
embracing  market. 

If  we  abstract  from  the  material  substance  of  the  circula- 
tion of  commodities,  that  is,  from  the  exchange  of  the  various 
use-values,  and  consider  only  the  economic  forms  produced  by 
this  process  of  circulation,  we  find  its  final  result  to  be  money : 
this  final  product  of  the  circulation  of  commodities  is  the  first 
form  in  which  capital  appears. 

As  a  matter  of  history,  capital,  as  opposed  to  landed  prop- 
erty, invariably  takes  the  form  at  first  of  money ;  it  appears  as 
moneyed  wealth,  as  the  capital  of  the  merchant  and  of  the 
usurer.^  But  we  have  no  need  to  refer  to  the  origin  of  capi- 
tal in  order  to  discover  that  the  first  form  of  appearance  of 
capital  is  money.     We  can  see  it  daily  under  our  very  eyes. 

*  The  contrast  between  the  power,  based  on  the  personal  relations  of  dominion  and 
servitude,  that  is  conferred  by  landed  property,  and  the  impersonal  power  that  is 
given  by  money,  is  well  expressed  by  the  two  French  proverbs,  "NuUe  terre  sans 
seigneur,"  and  "L'argent  n'a  pas  de  maitre." 

163 


164  Capitalist  Production. 

All  new  capital,  to  commence  with,  comes  on  the  stage,  that  is, 
on  the  market,  whether  of  commodities,  labour,  or  money,  even 
in  our  days,  in  the  shape  of  money  that  by  a  definite  process 
has  to  be  transformed  into  capital. 

The  first  distinction  we  notice  between  money  that  is  money 
only,  and  money  that  is  capital,  is  nothing  more  than  a  diifer- 
ence  in  their  form  of  circulation. 

The  simplest  form  of  the  circulation  of  commodities  is  C — 
M — C,  the  transformation  of  commodities  into  money,  and  the 
change  of  the  money  back  again  into  commodities ;  or  selling 
in  order  to  buy.  But  alongside  of  this  form  we  find  another 
specifically  different  form:  M — C — M,  the  transformation  of 
money  into  commodities,  and  the  change  of  commodities  back 
again  into  money;  or  buying  in  order  to  sell.  Money  that 
circulates  in  the  latter  manner  is  thereby  transformed  into, 
becomes  capital,  and  is  already  potentially  capital. 

Now  let  us  examine  the  circuit  M — C — M  a  little  closer. 
It  consists,  like  the  other,  of  two  antithetical  phases.  In  the 
first  phase,  M. — C,  or  the  purchase,  the  money  is  changed  into 
a  commodity.  In  the  second  phase,  C — M,  or  the  sale,  the 
commodity  is  changed  back  again  into  money.  The  combina- 
tion of  these  two  phases  constitutes  the  single  movement 
whereby  money  is  exchanged  for  a  commodity  and  the  same 
commodity  is  again  exchanged  for  money;  whereby  a  com- 
modity is  bought  in  order  to  be  sold,  or,  neglecting  the  dis- 
tinction in  form  between  buying  and  selling,  whereby  a 
commodity  is  bought  with  money,  and  then  money  is  bought 
with  a  commodity.^  The  result,  in  which  the  phases  of  the 
process  vanish,  is  the  exchange  of  money  for  money,  M — M. 
If  I  purchase  2000  lbs.  of  cotton  for  £100,  and  resell  the  2000 
lbs.  of  cotton  for  £110,  I  have,  in  fact,  exchanged  £100  for 
£110,  money  for  money. 

Now  it  is  evident  that  the  circuit  ]\£ — ^C — ^M  would  be  ab- 
surd and  without  meaning  if  the  intention  were  to  exchange 
by  this  means  two  equal  sums  of  money,  £100  for  £100.     The 

•  "Avec  de  I'argent  on  achate  des  marchandises,  et  avec  des  marchandises  on 
achate  de  I'argent."  (Mercier  de  la  Raviere:  "L'ordre  naturel  et  essentiel  des 
societ^s  politiques,"   p.    648.) 


The  General  Formula  for  Capital.  165 

miser's  plan  would  be  far  simpler  and  surer;  he  sticks  to  his 
£100  instead  of  exposing  it  to  the  dangers  of  circulation.  And 
yet,  whether  the  merchant  who  has  paid  £100  for  his  cotton 
sells  it  for  £110,  or  lets  it  go  for  £100,  or  even  £50,  his  money 
has,  at  all  events,  gone  through  a  characteristic  and  original 
movement,  quite  different  in  kind  from  that  which  it  goes 
through  in  the  hands  of  the  peasant  who  sells  corn,  and  with 
the  money  thus  set  free  buys  clothes.  We  have  therefore  to 
examine  first  the  distinguishing  characteristics  of  the  forms  of 
the  circuits  M — C — M  and  C — M — C,  and  in  doing  this  the 
real  difference  that  underlies  the  mere  difference  of  form  will 
reveal  itself. 

Let  us  see,  in  the  first  place,  what  the  two  forms  have  in 
common. 

Both  circuits  are  resolvable  into  the  same  two  antithetical 
phases,  C — M,  a  sale,  and  M — C,  a  purchase.  In  each  of 
these  phases  the  same  material  elements — a  commodity,  and 
money,  and  the  same  economical  dramatis  personse,  a  buyer 
and  a  seller — confront  one  another.  Each  circuit  is  the  unity 
of  the  same  two  antithetical  phases,  and  in  each  case  this  unity 
is  brought  about  by  the  intervention  of  three  contracting  par- 
ties, of  whom  one  only  sells,  another  only  buys,  while  the  third 
both  buys  and  sells. 

What,  however,  first  and  foremost  distinguishes  the  circuit 
C — M — C  from  the  circuit  ISlL — C — 'M,  is  the  inverted  order  of 
succession  of  the  two  phases.  The  simple  circulation  of  com- 
modities begins  with  a  sale  and  ends  with  a  purchase,  while 
the  circulation  of  money  as  capital  begins  with  a  purchase 
and  ends  with  a  sale.  In  the  one  case  both  the  starting- 
point  and  the  goal  are  commodities,  in  the  other  they  are 
money.  In  the  first  form  the  movement  is  brought  about 
by  the  intervention  of  money,  in  the  second  by  that  of  a 
commodity. 

In  the  circulation  C — M — C,  the  money  is  in  the  end  con- 
verted into  a  commodity,  that  serves  as  a  use-value ;  it  is  spent 
once  for  all.  In  the  inverted  form,  M — C — M,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  buyer  lays  out  money  in  order  that,  as  a  seller,  he 
may  recover  money.     By  the  purchase  of  his  commodity  he 


1 66  Capitalist  Production. 

throws  money  into  circulation,  in  order  to  withdraw  it  again 
by  the  sale  of  the  same  commodity.  He  lets  the  money  go, 
but  only  with  the  sly  intention  of  getting  it  back  again.  The 
money,  therefore,  is  not  spent,  it  is  merely  advanced.* 

In  the  circuit  C — M — C,  the  same  piece  of  money  changes 
its  place  twice.  The  seller  gets  it  from  the  buyer  and  pays  it 
away  to  another  seller.  The  complete  circulation,  which  be- 
gins with  the  receipt,  concludes  with  the  payment,  of  money 
for  commodities.  It  is  the  very  contrary  in  the  circuit  M — 
C — M.  Here  it  is  not  the  piece  of  money  that  changes  its 
place  tAvice,  but  the  commodity.  The  buyer  takes  it  from  the 
hands  of  the  seller  and  passes  h  into  the  hands  of  another 
buyer.  Just  as  in  the  simple  circulation  of  commodities  the 
double  change  of  place  of  the  same  piece  of  money  effects  its 
passage  from  one  hand  into  another,  so  here  the  double  change 
of  place  of  the  same  commodity  brings  about  the  reflux  of  the 
money  to  its  point  of  departure. 

Such  reflux  is  not  dependent  on  the  commodity  being  sold 
for  more  than  was  paid  for  it.  This  circumstance  influences 
only  the  amount  of  the  money  that  comes  back.  The  reflux 
itself  takes  place,  so  soon  as  the  purchased  commodity  is  re- 
sold, in  other  words,  so  soon  as  the  circuit  M — C — ^M  is  com- 
pleted. We  have  here,  therefore,  a  palpable  difference  be- 
tween the  circulation  of  money  as  capital,  and  its  circulation 
as  mere  money. 

The  circuit  C — Isl — C  comes  completely  to  an  end,  so  soon 
as  the  money  brought  in  by  the  sale  of  one  commodity  is 
abstracted  again  by  the  purchase  of  another. 

If,  nevertheless,  there  follows  a  reflux  of  money  to  its  start- 
ing point,  this  can  only  happen  through  a  renewal  or  repeti- 
tion of  the  operation.  If  I  sell  a  quarter  of  com  for  £3,  and 
with  this  £3  buy  clothes,  the  money,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned, 
is  spent  and  done  with.  It  belongs  to  the  clothes  merchant. 
If  I  now  sell  a  second  quarter  of  corn,  money  indeed  flows 
back  to  me,  not  however  as  a  sequel  to  the  first  transaction, 

*  "When  a  thing  is  bought  in  order  to  be  sold  again,  the  sum  employed  is  called 
money  advanced;  when  it  is  bought  not  tc  be  sold,  it  may  be  said  to  be  expended."— 
(James  Steuart:  "Works,"  &c.  Edited  by  Gen.  Sir  Tames  Steuart,  his  son.  Lond., 
1805.     V.  I.,  p.  274.) 


The  General  Formula  for  Capital.,  167 

but  in  consequence  of  its  repetition.  Tlie  money  again  leaves 
me,  so  soon  as  I  complete  this  second  transaction  by  a  fresh 
purchase.  Therefore,  in  the  circuit  C — M — C,  the  expendi- 
ture of  money  has  nothing  to  do  with  its  reflux.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  M — C — M,  the  reflux  of  the  money  is  conditioned  by 
the  very  mode  of  its  expenditure.  Without  this  reflux,  the 
operation  fails,  or  the  process  is  interrupted  and  incomplete, 
owing  to  the  absence  of  its  complementary  and  final  phase,  the 
sale. 

The  circuit  C — M — C  starts  with  one  commodity,  and 
finishes  with  another,  which  falls  out  of  circulation  and  into 
consumption.  Consumption,  the  satisfaction  of  wants,  in  one 
word,  use-value,  is  its  end  and  aim.  The  circuit  M — C — M, 
on  the  contrary,  commences  with  money  and  ends  with  money. 
Its  leading  motive,  and  the  goal  that  attracts  it,  is  therefore 
mere  exchange  value. 

In  the  simple  circulation  of  commodities,  the  two  extremes 
of  the  circuit  have  the  same  economic  form.  They  are  both 
commodities,  and  commodities  of  equal  value.  But  they  are 
also  use-values  differing  in  their  qualities,  as,  for  example, 
com  and  clothes.  The  exchange  of  products,  of  the  different 
materials  in  which  the  labour  of  society  is  embodied,  forms 
here  the  basis  of  the  movement.  It  is  otherwise  in  the  cir- 
culation M — C — M,  which  at  first  sight  appears  purposeless, 
because  tautological.  Both  extremes  have  the  same  economic 
form.  They  are  both  money,  and  therefore  are  not  qualita-^ 
tively  different  use-values;  for  money  is  but  the  converted 
form  of  commodities,  in  which  their  particular  use-values 
vanish.  To  exchange  £100  for  cotton,  and  then  this  same 
cotton  again  for  £100,  is  merely  a  roundabout  way  of  ex- 
changing money  for  money,  the  same  for  the  same,  and  ap- 
pears to  be  an  operation  just  as  purposeless  as  it  is  absurd.^ 

^  "On  n'echange  pas  de  I'argent  centre  de  I'argent,"  says  Mercier  de  la  Riviere  to 
the  Mercantilists  (1.  c,  p.  486).  In  a  work,  which,  ex  professo,  treats  of  "trade" 
and  "speculation,"  occurs  the  following:  "All  trade  consists  in  the  exchange  of 
things  of  different  kinds;  and  the  advantage"  (to  the  merchant?)  "arises  out  of  this 
difference.  To  exchange  a  pound  of  bread  against  a  pound  of  bread  .... 
would  be  attended  with  no  advantage;  ....  Hence  trade  is  advantageously 
contrasted  with  gambling,  which  consists  in  a  mere  exchange  of  money  for  money." 
(Th.  Corbet,  "An  Inquiry  into  the  Causes  and  Modes  of  the  Wealth  of  Individuals; 


l68  Capitalist  Production. 

One  sum  of  money  is  distinguishable  from  another  only  by  its 
amount.  The  character  and  tendency  of  the  process  M — G 
— M,  is  therefore  not  due  to  any  qualitative  difference  be- 
tween its  extremes,  both  being  money,  but  solely  to  their 
quantitative  difference.  More  money  is  withdrawn  from  cir- 
culation at  the  finish  than  was  thrown  into  it  at  the  start. 
The  cotton  that  was  bought  for  £100  is  perhaps  resold  for 
£100-|-£10  or  £110.  The  exact  form  of  this  process  is  there- 
fore M — C — M',  where  M'=M-f-  A  M=the  original  sum  ad- 
vanced, plus  an  increment.  This  increment  or  excess  over  the 
original  value  I  call  "surplus-value."  The  value  originally 
advanced,  therefore,  not  only  remains  intact  while  in  circula- 
tion, but  adds  to  itself  a  surplus-value  or  expands  itself.  It  is 
this  movement  that  converts  it  into  capital. 

Of  course  it  is  also  possible,  that  in  C — M — O,  the  two 
extremes  C — C,  say  com  and  clothes,  may  represent  different 
quantities  of  value.  The  farmer  may  sell  his  corn  above  its 
value,  or  may  buy  the  clothes  at  less  than  their  value.  He 
may,  on  the  other  hand,  "be  done"  by  the  clothes  merchant. 
Yet,  in  the  form  of  circulation  now  under  consideration,  such 
differences  in  value  are  purely  accidental.  The  fact  that  the 
com  and  the  clothes  are  equivalents,  does  not  deprive  the  pro- 
cess of  all  meaning,  as  it  does  in  M — C — M.  The  equivalence 
of  their  values  is  rather  a  necessary  condition  to  its  normal 
course. 

The  repetition  or  renewal  of  the  act  of  selling  in  order  to 
buy,  is  kept  within  bounds  by  the  very  object  it  aims  at, 
namely,  consumption  or  the  satisfaction  of  definite  wants,  an 

or  the  principles  of  Trade  and  Speculation  explained."  London,  1841,  p.  5.)  Al* 
though  Corbet  does  not  see  that  M — M,  the  exchange  of  money  for  money,  is  the 
characteristic  form  of  circulation,  not  only  of  merchants'  capital  but  of  all  capital, 
yet  at  least  be  acknowledges  that  this  form  is  common  to  gambling  and  to  one  spe- 
cies of  trade,  viz.,  speculation:  but  then  comes  MacCulloch  and  makes  out,  that  to 
buy  in  order  to  sell,  is  to  speculate,  and  thus  the  difference  between  Speculation  and 
Trade  vanishes.  "Every  transaction  in  which  an  individual  buys  produce  in  order 
to  sell  it  again,  is,  in  fact,  a  speculation."  (MacCulloch:  "A  Dictionary  Practical, 
&c.,  of  Commerce."  Lend.,  1847,  p.  1058.)  With  much  more  naivete,  Pinto,  the 
Pindar  of  the  Amsterdam  Stock  Exchange,  remarks,  "Le  commerce  est  un  jeu: 
(taken  from  Locke)  et  ce  n'est  pas  avec  des  gueux  qu'on  peut  gagner.  Si  Ton  gag- 
nait  long-temps  en  tout  avec  tous,  il  faudrait  rendre  de  bon  accord  les  plus  grandes 
parties  du  profit  pour  recommencer  le  jeu,"  (Pinto:  "Traits  de  la  Circulation  et  du 
Credit"     Amsterdam,  1771,  p.  281.) 


The  General  Formula  for  Capital.  169 

aim  that  lies  altogether  outside  the  sphere  of  circulation.  But 
when*  we  buj  in  order  to  sell,  we,  on  the  contrary,  begin  and 
end  with  the  same  thing,  money,  exchange^value ;  and  thereby 
the  movement  becomes  interminable.  No  doubt,  M  becomes 
M+aM,  £100  become  £110.  But  when  viewed  in  their 
qualitative  aspect  alone,  £110  are  the  same  as  £100,  namely 
money;  and  considered  quantitatively,  £110  is,  like  £100,  a 
sum  of  definite  and  limited  value.  If  now,  the  £110  be  spent 
as  money,  they  cease  to  play  their  part.  They  are  no  longer 
capital.  Withdrawn  from  circulation,  they  become  petrified 
into  a  hoard,  and  though  they  remained  in  that  state  till 
doomsday,  not  a  single  farthing  would  accrue  to  them.  If, 
then,  the  expansion  of  value  is  once  aimed  at,  there  is  just  the 
same  inducement  to  augment  the  value  of  the  £110  as  that  of 
the  £100 ;  for  both  are  but  limited  expressions  for  exchange- 
value,  and  therefore  both  have  the  same  vocation  to  approach, 
by  quantitative  increase,  as  near  as  possible  to  absolute  wealth. 
Momentarily,  indeed,  the  value  originally  advanced,  the  £100 
is  distinguishable  from  the  surplus  value  of  £10  that  is  an- 
nexed to  it  during  circulation;  but  the  distinction  vanishes 
immediately.  At  the  end  of  the  process  we  do  not  receive 
with  one  hand  the  original  £100,  and  with  the  other,  the 
surplus-value  of  £10.  We  simply  get  a  value  of  £110,  which 
is  in  exactly  the  same  condition  and  fitness  for  commencing 
the  expanding  process,  as  the  original  £100  was.  Money  ends 
the  movement  only  to  begin  it  again.  ^  Therefore,  the  final 
result  of  every  separate  circuit,  in  which  a  purchase  and  con- 
sequent sale  are  completed,  forms  of  itself  the  starting  point 
of  a  new  circuit.  The  simple  circulation  of  commodities — 
selling  in  order  to  buy — is  a  means  of  carrying  out  a  purpose 
unconnected  with  circulation,  namely,  the  appropriation  of 
use-values,  the  satisfaction  of  wants.  The  circulation  of 
money  as  capital  is,  on  the  contrary,  an  end  in  itself,  for  the 
expansion  of  value  takes  place  only  within  this  constantly 

*  "Capital  is  divisible  ....  into  the  original  capital  and  tne  profit,  the  incre- 
ment to  the  capital  ....  although  in  practice  this  profit  is  immediately  turned 
into  capital,  and  set  in  motion  with  the  original."  (F.  Engels,  "Umrisse  zu  einer 
Kritik  der  Nationalokonomie,  in:  Deutsch-Franzosische  Jahrbticher,  herausgegebcn 
von  Arnold   Ruge   und  Karl  Marx."     Paris,   1844,  p.  99.) 


170  Capitalist  Production. 

renewed  movement.  The  circulation  of  capital  lias  therefore 
no  limits.^  Thus  the  conscious  representative  of  this  move- 
ment, the  possessor  of  money  becomes  a  capitalist.  His  per- 
son, or  rather  his  pocket,  is  the  point  from  which  the  money 
starts  and  to  which  it  returns.  The  expansion  of  value, 
which  is  the  objective  basis  or  main-spring  of  the  circulation 
M — C — M,  becomes  his  subjective  aim,  and  it  is  only  in  so  far 
as  the  appropriation  of  ever  more  and  more  wealth  is  the  ab- 
stract becomes  the  sole  motive  of  his  operations,  that  he  func- 
tions as  a  capitalist,  that  is,  as  capital  personified  and  en- 
dowed with  consciousness  and  a  will.  Use-values  must  there- 
fore never  be  looked  upon  as  the  real  aim  of  the  capitalist;^ 
neither  must  the  profit  on  any  single  transaction.  The  restless 
never-ending  process  of  profit-making  alone  is  what  he  aims 

*  Aristotle  opposes  CEconomic  to  Chrematistic.  He  starts  from  the  former.  So 
far  as  it  is  the  art  of  gaining  a  livelihood,  it  is  limited  to  procuring  those  articles 
that  are  necessary  to  existence,  and  useful  either  to  a  household  or  the  state.  "True 
vrealth  (6  iXtjOivbt  irXovTOt)  consists  of  such  values  in  use;  for  the  quantity  of  pos- 
sessions of  this  kind,  capable  of  making  life  pleasant,  is  not  unlimited.  There  is, 
however,  a  second  mode  of  acquiring  things,  to  which  we  may  by  preference  and 
with  correctness  give  the  name  of  Chrematistic,  and  in  this  case,  there  appear  to  be 
no  limits  to  riches  and  possessions.  Trade  (  ij  KarrrfKiK^  is  literally  retail  trade,  and 
Aristotle  takes  this  kind  because  in  it  values  in  use  predominate)  does  not  in  its 
nature  belong  to  Chrematistic,  for  here  the  exchange  has  reference  only  to  what  is 
necessary  to  themselves  (the  buyer  or  seller)."  Therefore,  as  he  goes  on  to  show, 
the  original  form  of  trade  was  barter,  but  with  the  extension  of  the  latter,  there 
arose  the  necessity  for  money.  On  the  discovery  of  money,  barter  of  necessity  de- 
veloped into  KaiTfiKiKi)  into  trading  in  commodities,  and  this  again,  in  opposition  to 
its  original  tendency,  grew  into  Chrematistic,  into  the  art  of  making  money.  Now 
Chrematistic  is  distingruishable  from  CEconomic  in  this  way,  that  "in  the  case  of 
Chrematistic,  circulation  is  the  source  of  riches  (iroiTjriKi]  XPVI^^-''''^^  ....  5iA 
XprffJuiTuv  8ia/3oX^j).  And  it  appears  to  revolve  about  money,  for  money  is  the  be- 
ginning and  end  of  this  kind  of  exchange  (.rh '^ip  vbiufffia,  ffToix^lov  Koliripas  rrji 
dXXa^'^S  iffrlv).  Therefore  also  riches,  such  as  Chrematistic  strives  for,  are  un- 
limited. Just  as  every  art  that  is  not  a  means  to  an  end,  but  an  end  in  itself,  has 
no  limit  to  its  aims,  because  it  seeks  constantly  to  approach  nearer  and  nearer  to 
that  end,  while  those  arts  that  pursue  means  to  an  end,  are  not  boundless,  since 
the  goal  itself  imposes  a  limit  upon  them,  so  with  Chrematistic,  there  are  no  bounds 
to  its  aims,  these  aims  being  absolute  wealth.  CEconomic  not  Chrematistic  has  a 
limit  ....  the  object  of  the  former  is  something  different  from  money,  of  the 
latter  the  augmentation  of  money  ....  By  confounding  these  two  forms,  which 
overlap  each  other,  some  people  have  been  led  to  look  upon  the  preservation  and 
increase  of  money  ad  infinitum  as  the  end  and  aim  of  CEconomic."  (Aristotles  De 
Rep.  edit.   Bekker.  lib.  I.  c.  8,  9.   passim.) 

*  "Commodities  (here  used  in  the  sense  of  use-values)  are  not  the  terminating 
object  of  the  trading  capitalist,  money  is  his  terminating  object."  (Th.  Chalmers, 
On  Pol.  Econ.  &c.,  2nd  Ed.,  Glasgow,  1832,  p.  166,  166.) 


The  General  Formula  for  Capital.  lyi 

at.^  This  boundless  greed  after  riches,  this  passionate  chase 
after  exchange-value,^  is  common  to  the  capitalist  and  the 
miser;  but  while  the  miser  is  merely  a  capitalist  gone  mad, 
the  capitalist  is  a  rational  miser.  The  never-ending  -aug- 
mentation of  exchange-value,  which  the  miser  strives  after,  by 
seeking  to  save  ^  his  money  from  circulation,  is  attained  by  the 
more  acute  capitalist,  by  constantly  throwing  it  afresh  into 
circulation.'* 

The  independent  form,  i.  e.,  the  money-form,  which  the 
value  of  comhiodities  assumes  in  the  case  of  simple  circulation, 
serves  only  one  purpose,  namely,  their  exchange,  and  vanishes 
in  the  final  result  of  the  movement.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
the  circulation  M — C — M,  both  the  money  and  the  commodity 
represent  only  different  modes  of  existence  of  value  itself,  the 
money  its  general  mode,  and  the  commodity  its  particular,  or, 
so  to  say,  disguised  mode.^  It  is  constantly  changing  from 
one  form  to  the  other  without  thereby  becoming  lost,  and  thus 
assumes  an  automatically  active  character.  If  now  we  take 
in  turn  each  of  the  two  different  forms  which  self-expanding 
value  successively  assumes  in  the  course  of  its  life,  we  then 
arrive  at  these  two  propositions :  Capital  is  money :  Capital 
is  commodities.®  In  tr<uth,  however,  value  is  here  the  active 
factor  in  a  process,  in  which,  while  constantly  assuming  the 
form  in  turn  of  money  and  commodities,  it  at  the  same  time 
changes  in  magnitude,  differentiates  itself  by  throwing  off 
surplus-value  from  itself;  the  original  value,  in  other  words, 

^  "II  mercante  non  conta  quasi  per  niente  il  lucro  fatto,  ma  mira  sempre  al 
future."  (A.  Genovesi,  Lezioni  di  Economia  Civile  1765),  Custodi's  edit,  of  Italian 
Economists.     Parte  Moderna  t.  xiii.  p.  139.) 

*  "The  inextinguishable  passion  for  gain,  the  auri  sacra  fames,  will  always  lead 
capitalists."  (MacCulloch:  "The  principles  of  Polit.  Econ."  London,  1830,  p. 
179.)  This  view,  of  course,  does  not  prevent  the  same  MacCulloch  and  others  of  his 
kidney,  when  in  theoretical  difficulties,  such,  for  example,  as  the  question  of  over- 
production, from  transforming  the  same  capitalist  into  a  moral  citizen,  whose  sole 
concern  is  for  use-values,  and  who  even  developes  an  insatiable  hunger  for  boots, 
hats,  eggs,  calico,  and  other  extremely  familiar  sorts  of  use-values. 

*  Swfeti'  is  a  characteristic  Greek  expression  for  hoarding.  So  in  English  to  save 
has  the  same  two  meanings:  sauver  and  epargner. 

*  "Questo  infinito  che  le  cose  non  hanno  in  progresso,  hanno  in  giro."     (Galiani.) 
^  "Ce  n'est  pas  la  matiere  qui  fait  le  capital,  mais  la  valeur  de  ces  matieres."     (J. 

B.  Say:     "Traite  de  I'Econ.  Polit."  Seme.  ed.     Paris,  1817,  t.  1.,  p.  428.) 

®  "Currency  (!)  employed  in  producing  articles  ...  is  capital."  (MacLeod: 
"The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Banking."  London,  1855,  v.  1.,  oh.  i.,  p.  65.) 
"Capital  is  commodities."  (James  Mill:  "Elements  of  Pol.  Ecoix."  Lend.,  1821,  p.  74.) 


172  Capitalist  Production. 

expands  spontaneously.  For  the  movement,  in  the  course  of 
■which  it  adds  surplus  value,  is  its  own  movement,  its  expan- 
sion, therefore,  is  automatic  expansion.  Because  it  is  value, 
it  has  acquired  the  occult  quality  of  being  able  to  add  value 
to  itself.  It  brings  forth  living  offspring,  or,  at  the  least,  lays 
golden  eggs. 

Value,  therefore,  being  the  active  factor  in  such  a  process, 
and  assuming  at  one  time  the  form  of  money,  at  another  that 
of  commodities,  but  through  all  these  changes  preserving  itself 
and  expanding,  it  requires  some  independent  form,  by  means 
of  which  its  identity  may  at  any  time  be  established.  And 
this  form  it  possesses  only  in  the  shape  of  money.  It  is  under 
the  form  of  money  that  value  begins  and  ends,  and  begins 
again,  every  act  of  its  own  spontaneous  generation.  It  began 
by  being  £100,  it  is  now  £110,  and  so  on.  But  the  money 
itself  is  only  one  of  the  two  forms  of  value.  Unless  it  takes 
the  form  of  some  commodity,  it  does  not  become  capital. 
There  is  here  no  antagonism,  as  in  the  case  of  hoarding,  be- 
tween the  money  and  conmiodities.  The  capitalist  knows  that 
all  conomodities,  however  scurvy  they  may  look,  or  however 
badly  they  may  smell,  are  in  faith  and  in  truth  money,  in- 
wardly circumcised  Jews,  and  what  is  more,  a  wonderful 
means  whereby  out  of  money  to  make  more  money. 

In  simple  circulation,  C — M — C,  the  value  of  commodities 
attained  at  the  most  a  form  independent  of  their  use-values, 
i.  e.,  the  form  of  money ;  but  that  same  value  now  in  the  cir- 
culation M — C — Mj  or  the  circulation  of  capital,  suddenly 
presents  itself  as  an  independent  substance,  endowed  with  a 
motion  of  its  own,  passing  through  a  life-process  of  its  own, 
in  which  money  and  commodities  are  mere  forms  which  it 
assumes  and  casts  off  in  turn.  Nay,  more :  instead  of  simply 
representing  the  relations  of  commodities,  it  enters  now,  so  to 
say,  into  private  relations  with  itself.  It  differentiates  itself 
as  original  value  from  itself  as  surplus-value;  as  the  father 
differentiates  himself  from  himself  qua  the  son,  yet  both  are 
one  and  of  one  age :  for  only  by  the  surplus  value  of  £10  does 
the  £100  originally  advanced  become  capital,  and  so  soon  as 
this  takes  place,  so  soon  as  the  son,  and  by  the  son,  the  father, 


Contradictions  in  the  Formula  of  Capital.  173 

is  begotten,  so  soon  does  their  difference  vanish,  and  thej  again 
become  one,  £110. 

Value  therefore  now  becomes  value  in  process,  money  in 
process,  and,  as  such,  capital.  It  comes  out  of  circulation, 
enters  into  it  again,  preserves  and  multiplies  itself  within  its 
circuit,  comes  back  out  of  it  with  expanded  bulk,  and  begins 
the  same  round  ever  afresh.^  M — M',  money  which  begets 
money,  such  is  the  description  of  Capital  from  the  mouths 
of  its  first  interpreters,  the  Mercantilists. 

Buying  in  order  to  sell,  or,  more  accurately,  buying  in  order 
to  sell  dearer,  M — ^C — M',  appears  certainly  to  be  a  form 
peculiar  to  one  kind  of  capital  alone,  namely,  merchants' 
capital.  But  industrial  capital  too  is  money,  that  is  changed 
into  commodities,  and  by  the  sale  of  these  commodities,  is  re- 
converted into  more  money.  The  events  that  take  place  out- 
side the  sphere  of  circulation,  in  the  interval  between  the  buy- 
ing and  selling,  do  not  affect  the  form  of  this  movement. 
Lastly,  in  the  case  of  interest-bearing  capital,  the  circulation 
M — C — M'  appears  abridged.  We  have  its  result  without  the 
intermediate  stage,  in  the  form  M — M',  "en  style  lapidaire" 
so  to  say,  money  that  is  worth  more  money,  value  that  is 
greater  than  itself. 

M — C — M'  is  therefore  in  reality  the  general  formula  of 
capital  as  it  appears  prima  facie  within  the  sphere  of  circula- 
tion. 


CHAPTEK  V. 

CONTEADICTIONS  IN  THE   GENERAL  FORMULA  OF  CAPITAL. 

The  form  which  circulation  takes  when  money  becomes  cap- 
ital, is  opposed  to  all  the  laws  we  have  hitherto  investigated 
bearing  on  the  nature  of  commodities,  value  and  money,  and 
even  of  circulation  itself.  What  distinguishes  this  form  from 
that  of  the  simple  circulation  of  commodities,  is  the  inverted 

*  Capital:  "portion  fructifiante  de  la  richesse  accumulee  .     .     .  valeur  permanente, 
multipliante."     (Sismondi:   "Nouveaux  principes  de  Tecon.  polit.,"  t.  L,  p.   88,   89.) 


174  Capitalist  Production. 

order  of  succession  of  the  two  antithetical  processes,  sale  and 
purchase.  IIow  can  this  purely  formal  distiiKjtion  between 
these  processes  change  their  character  as  it  were  by  magic  ? 

But  that  is  not  all.  This  inversion  has  no  existence  for  two 
out  of  the  three  persons  who  transact  business  together.  As 
capitalist,  I  buy  commodities  from  A  and  sell  them  again  to  B, 
but  as  a  simple  owner  of  commodities,  I  sell  them  to  B  and 
then  purchase  fresh  ones  from  A.  A  and  B  see  no  difference 
between  the  two  sets  of  transactions.  They  are  merely  buyers 
or  sellers.  And  I  on  each  occasion  meet  them  as  a  mere  owner 
of  either  money  or  commodities,  as  a  buyer  or  a  seller,  and, 
what  is  more,  in  both  sets  of  transactions,  I  am  opposed  to  A 
only  as  a  buyer  and  to  B  only  as  a  seller,  to  the  one  only  as 
money,  to  the  other  only  as  commodities,  and  to  either  of 
them  as  capital  or  a  capitalist,  or  as  representative  of  anything 
that  is  more  than  money  or  commodities,  or  that  can  produce 
any  effect  beyond  what  money  and  commodities  can.  For  me 
the  purchase  from  A  and  the  sale  to  B  are  part  of  a  series. 
But  the  connexion  between  the  two  acts  exists  for  me  alone. 
A  does  not  trouble  himself  about  my  transaction  with  B,  nor 
does  B  about  my  business  with  A.  And  if  I  offered  to  explain 
to  them  the  meritorious  nature  of  my  action  in  inverting  the 
order  of  succession,  they  would  probably  point  out  to  me  that 
I  was  mistaken  as  to  that  order  of  succession,  and  that  the 
whole  transaction,  instead  of  beginning  with  a  purchase  and 
ending  with  a  sale,  began,  on  the  contrary,  with  a  sale  and  was 
concluded  with  a  purchase.  In  truth,  my  first  act,  the  pur- 
chase, was  from  the  standpoint  of  A,  a  sale,  and  my  second  act, 
the  sale,  was  from  the  standpoint  of  B,  a  purchase.  Not  con- 
tent with  that,  A  and  B  would  declare  that  the  whole  series 
was  superfluous  and  nothing  but  Hokus  Pokus;  that  for  the 
future  A  would  buy  direct  from  B,  and  B  sell  direct  to  A. 
Thus  the  whole  transaction  would  be  reduced  to  a  single  act 
forming  an  isolated,  non-complemented  phase  in  the  ordinary 
circulation  of  commodities,  a  mere  sale  from  A's  point  of  view, 
and  from  B's,  a  mere  purchase.  The  inversion,  therefore,  of 
the  order  of  succession,  does  not  take  us  outside  the  sphere  of 
the  simple  circulation  of  commodities,  and  we  must  rather 


Contradictions  in  the  Formula  of  Capital.  175 

look,  whether  there  is  in  this  simple  circulation  anything  per- 
mitting an  expansion  of  the  value  that  enters  into  circulation, 
and,  consequently,  a  creation  of  surplus-value. 

Let  us  take  the  process  of  circulation  in  a  form  under  which 
it  presents  itself  as  a  simple  and  direct  exchange  of  com- 
modities. This  is  always  the  case  when  two  owners  of  com- 
modities buy  from  each  other,  and  on  the  settling  day  the 
amounts  mutually  owing  are  equal  and  cancel  each  other. 
The  money  in  this  case  is  money  of  account  and  serves  to  ex- 
press the  value  of  the  commodities  by  their  prices,  but  is  not, 
itself,  in  the  shape  of  hard  cash,  confronted  with  them.  So 
far  as  regards  use-values,  it  is  clear  that  both  parties  may  gain 
some  advantage.  Both  part  with  goods  that,  as  use-values,  are 
of  no  service  to  them,  and  receive  others  that  they  can  make 
use  of.  And  there  may  also  be  a  further  gain.  A,  who  sells 
wine  and  buys  com,  possibly  produces  more  wine,  with  giveiQ 
labour  time,  than  farmer  B  could,  and  B,  on  the  other  hand, 
more  corn  than  wine-grower  A  could.  A,  therefore,  may  get, 
for  the  same  exchange  value,  more  corn,  and  B  more  wine, 
than  each  would  respectively  get  without  any  exchange  by  pro- 
ducing his  own  corn  and  wine.  With  reference,  therefore,  to 
use-value,  there  is  good  ground  for  saying  that  "exchange  is  a 
transaction  by  which  both  sides  gain."  ^  It  is  otherwise  with 
exchange  value.  "A  man  who  has  plenty  of  wine  and  no  com 
treats  with  a  man  who  has  plenty  of  corn  and  no  wine ;  an  ex- 
change takes  place  between  them  of  com  to  the  value  of  50, 
for  wine  of  the  same  value.  This  act  produces  no  increase  of 
exchange  value  either  for  the  one  or  the  other ;  for  each  of 
them  already  possessed,  before  the  exchange,  a  value  equal 
to  that  which  he  acquired  by  means  of  that  operation."  ^  The 
result  is  not  altered  by  introducing  money,  as  a  medium  of  cir- 
culation, between  the  commodities,  and  making  the  sale  and 
the  purchase  two  distinct  acts.*     The  value  of  a  commodity  is 

*  "L'echange  est  une  transaction  admirable  dans  laquelle  les  deux  contractants 
gagnent — toujours  (!)"  (Destutt  de  Tracy:  "Traite  de  la  Volonte  et  dc  ses  effets." 
Paris,  1826,  p.  68.)     This  work  appeared  afterwards  as  "Traite  dc  rEcon.  Polit. 

^  "Mercier  de  la  Riviere,"  1.  c.  p.  544. 

^  "Que  Tune  de  ces  deux  valeurs  soit  argent,  ou  qu'elles  soient  toutes  deux  mar- 
chandises  usuelles,  rien  de  plus  indifferent  en  soi."  (Mercier  de  la  Riviere," 
1.  c.  p.  543.) 


176  Capitalist  Production. 

expressed  in  its  price  before  it  goes  into  circulation,  and  ia 
therefore  a  precedent  condition  of  circulation,  not  its  result.^ 
Abstractedly  considered,  that  is,  apart  from  circumstances 
not  immediately  flowing  from  the  laws  of  the  simple  circula- 
tion of  commodities,  there  is  in  an  exchange  nothing  (if  we 
except  the  replacing  of  one  use-value  by  another)  but  a 
metamorphosis,  a  mere  change  in  the  form  of  the  commodity. 
The  same  exchange  value,  i.e.,  the  same  quantity  of  incor- 
porated social  labour,  remains  throughout  in  the  hands  of  the 
owner  of  the  commodity  first  in  the  shape  of  his  own  com- 
modity, then  in  the  form  of  the  money  for  which  he  exchanged 
it,  and  lastly,  in  the  shape  of  the  commodity  he  buys  with  that 
money.  This  change  of  form  does  not  imply  a  change  in  the 
magnitude  of  the  value.  But  the  change,  which  the  value  of 
the  commodity  undergoes  in  this  process,  is  limited  to  a  change 
in  its  money  form.  This  form  exists  first  as  the  price  of  the 
commodity  offered  for  sale,  then  as  an  actual  sum  of  money, 
which,  however,  was  already  expressed  in  the  price,  and  lastly, 
as  the  price  of  an  equivalent  commodity.  This  change  of 
form  no  more  implies,  taken  alone,  a  change  in  the  quantity 
of  value,  than  does  the  change  of  a  £5  note  into  sovereigns, 
half  sovereigns  and  shillings.  So  far  therefore  as  the  circula- 
tion of  commodities  effects  a  change  in  the  form  alone  of  their 
values,  and  is  free  from  disturbing  influences,  it  must  be  the 
exchange  of  equivalents.  Little  as  Vulgar-Economy  knows 
about  the  nature  of  value,  yet  wbenever  it  wishes  to  consider 
the  phenomena  of  circulation  in  their  purity,  it  assumes  that 
supply  and  demand  are  equal,  which  amounts  to  this,  that  their 
effect  is  nil.  If  therefore,  as  regards  the  use-values  ex- 
changed, both  buyer  and  seller  may  possibly  gain  something, 
this  is  not  the  case  as  regards  the  exchange  values.  Here  we 
must  rather  say,  "Where  equality  exists  there  can  be  no  gain."^ 
It  is  true,  commodities  may  be  sold  at  prices  deviating  from 
their  values,  but  these  deviations  are  to  be  considered  as  in- 

1  "Ce  ne  sont  pas  Ics  contractants  qui  prononcent  sur  valeur;  elle  est  d6rid^ 
•▼ant  la  convention."     ("Le  Trosne,"  p.  906.) 

*"Dove  i  egualiti  non  4  lucre."  (Galiani,  "Delia  Moneta  in  Custodi,  Parte 
Modcrna,"  t.  iv.  p.  244.) 


Contradictions  in  the  Fornmla  of  Capital.  177 

fractions  of  the  laws  of  the  exchange  of  commodites,^  which 
in  its  normal  state  is  an  exchange  of  equivalents,  consequently, 
no  method  for  increasing  value. ^ 

Hence,  we  see  that  behind  all  attempts  to  represent  the 
circulation  of  commodities  as  a  source  of  surplus-value,  there 
lurks  a  quid  'pro  quo,  a  mixing  up  of  use-value  and  exchange 
value.  For  instance,  Condillac  says :  "It  is  not  true  that  on 
an  exchange  of  cormnodities  we  give  value  for  value.  On  the 
contrary,  each  of  the  two  contracting  parties  in  every  case, 
gives  a  less  for  a  greater  value.  ...  If  we  really  exchanged 
equal  values,  neither  party  could  make  a  profit.  And  yet, 
they  both  gain,  or  ought  to  gain.  Why  ?  The  value  of  a 
thing  consists  solely  in  its  relation  to  our  wants.  What  is 
more  to  the  one  is  less  to  the  other,  and  vice  versci.  ...  It 
is  not  to  be  assumed  that  we  offer  for  sale  articles  required  for 
our  own  consumption.  .  .  .  We  wish  to  part  with  a  use- 
less thing,  in  order  to  get  one  that  we  need ;  we  want  to  give 
less  for  more.  ...  It  was  natural  to  think  that,  in  an  ex- 
change, value  was  given  for  value,  whenever  each  of  the  ar- 
ticles exchanged  was  of  equal  value  with  the  same  quantity 
of  gold.  .  .  .  But  there  is  another  point  to  be  considered  in 
our  calculation.  The  question  is,  whether  we  both  exchange 
something  superfluous  for  something  necessary."^  We  see  in 
this  passage,  how  Condillac  not  only  confuses  use-value  with 
exchange  value,  but  in  a  really  childish  manner  assumes,  that 
in  a  society,  in  which  the  production  of  commodities  is  well 
developed,  each  producer  produces  his  own  means  of  subsis- 
tence, and  throws  into  circulation  only  the  excess  over  his  own 
requirements.^     Still,  Condillac's  argument  is  frequently  used 

*  "Lechange  devient  desavantageux  pour  I'une  des  parties,  lorsque  quelque  chose 
etrangere  vient  diminuer  ou  exagerer  le  prix;  alors  I'egalite  est  blessee,  mais  la 
lesion  procede  de  cette  cause  et  non  de  I'echange."     ("Le  Trosne,"  1.  c.  p.  904.) 

*  "L'echange  est  de  sa  nature  un  contrat  d'egalite  qui  se  fait  de  valeur  pour  valeur 
6gale.  II  n'est  done  pas  un  moyen  de  s'enrichir,  puisque  Ton  donne  autant  que  Ton 
re?oit."     ("Le  Trosne,"  1.  c.  p.  903.) 

*  Condillac:  "Le  Commerce  et  le  Gouvernement"  (1776).  Edit.  Daire  et  Molinari 
in  the  "Melanges  d'Econ.   Polit."     Paris,   1847,  p.  267,  etc. 

*  Le  Trosne,  therefore,  answers  his  friend  Condillac  with  justice  as  follows:  "Dans 
une  .  .  .  societe  formec  il  n'y  a  pas  de  surabondant  en  aucun  genre."  At  the 
same  time,  in  a  bantering  way,  he  remarks:  "If  both  the  persons  who  exchange  re- 
ceive more  to  an  equal  amount,  and  part  with  less  to  an  equal  amount,  they  both  get 
the  same."    It   is  because   Condillac  has  not  the  remotest  idea  of  the  nature  of 

L 


178  Capitalist  Production. 

by  modem  economists,  more  especially  when  the  point  is  to 
show,  that  the  exchange  of  commodities  in  its  developed  form, 
commerce,  is  productive  of  surplus-value.  For  instance, 
"Commerce  ....  adds  value  to  products,  for  the  same  prod- 
ucts in  the  hands  of  consumers,  are  worth  more  than  in  the 
hands  of  producers,  and  it  may  strictly  be  considered  an  act  of 
production."^  But  commodities  are  not  paid  for  twice  over, 
once  on  account  of  their  use-value,  and  again  on  account  of 
their  value.  And  though  the  use-value  of  a  commodity  is 
more  servicable  to  the  buyer  than  to  the  seller,  its  money  form 
is  more  serviceable  to  the  seller.  Would  he  otherwise  sell  it? 
We  might  therefore  just  as  well  say  that  the  buyer  performs 
"strictly  an  act  of  production,"  by  converting  stockings,  for 
example,  into  money. 

If  commodities,  or  commodities  and  money,  of  equal  ex- 
change-value, and  consequently  equivalents,  are  exchanged,  it 
is  plain  that  no  one  abstracts  more  value  from,  than  he  throws 
into,  circulation.  There  is  no  creation  of  surplus-value. 
And,  in  its  normal  form,  the  circulation  of  commodities  de- 
mands the  exchange  of  equivalents.  But  in  actual  practice, 
the  process  does  not  retain  its  normal  form.  Let  us,  there- 
fore, assume  an  exchange  of  non-equivalents. 

In  any  case  the  market  for  commodities  is  only  frequented 
by  owners  of  commodities,  and  the  power  which  these  persons 
exercise  over  each  other,  is  no  other  than  the  power  of  their 
commodities.  The  material  variety  of  these  commodities  is  the 
material  incentive  to  the  act  of  exchange,  and  makes  buyers 
and  sellers  mutually  dependent,  because  none  of  them  possesses 
the  object  of  his  own  wants,  and  each  holds  in  his  hand  the 
object  of  another's  wants.  Besides  these  material  differences 
of  their  use-values,  there  is  only  one  other  difference  between 
commodities,  namely,  that  between  their  bodily  form  and  the 
form  into  which  they  are  converted  by  sale,  the  difference  be- 

exchange  value  that  he  has  been  chosen  by  Herr  Professor  Wilhelm  Roscher  as  a 
proper  person  to  answer  for  the  soundness  of  his  own  childish  notions.  See 
Roscher's   "Die   Grundlagen   der   Nationalokomonie,   Dritte   Auflage,"   1858. 

•  S.  P.  Newman :  "Elements  of  Polit  Econ."  Andover  and  New  York,  1836, 
p.  176. 


Contradictions  in  the  Formula  of  Capital.  179 

tween  commodities  and  money.  And  consequently  the  owners 
of  commodities  are  distinguishable  only  as  sellers,  those  who 
own  commodities,  and  buyers,  those  who  own  money. 

Suppose  then,  that  by  some  inexplicable  privilege,  the  seller 
is  enabled  to  sell  his  commodities  above  their  value,  what  is 
worth  100  for  110,  in  which  case  the  price  is  nominally  raised 
10%.  The  seller  therefore  pockets  a  surplus  value  of  10. 
But  after  he  has  sold  he  becomes  a  buyer.  A  third  owner  of 
commodities  comes  to  him  now  as  seller,  who  in  this  capacity 
also  enjoys  the  privilege  of  selling  his  commodities  10%  too 
dear.  Our  friend  gained  10  as  a  seller  only  to  lose  it  again  as 
a  buyer.  ^  The  nett  result  is,  that  all  owners  of  commodities 
sell  their  goods  to  one  another  at  10%  above  their  value,  which 
comes  precisely  to  the  same  as  if  they  sold  them  at  their  true 
value.  Such  a  general  and  nominal  rise  of  prices  has  the 
same  effect  as  if  the  values  had  been  expressed  in  weight  of 
silver  instead  of  in  weight  of  gold.  The  nominal  prices  of 
commodities  would  rise,  but  the  real  relation  between  their 
values  would  remain  unchanged. 

Let  us  make  the  opposite  assumption,  that  the  buyer  has 
the  privilege  of  purchasing  commodities  under  their  value. 
In  this  case  it  is  no  longer  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  that  he 
in  his  turn  wll  become  a  seller.  He  was  so  before  he  became 
buyer;  he  had  already  lost  10%  in  selling  before  he  gained 
10%  as  buyer.2     Everything  is  just  as  it  was. 

The  creation  of  surplus-value,  and  therefore  the  conversion 
of  money  into  capital,  can  consequently  be  explained  neither 
on  the  assumption  that  commodities  are  sold  above  their  value, 
nor  that  they  are  bought  below  their  value. ^ 

*  "By  the  augmentation  of  the  nominal  value  of  the  produce  .  .  .  sellers  not  en- 
riched .  .  .  since  what  they  gain  as  sellers,  they  precisely  expend  in  the  quality  of 
buyers."  ("The  Essential  Principles  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations,"  &c.,  London,  1797, 
p.  66.) 

*  "Si  Ton  est  force  de  donner  pour  18  livres  une  quantite  de  telle  production  qui 
en  valait  24,  lorsqu'on  employera  ce  meme  argent  a  acheter,  on  aura  egalement  pour 
18  1.  ce  que  I'on  payait  24."      ("Le  Trosne,"  1.  c.   p.  897.) 

'  "Chaque  vendeur  ne  peut  done  parvenir  a  rencherir  habituellement  ses  marchan- 
dises,  qu'en  se  soumettant  aussi  a  payer  habituellement  plus  cher  les  marchandises 
des  autres  vendeurs;  et  par  la  meine  raison,  chaque  consommateur  ne  peut  payer 
habituellement  moins  cher  ce  qu'il  achete,  qu'en  se  soumettant  aussi  a  une  diminu- 
tion semblable  sur  le  prix  des  choses  qu  il  vend."  (Mercier  de  la  Raviere,"  1.  c  p. 
655.) 


l8o  Capitalist  Production. 

The  problem  is  in  no  way  simplified  by  introducing  irrele- 
vant matters  after  the  manner  of  Col.  Torrens:  "Effectual 
demand  consists  in  the  power  and  inclination  (  !),  on  the  part 
of  consumers,  to  give  for  commodities,  either  by  immediate  or 
circuitous  barter,  some  greater  portion  of  .  .  .  capital  than 
their  production  costs."  ^  In  relation  to  circulation,  producers 
and  consumers  meet  only  as  buyers  and  sellers.  To  assert 
that  the  surplus-value  acquired  by  the  producer  has  its  origin 
in  the  fact  that  consumers  pay  for  commodities  more  than  their 
value,  is  only  to  say  in  other  words:  The  owner  of  commod- 
ities possesses,  as  a  seller,  the  privilege  of  selling  too  dear. 
The  seller  has  himself  produced  the  commodities  or  represents 
their  producer,  but  the  buyer  has  to  no  less  extent  produced 
the  commodities  represented  by  his  money,  or  represents  their 
producer.  The  distinction  between  them  is,  that  one  buys  and 
the  other  sells.  The  fact  that  the  owner  of  the  commodities, 
under  the  designation  of  producer,  sells  them  over  their  value, 
and  under  the  designation  of  consumer,  pays  too  much  for 
them,  does  not  carry  us  a  single  step  further.^ 

To  be  consistent  therefore,  the  upholders  of  the  delusion  that 
surplus-value  has  its  origin  in  a  nominal  rise  of  prices  or  in 
the  privilege  which  the  seller  has  of  selling  too  dear,  must 
assume  the  existence  of  a  class  that  only  buys  and  does  not  sell, 
i,e.,  only  consumes  and  does  not  produce.  The  existence  of 
such  a  class  is  inexplicable  from  the  standpoint  we  have  so  far 
reached,  viz.,  that  of  simple  circulation.  But  let  us  anticipate. 
The  money  with  which  such  a  class  is  constantly  making  pur- 
chases, must  constantly  flow  into  their  pockets,  without  any 
exchange,  gratis,  by  might  or  right,  from  the  pockets  of  the 
commodity-owners  themselves.  To  sell  commodities  above 
their  value  to  such  a  class,  is  only  to  crib  back  again  a  part 
of  the  money  previously  given  to  it.^     The  towns  of  Asia 

*R.  Torrens:  "An  Essay  on  the  Production  of  Wealth."  London,  1821,  p.  849. 

*  "The  idea  of  profits  being  paid  by  the  consumers,  is,  assuredly,  very  absurd. 
Who  are  the  consumers?"  (G.  Ramsay:  "An  Essay  on  the  Distribution  of  Wealth." 
Edinburgh,  1836,  p.  183.) 

•  "When  a  man  is  in  want  of  a  demand,  does  Mr.  Malthus  recommend  him  to 
pay  some  other  person  to  take  off  his  goods?"  is  a  question  put  by  an  angry  disciple 
of  Ricardo  to  Malthus,  who,  like  his  disciple.  Parson  Chalmers,  economically  glori- 
fies this  class  of  simple  buyers  or  consumers.     (See  "An  Inquiry  into  those  princi- 


Contradictions  in  the  Formula  of  Capital.  i8i 

Minor  thus  paid  a  yearly  money  tribute  to  ancient  Rome. 
With  this  money  Rome  purchased  from  them  commodities,  and 
purchased  them  too  dear.  The  provincials  cheated  the  Ro- 
mans, and  thus  got  back  from  their  conquerors,  in  the  course 
of  trade,  a  portion  of  the  tribute.  Yet,  for  all  that,  the  con- 
quered were  the  really  cheated.  Their  goods  were  still  paid 
for  with  their  own  money.  That  is  not  the  way  to  get  rich  or 
to  create  surplus-value. 

Let  us  therefore  keep  within  the  bounds  of  exchange  where 
sellers  are  also  buyers,  and  buyers,  sellers.  Our  difficulty  may 
perhaps  have  arisen  from  treating  the  actors  as  personifications 
instead  of  as  individuals. 

A  may  be  clever  enough  to  get  the  advantage  of  B  or  C 
without  their  being  able  to  retaliate.  A  sells  wine  worth  £40 
to  B,  and  obtains  from  him  in  exchange  corn  to  the  value  of 
£50.  A  has  converted  his  £40  into  £50,  has  made  more  money 
out  of  less,  and  has  converted  his  commodities  into  capital. 
Let  us  examine  this  a  little  more  closely.  Before  the  exchange 
we  had  £40  worth  of  wine  in  the  hands  of  A,  and  £50  worth 
of  com  in  those  of  B,  a  total  value  of  £90.  After  the  exchange 
we  have  still  the  same  total  value  of  £90.  The  value  in  cir- 
ctilation  has  not  increased  by  one  iota,  it  is  only  distributed 
differently  between  A  and  B.  What  is  a  loss  of  value  to  B 
is  surplus-value  to  A ;  what  is  "minus"  to  one  is  "plus"  to  the 
other.  The  same  change  would  have  taken  place,  if  A,  with- 
out the  formality  of  an  exchange,  had  directly  stolen  the  £10 
from  B.  The  sum  of  the  values  in  circulation  can  clearly  not 
be  augmented  by  any  change  in  their  distribution,  any  more 
than  the  quantity  of  the  precious  metals  in  a  country  by  a 
Jew  selling  a  Queen  Ann's  farthing  for  a  guinea.  The  cap- 
italist class,  as  a  whole,  in  any  country,  cannot  over-reach 
themselves.* 

Turn  and  twist  then  as  we  may,  the  fact  remains  unaltered, 

pies  respecting  the  Nature  of  Demand  and  the  necessity  of  Consumption,  lately  ad- 
vocated by  Mr.  Malthus,"  &c.     Lond.,  1821,  p.  55.) 

*  Destutt  de  Tracy,  although,  or  perhaps  because,  he  was  a  member  of  the  Insti- 
tute, held  the  opposite  view.  He  says,  industrial  capitalists  make  profits  because 
"they  all  sell  for  more  than  it  has  cost  to  produce.  And  to  whom  do  they  sell  ? 
In  the  first  instance  to  one  another."     (1.  c,  p.  239.) 


1 82  Capitalist  Production. 

If  equivalents  arc  exchanged,  no  surplus-value  results,  and  if 
non-equivalents  are  exchanged,  still  no  surplus-value.^  Cir- 
culation, or  the  exchange  of  commodities,  begets  no  value.^ 

The  reason  is  now  therefore  plain  why,  in  analysing  the 
standard  form  of  capital,  the  form  under  which  it  determines 
the  economical  organisation  of  modern  society,  we  entirely 
left  out  of  consideration  its  most  popular,  and,  so  to  say,  ante- 
diluvian forms,  merchants'  capital  and  money-lenders'  capital. 

The  circuit  M — C — M',  buying  in  order  to  sell  dearer,  is 
seen  most  clearly  in  genuine  merchants'  capital.  But  the 
movement  takes  place  entirely  within  the  sphere  of  circulation. 
Since,  however,  it  is  impossible,  by  circulation  alone,  to  ac- 
count for  the  conversion  of  money  into  capital,  for  the  forma- 
tion of  surplus-value,  it  would  appear,  that  merchants'  capital 
is  an  impossibility,  so  long  as  equivalents  are  exchanged  f  that, 
therefore,  it  can  only  have  its  origin  in  the  twofold  advantage 
gained,  over  both  the  selling  and  the  buying  producers,  by  the 
merchant  who  parasitically  shoves  himself  in  between  them. 
It  is  in  this  sense  that  Franklin  says,  "war  is  robbery,  com- 
merce is  generally  cheating."*  If  the  transformation  of 
merchants'  money  into  capital  is  to  be  explained  otherwise 
than  by  the  producers  being  simply  cheated,  a  long  series  of 
intermediate  steps  would  be  necessary,  which,  at  present,  when 

*  "L'echange  qui  se  fait  de  deux  valeurs  ^gales  n'augmente  ni  ne  diminue  la 
masse  des  valeurs  subsistantes  dans  la  societe.  L'echange  de  deux  valeurs  incgalcs 
.  .  .  ne  change  rien  non  plus  a  la  somme  des  valeurs  sociales,  bien  qu'il  ajoute 
a  la  fortune  de  I'un  ce  pu'il  ote  de  la  fortune  de  I'autre."  J.  B.  Say,  1.  c.  t.  I., 
pp.  344,  345.)  Say,  not  in  the  least  troubled  as  to  the  consequences  of  this  state- 
ment, borrows  it,  almost  word  for  word,  from  the  Physiocrats.  The  following  example 
will  shew  how  Monsieur  Say  turned  to  account  the  writings  of  the  Physiocrats,  in 
his  day  quite  forgotten,  for  the  purpose  of  expanding  the  "value"  of  his  own.  His 
most  celebrated  saying,  "On  n'achete  des  produits  qu'avec  des  produits"  (1.  c,  t.  II., 
p.  438)  runs  as  follows  in  the  original  physiocratic  work:  "Les  productions  ne  se 
paient  qu'avec  des  productions."     ("Le  Trosne,"  1.  c,  p.  899.) 

'  "Enchange  confers  no  value  at  all  upon  products."  (F.  Wayland:  "The  Ele- 
ments of  Political  Economy."     Boston,  1853,  p.   168.) 

*  Under  the  rule  of  invariable  equivalents  commerce  would  be  impossible.  (G. 
Opdyke:  "A  Treatise  on  Polit  Economy."  New  York,  1851,  p.  66-69.)  "The  dif- 
ference between  real  value  and  exchange-value  is  based  upon  this  fact,  namely,  that 
the  value  of  a  thing  is  different  from  the  socalled  equivalent  given  for  it  in  trade, 
«.«.,  that  this  equivalent   is  no  equivalent."     (F.    Engels,   1.   c.   p.    96.) 

*  Benjamin  Franklin:  Works,  Vol.  II.  edit.  Sparks  in  "Positions  to  be  examined 
concerning   National   Wealth,"   p.   376. 


Contradictions  in  the  Formula  of  Capital.  183 

the  simple  circulation  of  commodities  forms  our  only  assump- 
tion, are  entirely  wanting. 

What  we  have  said  with  reference  to  merchants'  capital, 
applies  still  more  to  money-lenders'  capital.  In  merchants' 
capital,  the  two  extremes,  the  money  that  is  thrown  upon  the 
market,  and  tlie  augmented  money  that  is  withdrawn  from  the 
market,  are  at  least  connected  by  a  purchase  and  a  sale,  in 
other  words  by  the  movement  of  the  circulation.  In  money- 
lenders' capital  the  form  M — C — M''  is  reduced  to  the  two  ex- 
tremes without  a  mean,  M — ^IM',  money  exchanged  for  more 
money,  a  form  that  is  incompatible  with  the  nature  of  money, 
and  therefore  remains  inexplicable  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
circulation  of  commodities.  Hence  Aristotle :  "since  chrema- 
tistic  is  a  double  science,  one  part  belonging  to  commerce,  the 
other  to  economic,  the  latter  being  necessary  and  praiseworthy, 
the  former  based  on  circulation  and  with  justice  disapproved 
(for  it  is  not  based  on  Nature,  but  on  mutual  cheating),  there- 
fore the  usurer  is  most  rightly  hated,  because  money  itself  is 
the  source  of  his  gain,  and  is  not  used  for  the  purposes  for 
which  it  was  invented.  For  it  originated  for  the  exchange  of 
commodities,  but  interest  makes  out  of  money,  more  money. 
Hence  its  name  (  tokos  interest  and  offspring).  For  the  be- 
gotten are  like  those  who  beget  them.  But  interest  is  money 
of  money,  so  that  of  all  modes  of  making  a  living,  this  is  the 
most  contrary  to  nature."  ^ 

In  the  course  of  our  investigation,  we  shall  find  that  both 
merchants'  capital  and  interest-bearing  capital  are  derivative 
forms,  and  at  the  same  time  it  will  become  clear,  why  these 
two  forms  appear  in  the  course  of  history  before  the  modem 
standard  form  of  capital. 

We  have  shown  that  surplus-value  cannot  be  created  by 
circulation,  and,  therefore,  that  in  its  formation,  something 
must  take  place  in  the  background,  which  is  not  apparent  in 
the  circulation  itself.^  But  can  surplus-value  possibly  origin- 
ate anywhere  else  than  in  circulation,  which  is  the  sum  total 

*  Aristotle,   1.    c.   c.    10. 

*  Profit,  in  the  usual  condition  of  the  market,  is  not  made  by  exchanging.  Had 
it  not  existed  before,  neither  could  it  after  that  transaction."  (Ramsay,  1.  c,  p. 
184.) 


184  Capitalist  Production. 

of  all  the  mutual  relations  of  commodity-owners,  as  far  as  they 
are  determined  by  their  commodities?  Apart  from  circula- 
tion, the  commodity-owner  is  in  relation  only  with  his  own 
commodity.  So  far  as  regards  value,  that  relation  is 
limited  to  this,  that  the  commodity  contains  a  quantity  of  his 
labour,  that  quantity  being  measured  by  a  definite  social 
standard.  This  quantity  is  expressed  by  the  value  of  the 
commodity,  and  since  the  value  is  reckoned  in  money  of  acr 
count,  this  quantity  is  also  expressed  by  the  price,  which  we 
will  suppose  to  be  £10.  But  his  labour  is  not  represented  both 
by  the  value  of  the  commodity,  and  by  a  surplus  over  that 
value,  not  by  a  price  of  10  that  is  also  a  price  of  11,  not  by  a 
value  that  is  greater  than  itself.  The  commodity  owner  can, 
by  his  labour,  create  value,  but  not  self -expanding  value.  He 
can  increase  the  value  of  his  commodity,  by  adding  fresh 
labour,  and  therefore  more  value  to  the  value  in  hand,  by  mak- 
ing, for  instance,  leather  into  boots.  The  same  material  has 
now  more  value,  because  it  contains  a  greater  quantity  of 
labour.  The  boots  have  therefore  more  value  than  the  leather, 
but  the  value  of  the  leather  remains  what  it  was ;  it  has  not 
expanded  itself,  has  not,  during  the  making  of  the  boots,  an- 
nexed surplus  value.  It  is  therefore  impossible  that  outside 
the  sphere  of  circulation,  a  producer  of  commodities  can,  with- 
out coming  into  contact  with  other  commodity  owners,  ex- 
pand value,  and  consequently  convert  money  or  commodities 
into  capital. 

It  is  therefore  impossible  for  capital  to  be  produced  by  cir- 
culation, and  it  is  equally  impossible  for  it  to  originate  apart 
from  circulation.  It  must  have  its  origin  both  in  circulation 
and  yet  not  in  circulation. 

We  have,  therefore,  got  a  double  result 

The  conversion  of  money  into  capital  has  to  be  explained  on 
the  basis  of  the  laws  that  regulate  the  exchange  of  commod- 
ities, in  such  a  way  that  the  starting  point  is  the  exchange  of 
equivalents.*     Our  friend.  Moneybags,  who  as  yet  is  only  an 

*  From  the  foregoing  investigation,  the  reader  will  see  that  this  statement  only 
means  that  the  formation  of  capital  must  be  possible  even  though  the  price  and  value 
of  a  commodity  be  the  same;  for  its  formation  cannot  be  attributed  to  any  deviation 
of  the  one  from  the  other.     If  prices  actually  differ  from  values,  we  must,  first  of 


The  Buying  and  Selling  of  Labour-Power.         185 

embryo  capitalist,  must  buy  his  commodities  at  their  value, 
must  sell  them  at  their  value,  and  yet  at  the  end  of  the  pro- 
cess must  withdrave  more  value  from  circulation  than  he  threw 
into  it  at  starting.  His  development  into  a  full-grown  capi- 
talist must  take  place,  both  within  the  sphere  of  circulation 
and  without  it.  These  are  the  conditions  of  the  problem. 
Hie  Ehodus,  hie  salta ! 


CHAPTEK  VI. 

THE  BTTYING  AND  SELLING  OF  LABOTJR-POWER. 

The  change  of  value  that  occurs  in  the  case  of  money  intended 
to  be  converted  into  capital,  cannot  take  place  in  the  money 
itself,  since  in  its  function  of  means  of  purchase  and  of  pay- 
ment, it  does  no  more  than  realise  the  price  of  the  commodity 
it  buys  or  pays  for;  and,  as  hard  cash,  it  is  value  petrified, 
never  varying.^  Just  as  little  can  it  originate  in  the  second 
act  of  circulation,  the  re-sale  of  the  commodity,  which  does 
no  more  than  transform  the  article  from  its  bodily  form  back 
again  into  its  money-form.  The  change  must,  therefore,  take 
place  in  the  commodity  bought  by  the  first  act,  M — C,  but  not 
in  its  vahie,  for  equivalents  are  exchanged,  and  the  commodity 
is  paid  for  at  its  full  value.     We  are,  therefore,  forced  to  the 

all,  reduce  the  former  to  the  latter,  in  other  words  treat  the  difference  as  accidental 
in  order  that  the  phenomena  may  be  observed  in  their  purity,  and  our  observations 
not  interfered  with  by  disturbing  circumstances  that  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
process  in  question.  We  know,  moreover,  that  this  reduction  is  no  mere  scientific 
process.  The  continual  oscillation  in  prices,  their  rising  and  falling,  compensate  each 
other,  and  reduce  themselves  to  an  average  price,  which  is  their  hidden  regulator.  It 
forms  the  guiding  star  of  the  merchant  or  the  manufacturer  in  every  undertaking 
that  requires  time.  He  knows  that  when  a  long  period  of  time  is  taken,  commodities 
are  sold  neither  over  nor  under,  but  at  their  average  price.  If  therefore  he  thought 
about  the  matter  at  all,  he  would  formulate  the  problem  of  the  formation  of  capital 
as  follows:  How  can  we  account  for  the  origin  of  capital  on  the  supposition  that 
prices  are  regulated  by  the  average  price,  i.e.,  ultimately  by  the  value  of  the  com- 
modities? I  say  "ultimately,"  because  average  prices  dp  not  directly  coincide  with 
the  values  of  commodities,  as  Adam  Smith,  Ricardo,  and  others  believe. 

*  "In  the  form  of  money.     .     .  capital  is  productive  of  no  profit."     (Ricardo: 

"Princ.  of  Pol.  Econ."  p.  267.) 


l86  Capitalist  Production. 

conclusion  that  the  change  originates  in  the  use-value,  as  such, 
of  the  commodity,  i.e.,  in  its  consumption.  In  order  to  be  able 
to  extract  value  from  the  consumption  of  a  commodity,  our 
friend,  Moneybags,  must  be  so  lucky  as  to  find,  within  the 
sphere  of  circulation,  in  the  market,  a  commodity,  whose  use- 
value  possesses  the  peculiar  property  of  being  a  source  of 
value,  whose  actual  consumption,  therefore,  is  itself  an  em- 
bodiment of  labour,  and,  consequently,  a  creation  of  value. 
The  possessor  of  money  does  find  on  the  market  such  a  special 
commodity  in  capacity  for  labour  or  labour-power. 

By  labour-power  or  capacity  for  labour  is  to  be  understood 
the  aggregate  of  these  mental  and  physical  capabilities  exist- 
ing in  a  human  being,  which  he  exercises  whenever  he  produces 
a  use-value  of  any  description. 

But  in  order  that  our  owner  of  money  may  be  able  to  find 
labour-power  offered  for  sale  as  a  commodity,  various  condi- 
tions must  first  be  fulfilled.  The  exchange  of  commodities  of 
itself  implies  no  other  relations  of  dependence  than  those  which 
result  from  its  own  nature.  On  this  assumption,  labour-power 
can  appear  upon  the  market  as  a  commodity  only  if,  and  so 
far  as,  its  possessor,  the  individual  whose  labour-power  it  is, 
offers  it  for  sale,  or  sells  it,  as  a  commodity.  In  order  that  he 
may  be  able  to  do  this,  he  must  have  it  at  his  disposal,  must 
be  the  untrammelled  owner  of  his  capacity  for  labour,  i.e.,  of 
his  person.^  He  and  the  owner  of  money  meet  in  the  market, 
and  deal  with  each  other  as  on  the  basis  of  equal  rights,  with 
this  difference  alone,  that  one  is  buyer,  the  other  seller;  both, 
therefore,  equal  in  the  eyes  of  the  law.  The  continuance  of 
this  relation  demands  that  the  owner  of  the  labour-power 
should  sell  it  only  for  a  definite  period,  for  if  he  were  to  sell  it 
rump  and  stump,  once  for  all,  he  would  be  selling  himself, 
converting  himself  from  a  free  man  into  a  slave,  from  an 
owner  of  a  commodity  into  a  commodity.  He  must  constantly 
look  upon  his  labour-power  as  his  own  property,  his  own  com- 
modity, and  this  he  can  only  do  by  placing  it  at  the  disposal  of 

*  In  encyclopsedias  of  classical  antiquities  we  find  such  nonsense  as  this — that  in 
the  ancient  world  capital  was  fully  developed,  "except  that  the  free  labourer  and  a 
system  of  credit  was  wanting."  Mommsen  also,  in  his  "History  of  Rome,"  commits, 
in  this  respect,  one  blunder  after  another. 


The  Buying  and  Selling  of  Labour-Power.         187 

the  buyer  temporarily,  for  a  definite  period  of  time.  By  this 
means  alone  can  he  avoid  renouncing  his  rights  of  ownership 
over  it.^ 

The  second  essential  condition  to  the  owner  of  money  find- 
ing labour-power  in  the  market  as  a  commodity  in  this — that 
the  labourer  instead  of  being  in  the  position  to  sell  com- 
modities in  which  his  labour  is  incorporated,  must  be  obliged 
to  oifer  for  sale  as  a  commodity  that  very  labour-power,  which 
exists  only  in  his  living  self. 

In  order  that  a  man  may  be  able  to  sell  commodities  other 
than  labour-power,  he  must  of  course  have  the  means  of 
production,  as  raw  material,  implements,  &c.  No  boots  can 
be  made  without  leather.  Pie  requires  also  the  means  of  sub- 
sistence. JSTobody — not  even  "a  musician  of  the  future" 
can  live  upon  future  products,  or  upon  use-values  in  an  un- 
finished state ;  and  ever  since  the  first  moment  of  his  appear- 
ance on  the  world's  stage,  man  always  has  been,  and  must  still 
be  a  consumer,  both  before  and  while  he  is  producing.  In  a 
society  where  all  products  assume  the  form  of  commodities, 
these  commodities  must  be  sold  after  they  have  been  produced ; 
it  is  only  after  their  sale  that  they  can  serve  in  satisfying  the 
requirements  of  their  producer.  The  time  necessary  for  their 
sale  is  superadded  to  that  necessary  for  their  production. 

For  the  conversion  of  his  money  into  capital,  therefore,  the 
owner  of  money  must  meet  in  the  market  with  the  free 
labourer,  free  in  the  double  sense,  that  as  a  free  man  he  can 

*  Hence  legislation  in  various  countries  fixes  a  maximum  for  labour-contracts. 
Wherever  free  labour  is  the  rule,  the  laws  regulate  the  mode  of  terminating  this  con- 
tract. In  some  States,  particularly  in  Mexico  (before  the  American  Civil  War,  also 
in  the  territories  taken  from  Mexico,  and  also  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the  Danubian 
provinces  till  the  revolution  affected  by  Kusa),  slavery  is  hidden  under  the  form  of 
peonage.  By  means  of  advances,  repayable  in  labour,  which  are  handed  down 
from  generation  to  generation,  not  only  the  individual  labourer,  but  his  family, 
become,  de  facto,  the  property  of  other  persons  and  their  families.  Juarez  abolished 
peonage.  The  so-called  Emperor  Maximilian  re-established  it  by  a  decree,  which,  in 
the  House  of  Representatives  at  Washington,  was  aptly  denounced  as  a  decree  for 
the  re-introduction  of  slavery  into  Mexico.  "I  may  make  over  to  another  the  use, 
for  a  limited  time,  of  my  particular  bodily  and  mental  aptitudes  and  capabilities; 
because,  in  consequence  of  this  restriction,  they  are  impressed  with  a  character  of 
alienation  with  regard  to  me  as  a  whole.  But  by  the  alienation  of  all  my  labour- 
time  and  the  whole  of  my  work,  I  should  be  converting  the  substance  itself,  in  other 
words,  my  general  activity  and  reality,  my  person,  into  the  property  of  another." 
(Hegel,  "Philosophic  des  Rechts."     Berlin,  1840,  p.   104  §  67.) 


l88  Capitalist  Production. 

dispose  of  his  labour-power  as  his  own  commodity,  and  that  oi» 
the  other  hand  he  has  no  other  commodity  for  sale,  is  short 
of  everything  necessary  for  the  realisation  of  his  labour- 
power. 

The  question  why  this  free  labourer  confronts  him  in  the 
market,  has  no  interest  for  the  owner  of  money,  who  regards 
the  labour  market  as  a  branch  of  the  general  market  for  com- 
modities. And  for  the  present  it  interests  us  just  as  little. 
We  cling  to  the  fact  theoretically,  as  he  does  practically.  One 
thing,  however,  is  clear — ^nature  does  not  produce  on  the  one 
side  owners  of  money  or  commodities,  and  on  the  other  men 
possessing  nothing  but  their  own  labour-power.  This  relation 
has  no  natural  basis,  neither  is  its  socal  basis  one  that  is 
common  to  all  historical  periods;  It  is  clearly  the  result  of  a 
past  historial  development,  the  product  of  many  economical 
revolutions,  of  the  extinction  of  a  whole  series  of  older  forms 
of  social  production. 

So,  too,  the  economical  categories,  already  discussed  by  us, 
bear  the  stamp  of  history.  Definite  historical  conditions  are 
necessary  that  a  product  may  become  a  commodity.  It  must 
not  be  produced  as  the  immediate  means  of  subsistence  of  the 
producer  himself.  Had  we  gone  further,  and  inquired  under 
what  circumstances  all,  or  even  the  majority  of  products  take 
the  form  of  commodities,  we  should  have  found  that  this  c^n 
only  happen  with  production  of  a  very  specific  kind,  capitalist 
production.  Such  an  inquiry,  however,  would  have  been 
foreign  to  the  analysis  of  commodities.  Production  and  cir- 
culation of  commodities  can  take  place,  although  the  great 
mass  of  the  objects  produced  are  intended  for  the  immediate 
requirements  of  their  producers,  are  not  turned  into  commodi- 
ties, and  consequently  social  production  is  not  yet  by  a  long 
way  dominated  in  its  length  and  breadth  by  exchange-value, 
the  appearance  of  products  as  commodities  presupposed  such  a 
development  of  the  social  division  of  labour,  that  the  separation 
of  use-value  from  exchange-value,  a  separation  which  first 
begins  with  barter,  must  already  have  been  completed.  But 
such  a  degree  of  development  is  common  to  many  forms  of 
society,   which    in   other  respects   present   the  most  varyinj.^ 


The  Buying  and  Selling  of  Labour-Power.        189 

historical  features.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  consider  money, 
its  existence  implies  a  definite  stage  in  the  exchange  of  com- 
modities. The  particular  functions  of  money  which  it  per- 
forms, either  as  the  mere  equivalent  of  commodities,  or  as 
means  of  circulation,  or  means  of  payment,  as  hoard  or  as 
universal  money,  point,  according  to  the  extent  and  relative 
preponderance  of  the  one  function  or  the  other,  to  very  differ- 
ent stages  in  the  process  of  social  production.  Yet  we  know 
by  experience  that  a  circulation  of  commodities  relatively 
primitive,  suffices  for  the  production  of  all  these  forms. 
Otherwise  with  capital.  The  historical  conditions  of  its  ex- 
istence are  by  no  means  given  with  the  mere  circulation  of 
money  and  commodities.  It  can  spring  into  life,  only  when 
the  owner  of  the  means  of  production  and  subsistence  meets  in 
the  market  with  the  free  labourer  selling  his  labour-power. 
And  this  one  historical  condition  comprises  a  world's  history. 
Capital  therefore,  announces  from  its  first  appearance  a  new 
epoch  in  the  process  of  social  production.^ 

We  must  now  examine  more  closely  this  peculiar  commodity, 
labour-power.  Like  all  others  it  has  a  value.^  How  is  that 
value  determined  ? 

The  value  of  labour-power  is  determined,  as  in  the  case  of 
every  other  commodity,  by  the  labour-time  necessary  for  the 
production,  and  consequently  also  the  reproduction,  of  this 
special  article.  So  far  as  it  has  value,  it  represents  no  more 
than  a  definite  quantity  of  the  average  labour  of  society 
incorporated  in  it.  Labour-power  exists  only  as  a  capacity,  or 
power  of  the  living  individual.  Its  production  consequently 
presupposes  his  existence.  Given  the  individual,  the  produc- 
tion of  labour-power  consists  in  his  reproduction  of  himself  or 
his  maintenance.  For  his  maintenance  he  requires  a  given 
quantity  of  the  means  of  subsistence.  Therefore  the  labour- 
time  requisite  for  the  production  of  labour-power  reduces  itself 

^  The  capitalist  epoch  is  therefore  characterised  by  this,  that  labour-power  takes 
in  the  eyes  of  the  labourer  himself  the  form  of  a  commodity  which  is  his  property; 
his  labour  consequently  becomes  wage  labour.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  only  from 
this  moment  that   the  produce  of  labour   universally   becomes  a  commodity. 

'  "The  value  or  worth  of  a  man,  is  as  of  all  other  things  his  price — that  is  to  say, 
so  much  as  would  be  given  for  the  use  of  his  power."  (Th.  Hobbes:  "Leviathan" 
in  Works,  Ed.  Molesworth.     Lond.   1839-44,  v.  iii.,  p.  76.) 


190  Capitalist  Production. 

to  that  necessary  for  the  production  of  those  means  of  sub- 
sistence; in  other  words,  the  value  of  labour-power  is  the 
value  of  the  means  of  subsistence  necessary  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  labourer.  Labour-power,  however,  becomes  a 
reality  only  by  its  exercise;  it  sets  itself  in  action  only  by 
working.  But  thereby  a  definite  quantity  of  human  muscle, 
,  nerve,  brain,  &c.,  is  wasted,  and  these  require  to  be  restored. 
'This  increased  expenditure  demands  a  larger  income.^  If  the 
owner  of  labour-power  works  to-day,  to-morrow  he  must  again 
be  able  to  repeat  the  same  process  in  the  same  conditions  as 
regards  health  and  strength.  His  means  of  subsistence  must 
therefore  be  sufficient  to  maintain  him  in  his  normal  state  as 
a  labouring  individual.  His  natural  wants,  such  as  food, 
clothing,  fuel,  and  housing,  vary  according  to  the  climatic  and 
other  physical  conditions  of  his  country.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  number  and  extent  of  his  so-called  necessary  wants,  as  also 
the  modes  of  satisfying  them,  are  themselves  the  product  of 
historical  development,  and  depend  therefore  to  a  great  extent 
on  the  degree  of  civilisation  of  a  country,  more  particularly 
on  the  conditions  under  which,  and  consequently  on  the  habits 
and  degree  of  comfort  in  which,  the  class  of  free  labourers  has 
been  formed.^  In  contradistinction  therefore  to  the  case  of 
other  commodities,  there  enters  into  the  determination  of  the 
value  of  labour-power  a  historical  and  moral  element.  Never- 
theless, in  a  given  country,  at  a  given  period,  the  average 
quantity  of  the  means  of  subsistence  necessary  for  the  labourer 
is  practically  known. 

The  owner  of  labour-power  is  mortal.  If  then  his  appear- 
ance in  the  market  is  to  be  continuous,  and  the  continuous  con- 
version of  money  into  capital  assumes  this,  the  seller  of  labour- 
power  must  perpetuate  himself,  "in  the  way  that  every  living 
individual  perpetuates  himself,  by  procreation."'  The  labour- 
power  withdrawn  from  the  market  by  wear  and  tear  and 
death,  must  be  continually  replaced  by,  at  the  very  least,  an 

*  Hence  the  Roman  Villicus,  as  overlooker  of  the  agricultural  slaves,  received 
"more  meagre  fare  than  working  slaves,  because  his  work  was  lighter."  (Th. 
Mommsen,  Rom.  Geschichte,  1856,  p.  810.) 

*  Compare  W.  H.  Thornton :  "Overpopulation  and  its  Remedy,"   Lond.,  1846. 
»  Petty. 


The  Buying  and  Selling  of  Labour-Power.         191 

equal  amount  of  fresh  labour-power.  Hence  the  sum  of  the 
means  of  subsistence  necessary  for  the  production  of  labour- 
power  must  include  the  means  necessary  for  the  labourer's 
substitutes,  i.e.,,  his  children,  in  order  that  this  race  of  peculiar 
commodity-owners  may  perpetuate  its  appearance  in  the 
market.^ 

In  order  to  modify  the  human  organism,  so  that  it  may  ac- 
quire skill  and  handiness  in  a  given  branch  of  industry,  and 
become  labour-power  of  a  special  kind,  a  special  education  or 
training  is  requisite,  and  this,  on  its  part,  costs  an  equivalent 
in  commodities  of  a  greater  or  less  amount.  This  amount 
varies  according  to  the  mpre  or  less  complicated  character  of 
the  labour-power.  The  expenses  of  this  education  (excessive- 
ly small  in  the  case  of  ordinary  labour-power),  enter  pro  tanto 
into  the  total  value  spent  in  its  production. 

The  value  of  labour-power  resolves  itself  into  the  value  of  a 
definite  quantity  of  the  means  of  subsistence.  It  therefore 
varies  with  the  value  of  these  means  or  with  the  quantity  of 
labour  requisite  for  their  production. 

Some  of  the  means  of  subsistence,  such  as  food  and  fuel,  are 
consumed  daily,  and  a  fresh  supply  must  be  provided  daily. 
Others  such  as  clothes  and  furniture  last  for  longer  periods 
and  require  to  be  replaced  only  at  longer  intervals.  One 
article  must  be  bought  or  paid  for  daily,  another  weekly, 
another  quarterly,  and  so  on.  But  in  whatever  way  the  sum 
total  of  these  outlays  may  be  spread  over  the  year,  they  must 
be  covered  by  the  average  income,  taking  one  day  with  an- 
other. If  the  total  of  the  commodities  required  daily  for  the 
production  of  labour-power = A,  and  those  required  weekly 
=B,  and  those  required  quarterly =C,  and  so  on,  the  daily 
average  of  these  commodities =^55A±5^±4c+&c_    suppose  that  in 

this  mass  of  commodities  requisite  for  the  average  day  there 
are  embodied  6  hours  of  social  labour,  then  there  is  incor- 

'  Its  (labour's  natural  price.  .  .  .  consists  in  such  a  quantity  of  necessaries 
and  comforts  of  life,  as,  from  the  nature  of  the  climate,  and  the  habits  of  the  coun- 
try, are  necessary  to  support  the  labourer,  and  to  enable  him  to  rear  such  a  family 
as  may  preserve,  in  the  market,  an  undiminished  stipply  of  labour."  (R.  Torrens: 
"An  Essay  on  the  external  Corn  Trade."     Lend.,  ISIO,  p.  63.)     The  word  labour  is 


192  Capitalist  Production. 

porated  daily  in  labour-power  half  a  day's  average  social 
labour,  in  other  words,  half  a  day's  labour  in  requisite  for  the 
daily  production  of  labour-power.  This  quantity  of  labour 
forms  the  value  of  a  day's  labour-power  or  the  value  of  the 
labour-power  daily  reproduced.  If  half  a  day's  average  social 
labour  is  incorporated  in  three  shillings,  then  three  shillings 
is  the  price  corresponding  to  the  value  of  a  day's  labour-power. 
If  its  owner  therefore  offers  it  for  sale  at  three  shillings  a 
day,  its  selling  price  is  equal  to  its  value,  and  according  to  our 
supposition,  our  friend  Moneybags,  who  is  intent  upon  con- 
verting his  three  shillings  into  capital,  pays  this  value. 

The  minimum  limit  of  the  value  of  labour-power  is  deter- 
mined by  the  value  of  the  commodities,  without  the  daily 
supply  of  which  the  labourer  cannot  renew  his  vital  energy, 
consequently  by  the  value  of  those  means  of  subsistence  that 
are  physically  indispensable.  If  the  price  of  labour-power 
fall  to  this  minimum,  it  falls  below  its  value,  since  under  such 
circumstances  it  can  be  maintained  and  developed  only  in  a 
crippled  state.  But  the  value  of  every  commodity  is  deter- 
mined by  the  labour-time  requisite  to  turn  it  out  so  as  to  be  of 
normal  quality. 

It  is  a  very  cheap  sort  of  sentimentality  which  declares  this 
method  of  determining  the  value  of  labour-power,  a  method 
prescribed  by  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  to  be  a  brutal 
method,  and  which  wails  with  Rossi  that,  "To  comprehend 
capacity  for  labour  (puissance  de  travail)  at  the  same  time 
that  we  make  abstraction  from  the  means  of  subsistence  of  the 
labourers  during  the  process  of  production,  is  to  comprehend  a 
phantom  (etre  de  raison).  When  we  speak  of  labour,  or 
capacity  for  labour,  we  speak  at  the  same  time  of  the  labourer 
and  his  means  of  subsistence,  of  labourer  and  wages."^  When 
we  speak  of  capacity  for  labour,  we  do  not  speak  of  labour,  any 
more  than  when  we  speak  of  capacity  for  digestion,  we  speak 
of  digestion.  The  latter  process  requires  something  more  than 
a  good  stomach.  When  we  speak  of  capacity  for  labour  we  do 
not  abstract  from  the  necessary  means  of  subsistence.  On  the 
contrary,  their  value  is  expressed  in  its  value.     If  his  capacity 

*  Rossi.     "Cours  d'Econ.     Polit:   "Bruxclles,  1842,  p.  370, 


The  Buying  and  Selling  of  Labour-Power.         193 

for  labour  remains  unsold,  the  labourer  derives  no  benefit  from 
it,  but  rather  he  will  feel  it  to  be  a  cruel  nature-imposed 
necessity  that  this  capacity  has  cost  for  its  production  a  de- 
finite amount  of  the  means  of  subsistence  and  that  it  will  con- 
tinue to  do  so  for  its  reproduction.  He  will  then  agree  with 
Sismondi :  "that  capacity  for  labour.  ...  is  nothing  unless  it 
is  sold."i 

One  consequence  of  the  peculiar  nature  of  labour-power  as 
a  commodity  is,  that  its  use-value  does  not,  on  the  conclusion 
of  this  contract  between  the  buyer  and  seller,  immediately  pass 
into  the  hands  of  the  former.  Its  value,  like  that  of  every 
other  commodity,  is  already  fixed  before  it  goes  into  circula- 
tion, since  a  definite  quantity  of  social  labour  has  been  spent 
upon  it ;  but  its  use-value  consists  in  the  subsequent  exercise  of 
its  force.  The  alienation  of  labour-power  and  its  actual  ap- 
propriation by  the  buyer,  its  employment  as  a  use-value,  are 
separated  by  an  interval  of  time.  But  in  those  cases  ift  which 
the  formal  alienation  by  sale  of  the  use-value  of  a  commodity, 
is  not  simultaneous  with  its  actual  delivery  to  the  buyer,  the 
money  of  the  latter  usually  functions  as  means  of  payment.^ 
In  every  country  in  which  the  capitalist  mode  of  production 
reigns,  it  is  the  custom  not  to  pay  for  labour-power  before  it 
has  been  exercised  for  the  period  fixed  by  the  contract,  as  for 
example,  the  end  of  each  week.  In  all  cases,  therefore,  the 
use-value  of  the  labour-power  is  advauced  to  the  capitalist :  the 
labourer  allows  the  buyer  to  consume  it  before  he  receives  pay- 
ment of  the  price ;  he  everywhere  gives  credit  to  the  capitalist. 
That  this  credit  is  no  mere  fiction,  is  shown  not  only  by  the 
occasional  loss  of  wages  on  the  bankruptcy  of  the  capitalist,^ 
but  also  by  a  series  of  more  enduring  consequences.*     Never- 

^  Sismondi:  "Nouv.  Princ.  etc.,"  t.   I.  p.  112. 

^  All  labour  is  paid  after  it  has  ceased."  ("An  inquiry  into  those  Principles  re- 
specting the  nature  of  Demand,"  &c.,  p.  104.)  "Le  credit  commercial  a  dii  com- 
mencer  au  moment  oil  I'ouvrier,  premier  artisan  de  la  production,  a  pu,  au  moyen  de 
ses  economies,  attendre  le  salaire  de  son  travail  jusqu,  a  la  fin  de  la  semaine,  de  la 
quinzaine,  du  mois,  du  trimestre,  &c.  (Ch.  Ganilh:  "Des  Systemes  de  I'Econ.  Polit." 
2eme.   edit.    Paris,    1821,   t.    I.   p.    150.) 

*"L'ouvrier  prete  son  Industrie,"  but  adds  Storch  slyly:  he  "risks  nothing" 
except  "de  perdre  son  salaire  ....  L'ouvrier  ne  transmet  rien  de  materiel." 
(Storch:   "Cours  d'Econ.  Polit.   Econ."     Petersbourg,  1815,  t.   II.,  p.  87.) 

*  One  example.     In  London  there  are  two  sorts  of  bakers,  the  "full  priced,"  who 

M 


194  Capitalist  Production. 

theless,  whether  money  serves  as  a  means  of  purchase  or  as  a 
means  of  payment,  this  makes  no  alteration  in  the  nature  of 
the  exchange  of  commodities.  The  price  of  the  labour-power 
is  fixed  by  the  contract,  although  it  is  not  realised  till  later, 
like  the  rent  of  a  house.  The  labour-power  is  sold,  although 
it  is  only  paid  for  at  a  later  period.  It  will,  therefore,  be 
useful,  for  a  clear  comprehension  of  the  relation  of  the  parties, 
to  assume  provisionally,  that  the  possessor  of  labour-power,  on 
the  occasion  of  each  sale,  immediately  receives  the  price 
stipulated  to  be  paid  for  it. 

We  now  know  how  the  value  paid  by  the  purchaser  to  the 

sell  bread  at  its  full  value,  and  the  "undersellers,"  who  sell  it  under  its  value.  The 
latter  class  comprises  more  than  three-fourths  of  the  total  number  of  bakers,  (p. 
xxxii  in  the  Report  of  H.  S.  Tremenheere,  commissioner  to  examine  into  "the  griev- 
ances complained  of  by  the  journeymen  bakers,"  &c.,  Lond.  1862.)  The  undersellers, 
almost  without  exception,  sell  bread  adulterated  with  alum,  soap,  pearl  ashes,  chalk, 
Derbyshire  stone-dust,  and  such  like  agreeable  nourishing  and  wholesome  ingredi- 
ents. (See  |he  above  cited  blue  book,  as  also  the  report  of  "the  committee  of 
1865  on  the  adulteration  of  bread,"  and  Dr.  Hassall's  "Adulterations  detected," 
2d  Ed.  Lond.  1862.)  Sir  John  Gordon  stated  before  the  committee  of  1855,  that  "in 
consequence  of  these  adulterations,  the  poor  man,  who  lives  on  two  pounds  of 
bread  a  day,  does  not  now  get  one  fourth  part  of  nourishing  matter,  let  alone  th« 
deleterious  effects  on  bis  health."  Tremenheere  states  (1.  c.  p.  xlviii),  as  the  rea- 
son, why  a  very  large  part  of  the  working  class,  although  well  aware  of  this  adul- 
teration, nevertheless  accept  the  alum,  stone-dust,  &c.,  as  part  of  their  purchase: 
that  it  is  for  them  "a.  matter  of  necessity  to  take  from  their  baker  or  from  the 
chandler's  shop,  such  bread  as  they  choose  to  supply."  As  they  are  not  paid  their 
wages  before  the  end  of  the  week,  they  in  their  turn  are  unable  "to  pay  for  the 
bread  consumed  by  their  families,  during  the  week,  before  the  end  of  the  week," 
and  Tremenheere  adds  on  the  evidence  of  witnesses,  "it  is  notorious  that  bread  com- 
posed of  those  mixtures,  is  made  expressly  for  sale  in  this  manner."  In  many 
English  and  still  more  Scotch  agricultural  districts,  wages  are  paid  fortnightly  and 
even  monthly;  with  such  long  intervals  between  the  payments,  the  agricultural  la- 
bourer is  obliged  to  buy  on  credit.  .  .  .  He  must  pay  higher  prices,  and  is  in 
fact  tied  to  the  shop  which  gives  him  credit.  Thus  at  Horningham  in  Wilts,  for  ex» 
ample,  where  the  wages  are  monthly,  the  same  flour  that  he  could  buy  elsewhere 
at  Is  lOd  per  stone,  costs  him  2s  4d  per  stone.  ("Sixth  Report"  on  "Public  Health" 
by  "The  Medical  Officer  of  the  Privy  Council,  &c.,  1864."  p.  264.)  "The  block 
printers  of  Paisley  and  Kilmarnock  enforced,  by  a  strike,  fortnightly,  instead  of 
monthly  payment  of  wages."  (Reports  of  the  Inspectors  of  Factories  for  31st 
Oct,  1853,"  p.  34.)  As  a  further  pretty  result  of  the  credit  given  by  the 
workmen  to  the  capiUlist,  we  may  refer  to  the  method  current  in  many  English 
coal  mines,  where  the  labourer  is  not  paid  till  the  end  of  the  month,  and  in 
the  meantime,  receives  sums  on  account  from  the  capitalist,  often  in  goods  for 
which  the^  miner  is  obliged  to  pay  more  than  the  market  price  (Truck-system). 
"It  is  a  common  practice  with  the  coal  masters  to  pay  once  a  month,  and  advance 
cash  to  their  workmen  at  the  end  of  each  intermediate  week.  The  cash  is  given 
in  the  shop"  (i.  *.,  the  Tommy  shop  which  belongs  to  the  master) ;  "the  men  take 
it   on    one  side    and   lay   it   out   on   the   other."     (Children's    Employment   Commis- 


The  Buying  and  Selling  of  Lahour-Power.        195 

possessor  of  this  peculiar  commodity,  labour-power,  is  de- 
termined. The  use-value  which  the  former  gets  in  exchange, 
manifests  itself  only  in  the  actual  usufruct,  in  the  consump- 
tion of  the  labour-power.  The  money  owner  buys  every- 
thing necessary  for  this  purpose,  such  as  raw  material,  in  the 
market,  and  pays  for  it  at  its  full  value.  The  consumption 
of  labour-power  is  at  one  and  the  same  time  the  production  of 
commodities  and  of  surplus  value.  The  consumption  of 
labour-power  is  completed,  as  in  the  case  of  every  other  com- 
modity, outside  the  limits  of  the  market  or  of  the  sphere  of 
circulation.  Accompanied  by  Mr.  Moneybags  and  by  the 
possessor  of  labour-power,  we  therefore  take  leave  for  a  time 
of  this  noisy  sphere,  where  everything  takes  place  on  the  sur- 
face and  in  view  of  all  men,  and  follow  them  both  into  the 
hidden  abode  of  production,  on  whose  threshold  there  stares 
us  in  the  face  "No  admittance  except  on  business."  Here  we 
shall  see,  not  only  how  capital  produces,  but  how  capital  is 
produced.  We  shall  at  last  force  the  secret  of  profit  making. 
This  sphere  that  we  are  deserting,  within  whose  boundaries 
the  sale  and  purchase  of  labour-power  goes,  is  in  fact  a  very 
Eden  of  the  innate  rights  of  man.  There  alone  rule  Freedom, 
Equality,  Property  and  Bentham.  Freedom,  because  both 
buyer  and  seller  of  a  commodity,  say  of  labour-power,  are 
constrained  only  by  their  own  free  will.  They  contract  as 
free  agents,  and  the  agreement  they  come  to,  is  but  the  form 
in  which  they  give  legal  expression  to  their  common  will. 
Equality,  because  each  enters  into  relation  with  the  other,  as 
with  a  simple  owner  of  commodities,  and  they  exchange 
equivalent  for  equivalent.  Property,  because  each  disposes 
only  of  what  is  his  own.  And  Bentham,  because  each  looks 
only  to  himself.  The  only  force  that  brings  them  together  and 
puts  them  in  relation  with  each  other,  is  the  selfishness,  the 
gain  and  the  private  interests  of  each.  Each  looks  to  himself 
only,  and  no  one  troubles  himself  about  the  rest,  and  just  be- 
cause they  do  so,  do  they  all,  in  accordance  with  the  pre- 
established  harmony  of  things,  or  under  the  auspices  of  an 
all-shrewd  providence,  work  together  to  their  mutual  advan- 
tage, for  the  common  weal  and  in  the  interest  of  all. 


196  Capitalist  Production. 

On  leaving  this  sphere  of  simple  circulation  or  of  exchange 
of  commodities,  which  furnishes  the  "Free-trader  Vulgaris" 
•with  his  views  and  ideas,  and  with  the  standard  by  which  he 
judges  a  society  based  on  capital  and  wages,  we  think  we  can 
perceive  a  change  in  the  physiognomy  of  our  dramatis  personae. 
He,  who  before  was  the  money  owner,  now  strides,  in  front  as 
capitalist ;  the  possessor  of  labour-power  follows  ^s  his  labourer. 
The  one  with  an  air  of  importance,  smirking,  intent  on  busi- 
ness ;  the  other,  timid  and  holding  back,  like  one  who  is  bring- 
ing his  own  hide  to  market  and  has  nothing  to  expect  but — 
a  hiding. 


PAET  III. 

THE  PEODUCTION  OF  ABSOLUTE  SURPLUS- 
VALUE. 


CHAPTEK  VII. 

THE    LABOUR-PROCESS    AND    THE    PROCESS   OF   PRODUCING 
SURPLUS-VALUE. 

SECTION     1. THE    LABOUB.-PEOCESS    OK    THE    PKODUCTION    OP 

USE^VALUES. 

The  capitalist  buys  labour-power  in  order  to  use  it;  and 
labour-power  in  use  is  labour  itself.  The  purchaser  of  labour- 
power  consumes  it  by  setting  the  seller  of  it  to  work.  By 
working,  the  latter  becomes  actually,  what  before  he  only  was 
potentially,  labour-power  in  action,  a  labourer.  In  order  that 
his  labour  may  reappear  in  a  commodity,  he  must,  before  all 
things,  expend  it  on  something  useful,  on  something  capable 
of  satisfying  a  want  of  some  sort.  Hence,  what  the  capitalist 
sets  the  labourer  to  produce,  is  a  particular  use-value,  a 
specified  article.  The  fact  that  the  production  of  use-values, 
or  goods,  is  carried  on  under  the  control  of  a  capitalist  and 
on  his  behalf,  does  not  alter  the  general  character  of  that 
production.  We  shall,  therefore,  in  the  first  place,  have  to 
consider  the  labour-process  independently  of  the  particular 
form  it  assumes  under  given  social  conditions. 

Labour  is,  in  the  first  place,  a  process  in  which  both  man 
and  IvTature  participate,  and  in  which  man  of  his  own  accord 
starts,  regulates,  and  controls  the  material  re-actions  between 
himself  and  Nature.     He  opposes  himself  to  Nature  as  one  of 

197 


198  Capitalist  Production. 

her  own  forces,  setting  in  motion  arms  and  legs,  head  and 
hands,  the  natural  forces  of  his  body,  in  order  to  appropriate 
Nature's  productions  in  a  form  adapted  to  his  own  wants.  By 
thus  acting  on  the  external  world  and  changing  it,  he  at  the 
same  time  changes  his  own  nature.  He  develops  his  slumber- 
ing powers  and  compels  them  to  act  in  obedience  to  his  sway. 
We  are  not  now  dealing  with  those  primitive  instinctive  forms 
of  labour  that  remind  us  of  the  mere  animal.  An  immeasur- 
able interval  of  time  separates  the  state  of  things  in  which  a 
man  brings  his  labour-power  to  market  for  sale  as  a  commodity, 
from  that  state  in  which  human  labour  was  still  in  its  first  in- 
stinctive stage.  We  presuppose  labour  in  a  form  that  stamps 
it  as  exclusively  human.  A  spider  conducts  operations  that 
resemble  those  of  a  weaver,  and  a  bee  puts  to  shame  many  an 
architect  in  the  construction  of  her  cells.  But  what  distin- 
guishes the  worst  architect  from  the  best  of  bees  is  this,  that 
the  architect  raises  his  structure  in  imagination  before  he  erects 
it  in  reality.  At  the  end  of  every  labour-process,  we  get  a  re- 
sult that  already  existed  in  the  imagination  of  the  labourer  at 
its  commencement.  He  not  only  effects  a  change  of  form  in 
the  material  on  which  he  works,  but  he  also  realises  a  purpose 
of  his  own  that  gives  the  law  to  his  modus  operandi,  and  to 
which  he  must  subordinate  his  will.  And  this  subordination 
is  no  mere  momentary  act.  Besides  the  exertion  of  the  bodily 
organs,  the  process  demands  that,  during  the  whole  operation, 
the  workman's  will  be  steadily  in  consonance  with  his  purpose. 
This  means  close  attention.  The  less  he  is  attracted  by  the 
nature  of  the  work,  and  the  mode  in  which  it  is  carried  on, 
and  the  less,  therefore,  he  enjoys  it  as  something  which  gives 
play  to  his  bodily  and  mental  powers,  the  more  close  his  at- 
tention is  forced  to  be. 

The  elementary  factors  of  the  labour-process  are  1,  the  per- 
sonal activity  of  man,  i.e.,  work  itself,  2,  the  subject  of  that 
work,  and  3,  its  instruments. 

The  soil  (and  this,  economically  speaking,  includes  water) 
in  the  virgin  state  in  which  it  supplies^  man  with  necessaries 

*  "The  earth's  spontaneous  productions  being   in   small  quantity,   and   quite   inde- 
pendent of  man,  appear,  as  it  were,  to  be  furnished  by  Nature,  in  the  same  way  t.s  a 


The  Labour  Process.  199 

or  tlie  means  of  subsistence  ready  to  hand,  exists  independently 
of  him,  and  is  the  universal  subject  of  human  labour.  All. 
those  things  which  labour  merely  separates  from  immediate 
connection  with  their  environment,  are  subjects  of  labour 
spontaneously  provided  by  Nature.  Such  are  fish  which  we 
catch  and  take  from  their  element,  water,  timber  which  we 
fell  in  the  virgin  forest,  and  ores  which  we  extract  from  their 
veins.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  subject  of  labour  has,  so  to 
say,  been  filtered  through  previous  labour,  we  call  it  raw 
material;  such  is  ore  already  extracted  and  ready  for  wash- 
ing. All  raw  material  is  the  subject  of  labour,  but  not  every 
subject  of  labour  is  raw  material ;  it  can  only  become  so,  after 
it  has  undergone  some  alteration  by  means  of  labour. 

An  instrument  of  labour  is  a  thing,  or  a  complex  of  things, 
which  the  labourer  interposes  between  himself  and  the  subject 
of  his  labour,  and  which  serves  as  the  conductor  of  his  activity. 
He  makes  use  of  the  mechanical,  physical,  and  chemical  pro- 
perties of  some  substances  in  order  to  make  other  substances 
subservient  to  his  aims.^  Leaving  out  of  consideration  such 
ready-made  means  of  subsistence  as  fruits,  in  gathering  which 
a  man's  own  limbs  serve  as  the  instruments  of  his  labour,  the 
first  thing  of  which  the  labourer  possesses  himself  is  not  the 
subject  of  labour  but  its  instrument.  Thus  ISTature  becomes 
one  of  the  organs  of  his  activity,  one  that  he  annexes  to  his 
own  bodily  organs,  adding  stature  to  himself  in  spite  of  the 
Bible.  As  the  earth  is  his  original  larder,  so  too  it  is  his 
original  tool  house.  It  supplies  him,  for  instance,  with  stones 
for  throwing,  grinding,  pressing,  cutting,  &c.  The  earth  itself 
is  an  instrument  of  labour,  but  when  used  as  such  in  agri- 
culture implies  a  whole  series  of  other  instruments  and  a  com- 
paratively  high    development    of   labour.^     ^o    sooner    does 

small  sum  is  given  to  a  young  man,  in  order  to  put  him  in  a  way  of  industry,  and 
of  making  his  fortune."  (James  Steuart:  "Principles  of  Polit.  Econ."  edit.  Dub- 
lin, 1770,   V.   I.  p.   116.) 

*  "Reason  is  just  as  cunning  as  she  is  powerful.  Her  cunning  consists  principally 
in  her  mediating  activity,  which,  by  causing  objects  to  act  and  re-act  on  each  other 
in  accordance  with  their  own  nature,  in  this  way,  without  any  direct  interference 
in  the  process,  carries  out  reason's  intentions."  (Hegel:  "Encyklopadie,  Erster 
Theil.    Die    Logik."     Berlin,    1840,    p.    382.) 

^  In  his  otherwise  miserable  work  ("Theorie  de  I'Econ.  Polit."  Paris,  1819), 
Ganilh   enumerates    in   a   striking   manner   in   opposition   to    the    "Physiocrats"    the 


200  Capitalist  Production. 

labour  undergo  the  least  development,  than  it  requires  specially 
prepared  instruments.  Thus  in  the  oldest  caves  we  find  stone 
implements  and  weapons.  In  the  earliest  period  of  human 
history  domesticated  animals,  i.e.,  animals  which  have  been 
bred  for  the  purpose,  and  have  undergone  modifications  by 
means  of  labour,  play  the  chief  part  as  instruments  of  labour 
along  with  specially  prepared  stones,  wood,  bones,  and  shells.^ 
The  use  and  fabrication  of  instruments  of  labour,  although 
existing  in  the  germ  among  certain  species  of  animals,  is 
specifically  characteristic  of  the  human  labour-process,  and 
Franklin  therefore  defines  man  as  a  tool-making  animal. 
Relics  of  by-gone  instruments  of  labour  possess  the  same  im- 
portance for  the  investigation  of  extinct  economical  forms  of 
society,  as  do  fossil  bones  for  the  determination  of  extinct 
species  of  animals.  It  is  not  the  articles  made,  but  how  they 
are  made,  and  by  what  instruments,  that  enables  us  to  dis- 
tinguish different  economical  epochs.^  Instruments  of  labour 
not  only  supply  a  standard  of  the  degree  of  development  to 
which  human  labour  has  attained,  but  they  are  also  indicators 
of  the  social  conditions  under  which  that  labour  is  carried  on. 
Among  the  instruments  of  labour,  those  of  a  mechanical  nature, 
■which,  taken  as  a  whole,  we  may  call  the  bone  and  muscles  of 
production,  oifer  much  more  decided  characteristics  of  a  given 
epoch  of  production,  than  those  which,  like  pipes,  tubs,  baskets, 
jars,  &c.,  serve  only  to  hold  the  materials  for  labour,  which 
latter  class,  we  may  in  a  general  way,  call  the  vascular  system 
of  production.  The  latter  first  begins  to  play  an  important 
part  in  the  chemical  industries. 

In  a  wider  sense  we  may  include  among  the  instruments  of 

long  scries  of  previous  processes  necessary  before  agriculture  properly  so  called 
can  commence. 

^  Turgot  in  his  "Reflexions  sur  la  Formation  et  la  Distribution  des  Richesses" 
(1766)  brings  well  into  prominence  the  importance  of  domesticated  animals  to 
early  civilisation. 

*  The  least  important  commodities  of  all  for  the  technological  comparison  of 
different  epochs  of  production  are  articles  of  luxury,  in  the  strict  meaning  of  the 
term.  However  little  our  written  histories  up  to  this  time  notice  the  development  of 
material  production,  which  is  the  basis  of  all  social  life,  and  therefore  of  all  real 
history,  yet  prehistoric  times  have  been  classified  in  accordance  with  the  results, 
not  of  so  called  historical,  but  of  materialistic  investigations.  These  periods  have 
been  divided,  to  correspond  with  the  materials  from  which  their  implements  and 
weapons  are  made,  viz.,  into  the  stone,  the  bronze,  and  the  iron  ages. 


The  Labour  Process.  201 

labour,  in  addition  to  those  things  that  are  used  for  directly 
transferring  labour  to  its  subject,  and  which  therefore,  in  one 
way  or  another,  serve  as  conductors  of  activity,  all  such  objects 
as  are  necessary  for  carrying  on  the  labour-process.  These  do 
not  enter  directly  into  the  process,  but  without  them  it  is  either 
impossible  for  it  to  take  place  at  all,  or  possible  only  to  a 
partial  extent.  Once  more  we  find  the  earth  to  be  a  universal 
instrument  of  this  sort,  for  it  furnishes  a  locus  standi  to  the 
labourer  and  a  field  of  employment  for  his  activity.  Among 
instruments  that  are  the  result  of  previous  labour  and  also 
belong  to  this  class,  we  find  workshops,  canals,  roads,  and  so 
forth. 

In  the  labour-process,  therefore,  man's  activity,  with  the  help 
of  the  instruments  of  labour,  effects  an  alteration,  designed 
from  the  commencement,  in  the  material  worked  upon.  The 
process  disappears  in  the  product;  the  latter  is  a  use-value. 
Nature's  material  adapted  by  a  change  of  form  to  the  wants  of 
man.  Labour  has  incorporated  itself  with  its  subject:  the  for- 
mer is  materialised,  the  latter  transformed.  That  which  in 
the  labourer  appeared  as  movement,  now  appears  in  the  prod- 
uct as  a  fixed  quality  without  motion.  The  blacksmith  forges 
and  the  product  is  a  forging. 

If  we  examine  the  whole  process  from  the  point  of  view  of 
its  result,  the  product,  it  is  plain  that  both  the  instruments  and 
the  subject  of  labour,  are  means  of  production,^  and  that  the 
labour  itself  is  productive  labour.^ 

Though  a  use-value,  in  the  form  of  a  product,  issues  from 
the  labour-process,  yet  other  use-values,  products  of  previous 
labour,  enter  into  it  as  means  of  production.  The  same  use- 
value  is  both  the  product  of  a  previous  process,  and  a  means  of 
production  in  a  later  process.  Products  are  therefore  not  only 
results,  but  also  essential  conditions  of  labour. 

With  the  exception  of  the  extractive  industries,  in  which 

^  It  appears  paradoxical  to  assert,  that  uncaught  fish,  for  instance,  are  a  means  of 
production  in  the  fishing  industry.  But  hitherto  no  one  has  discovered  the  art  of 
catching  fish  in  waters  that  contain  none. 

^  This  method  of  determining  from  the  standpoint  of  the  labour-process  alone, 
what  is  productive  labour,  is  by  no  means  directly  applicable  to  the  case  of  the 
capitalist  process  of  production. 


202  Capitalist  Production. 

the  material  for  labour  is  provided  immediately  by  nature, 
such  as  mining,  hunting,  fishing,  and  agriculture  (so  far  as  the 
latter  is  confined  to  breaking  up  virgin  soil),  all  branches  of 
industry  manipulate  raw  material,  objects  already  filtered 
through  labour,  already  products  of  labour.  Such  is  seed  in 
agriculture.  Animals  and  plants,  which  we  are  accustomed  to 
consider  as  products  of  nature,  are  in  their  present  form,  not 
only  products  of,  say  last  year's  labour,  but  the  result  of  a 
gradual  transformation,  continued  through  many  generations, 
under  man's  superintendence,  and  by  means  of  his  labour. 
But  in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  instruments  of  labour  show 
even  to  the  most  superficial  observer,  traces  of  the  labour  of 
past  ages. 

Raw  material  may  either  form  the  principal  substance  of  a 
product,  or  it  may  enter  into  its  formation  only  as  an  acces- 
sory. An  accessory  may  be  consumed  by  the  instruments  of 
labour,  as  coal  under  a  boiler,  oil  by  a  wheel,  hay  by  draft- 
horses,  or  it  may  be  mixed  with  the  raw  material  in  order  to 
produce  some  modification  thereof,  as  chlorine  into  unbleached 
linen,  coal  with  iron,  dye-stuff  with  wool,  or  again,  it  may  help 
to  carry  on  the  work  itself,  as  in  the  case  of  the  materials  used 
for  heating  and  lighting  workshops.  The  distinction  between 
principal  substance  and  accessory  vanishes  in  the  true  chemical 
industries,  because  there  none  of  the  raw  material  reappears,  in 
its  original  composition,  in  the  substance  of  the  product.^ 

Every  object  possesses  various  properties,  and  is  thus  capable 
of  being  applied  to  different  uses.  One  and  the  same  product 
may  therefore  serve  as  raw  material  in  very  different  processes. 
Corn,  for  example,  is  a  raw  material  for  millers,  starch-manu- 
facturers, distillers,  and  cattle-breeders.  It  also  enters  as  raw 
material  into  its  own  production  in  the  shape  of  seed :  coal,  too, 
is  at  the  same  time  the  product  of,  and  a  means  of  production 
in,  coal-mining. 

Again,  a  particular  product  may  be  used  in  one  and  the  same 
process,  both  as  an  instrument  of  labour  and  as  raw  material. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  fattening  of  cattle,  where  the  animal  is 

*  Storch  calls  true  raw  materials  "maticres,"  and  accessory  material  "materiaux:" 
Cherbuliez  describes  accessories  as  "matieres   instrumentales." 


The  Labour  Process.  203 

the  raw  material,  and  at  the  same  time  an  instrument  for  the 
production  of  manure. 

A  product,  though  ready  for  immediate  consumption,  may 
yet  serve  as  raw  material  for  a  further  product,  as  grapes  when 
they  become  the  raw  material  for  wine.  On  the  other  hand, 
labour  may  give  us  its  product  in  such  a  form,  that  we  can  use 
it  only  as  raw  material,  as  is  the  case  with  cotton,  thread,  and 
yarn.  Such  a  raw  material,  though  itself  a  product,  may  have 
to  go  through  a  whole  series  of  different  processes:  in  each  of 
these  in  turn,  it  serves,  with  constantly  varying  form,  as  raw 
material,  until  the  last  process  of  the  series  leaves  it  a  perfect 
product,  ready  for  individual  consumption,  or  for  use  as  an 
instrument  of  labour. 

Hence  we  see,  that  whether  a  use-value  is  to  be  regarded  as 
raw  material,  as  instrument  of  labour,  or  as  product,  this  is  de- 
termined entirely  by  its  function  in  the  labour  process,  by  the 
position  it  there  occupies :  as  this  varies,  so  does  its  character. 

Whenever  therefore  a  product  enters  as  a  means  of  produc- 
tion into  a  new  labour-process,  it  thereby  loses  its  character  of 
product,  and  becomes  a  mere  factor  in  the  process.  A  spinner 
treats  spindles  only  as  implements  for  spinning,  and  flax  only 
as  the  material  that  he  spins.  Of  course  it  is  impossible  to 
spin  without  material  and  spindles ;  and  therefore  the  existence 
of  these  things  as  products,  at  the  commencement  of  the  spin- 
ning operation,  must  be  presumed :  but  in  the  process  itself,  the 
fact  that  they  are  products  of  previous  labour,  is  a  matter  of 
utter  indifference;  just  as  in  the  digestive  process,  it  is  of  no 
importance  whatever,  that  bread  is  the  produce  of  the  previous 
labour  of  the  farmer,  the  miller,  and  the  baker.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  generally  by  their  imperfections  as  products,  that 
the  means  of  production  in  any  process  assert  themselves  in 
their  character  as  products.  A  blunt  knife  or  weak  thread 
forcibly  remind  us  of  Mr.  A.,  the  cutler,  or  Mr.  B.,  the  spinner. 
In  the  finished  product  the  labour  by  means  of  which  it  has 
acquired  its  useful  qualities  is  not  palpable,  has  apparently 
vanished. 

A  machine  which  does  not  serve  the  purposes  of  labour,  is 
useless.     In  addition_,  it  falls  a  prey  to  the  destructive  influence 


204  Capitalist  Production. 

of  natural  forces.  Iron  rusts  and  wood  rots.  Yarn  with  which 
we  neither  weave  nor  knit,  is  cotton  wasted.  Living  labour 
must  seize  upon  these  things  and  rouse  them  from  their  death- 
sleep,  change  them  from  mere  possible  use-values  into  real  and 
effective  ones.  Bathed  in  the  fire  of  labour,  appropriated  as 
part  and  parcel  of  labour's  organism,  and,  as  it  were,  made 
alive  for  the  performance  of  their  functions  in  the  process,  they 
are  in  truth  consumed,  but  consumed  with  a  purpose,  as  ele- 
mentary constituents  of  new  use-values,  o.f  new  products,  ever 
ready  as  means  of  subsistence  for  individual  consumption,  or 
as  means  of  production  for  some  new  labour-process. 

If  then,  on  the  one  hand,  finished  products  are  not  only 
results,  but  also  necessary  conditions,  of  the  labour-process,  on 
the  other  hand,  their  assumption  into  that  process,  their  con- 
tact with  living  labour,  is  the  sole  means  by  which  they  can  be 
made  to  retain  their  character  of  use-values,  and  be  utilised. 

Labour  uses  up  its  material  factors,  its  subject  and  its  in- 
struments, consumes  them,  and  is  therefore  a  process  of  con- 
sumption. Such  productive  consumption  is  distinguished 
from  individual  consumption  by  this,  that  the  latter  uses  up 
products,  as  means  of  subsistence  for  the  living  individual ;  the 
farmer,  as  means  whereby  alone,  labour,  the  labour-power  of 
the  living  individual,  is  enabled  to  act.  The  product,  there- 
fore, of  individual  consumption,  is  the  consumer  himself;  the 
result  of  productive  consumption,  is  a  product  distinct  from 
the  consumer. 

In  so  far  then,  as  its  instruments  and  subjects  are  themselves 
products,  labour  consumes  products  in  order  to  create  products, 
or  in  other  words,  consumes  one  set  of  products  by  turning 
them  into  means  of  production  for  another  set.  But,  just  as 
in  the  beginning,  the  only  participators  in  the  labour-process 
were  man  and  the  earth,  which  latter  exists  independently  of 
man,  so  even  now  we  still  employ  in  the  process  many  means 
of  production,  provided  directly  by  nature,  that  do  not  repre- 
sent any  combination  of  natural  substances  with  human  labour. 

The  labour  process,  resolved  as  above  into  its  simple  ele- 
mentary factors,  is  human  action  with  a  view  to  the  produc- 
tion of  use-values,  appropriation  of  natural  substances  to  hu- 


The  Labour  Process.  205 

man  requirements ;  it  is  the  necessary  condition  for  effecting 
exchange  of  matter  between  man  and  Nature;  it  is  the  ever- 
lasting nature-imposed  condition  of  human  existence,  and 
therefore  is  independent  of  every  social  phase  of  that  existence, 
or  rather,  is  common  to  every  such  phase.  It  was,  therefore, 
not  necessary  to  represent  our  labourer  in  connexion  with  other 
labourers ;  man  and  his  labour  one  one  side,  Nature  and  its 
materials  on  the  other,  sufficed.  As  the  taste  of  the  porridge 
does  not  tell  you  who  grew  the  oats,  no  more  does  this  simple 
process  tell  you  of  itself  what  are  the  social  conditions  under 
which  it  is  taking  place,  whether  under  the  slave-owner's  brutal 
lash,  or  the  anxious  eye  of  the  capitalist,  whether  Cincinnatus 
carries  it  on  in  tilling  his  modest  farm  or  a  savage  in  killing 
wild  animals  with  stones.^ 

Let  us  now  return  to  our  wo  aid-be  capitalist.  We  left  him 
just  after  he  had  purchased,  in  the  open  market,  all  the  neces- 
sary factors  of  the  labour-process;  its  objective  factors,  the 
means  of  production,  as  well  as  its  subjective  factor,  labour- 
power.  With  the  keen  eye  of  an  expert,  he  had  selected  the 
means  of  production  and  the  kind  of  labour-power  best  adapted 
to  his  particular  trade,  be  it  spinning,  bootmaking,  or  any  other 
kind.  He  then  proceeds  to  consume  the  commodity,  the  la- 
bour-power that  he  has  just  bought,  by  causing  the  labourer, 
the  impersonation  of  that  labour-power,  to  consume  the  means 
of  production  by  his  labour.  The  general  character  of  the 
labour-process  is  evidently  not  changed  by  the  fact,  that  the 
labourer  works  for  the  capitalist  instead  of  for  himself;  more- 
over, the  particular  methods  and  operations  employed  in  boot- 
making  or  spinning  are  not  immediately  changed  by  the  inter- 
vention of  the  capitalist.  He  must  begin  by  taking  the  labour- 
power  as  he  finds  it  in  the  market,  and  consequently  be  satis- 
fied with  labour  of  such  a  kind  as  would  be  found  in  the  period 
immediately  preceding  the  rise  of  the  capitalists.     Changes  in 

^By  a  wonderful  feat  of  logical  acumen,  Colonel  Torrens  has  discovered  in  this 
stone  of  the  savage  the  origin  of  capital.  "In  the  first  stone  which  he  [the 
savage]  flings  at  the  wild  animal  he  pursues,  in  the  stick  that  he  seizes  to  strike 
down  the  fruit  which  hangs  above  his  reach,  we  see  the  appropriation  of  one 
article  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  in  the  acquisition  of  another,  and  thus  discover  the 
origin  of  capital.  (R.  Torrens:  "An  Essay  on  the  Production  of  Wealth,"  &c., 
pp.    70-71.) 


2o6  Capitalist  Production. 

the  methods  of  production  by  the  subordination  of  labour  to 
capital,  can  take  place  only  at  a  later  period,  and  therefore  will 
have  to  be  treated  of  in  a  later  chapter. 

The  labour-process,  turned  into  the  process  by  which  the 
capitalist  consumes  labour-power,  exhibits  two  characteristic 
phenomena.  First,  the  labourer  works  under  the  control  of 
the  capitalist  to  whom  his  labour  belongs ;  the  capitalist  taking 
good  care  that  the  work  is  done  in  a  proper  manner,  and  that 
the  means  of  production  are  used  with  intelligence,  so  that 
there  is  no  unnecessary  waste  of  raw  material,  and  no  wear  and 
tear  of  the  implements  beyond  what  is  necessarily  caused  by 
the  work. 

Secondly,  the  product  is  the  properly  of  the  capitalist  and 
not  that  of  the  labourer,  its  immediate  producer.  Suppose 
that  a  capitalist  pays  for  a  day's  labour-power  at  its  value; 
then  the  right  to  use  that  power  for  a  day  belongs  to  him,  just 
as  much  as  the  right  to  use  any  other  commodity,  such  as  a 
horse  that  he  has  hired  for  the  day.  To  the  purchaser  of  a 
commodity  belongs  its  use,  and  the  seller  of  labour-power,  by 
giviug  his  labour,  does  no  more,  in  reality,  than  part  with  the 
use-value  that  he  has  sold.  From  the  instant  he  steps  into 
the  workshop,  the  use-value  of  his  labour-power,  and  therefore 
also  its  use,  which  is  labour,  belongs  to  the  capitalist.  By  the 
purchase  of  labour-power,  the  capitalist  incorporates  labour,  as 
a  living  ferment,  with  the  lifeless  constituents  of  the  product. 
From  his  point  of  view,  the  labour-process  is  nothing  more 
than  the  consumption  of  the  commodity  purchased,  i.e.,  of 
labour-power ;  but  this  consumption  cannot  be  effected  except 
by  supplying  the  labour-power  with  the  means  of  production. 
The  labour-process  is  a  process  between  things  that  the  capi- 
talist has  purchased,  things  that  have  become  his  property. 
The  product  of  this  process  also  belongs,  therefore,  to  him,  just 
as  much  as  does  the  wine  which  is  the  product  of  a  process  of 
fermentation  completed  in  his  cellar.^ 

*  "Products  are  appropriated  before  they  are  converted  into  capital;  this  conver- 
sion does  not  secure  them  from  such  appropriation."  (Cherbuliez:  "Riche  ou 
Pauvre,"  edit.  Paris,  1841,  pp.  63,  54.)  "The  Proletarian,  by  selling  his  labour  for 
a  definite  quantity  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  renounces  all  claim  to  a  share  in 
the    product.     The    mode    of    appropriation    of    the   products    remains    the    same    as 


The  Labour  Process.  207 


SECTION  2. THE   PRODUCTION   OF  SUEPLUS-VALUE. 

The  product  appropriated  by  the  capitalist  is  a  use-value,  as 
yarn,  for  example,  or  boots.  But,  although  boots  are,  in  one 
sense,  the  basis  of  all  social  progress,  and  our  capitalist  is  a 
decided  "progressist,"  yet  he  does  not  manufacture  boots  for 
their  own  sake.  Use-value  is,  by  no  means,  the  thing  "qu'on 
aime  pour  lui-meme"  in  the  production  of  commodities.  Use- 
values  are  only  produced  by  capitalists,  because,  and  in  so  far 
as,  they  are  the  material  substratum,  the  depositaries  of  ex- 
change-value. Our  capitalist  has  two  objects  in  view :  in  the 
first  place,  he  wants  to  produce  a  use-value  that  has  a  value 
in  exchange,  that  is  to  say,  an  article  destined  to  be  sold,  a 
commodity ;  and  secondly,  he  desires  to  produce  a  commodity 
whose  value  shall  be  greater  than  the  sum  of  the  values  of  the 
commodities  used  in  its  production,  that  is,  of  the  means  of 
production  and  the  labour-power,  that  he  purchased  with  his 
good  money  in  the  open  market.  His  aim  is  to  produce  not 
only  a  use-value,  but  a  commodity  also;  not  only  use-value, 
but  value;  not  only  value,  but  at  the  same  time  surplus- 
value. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  that  we  are  now  dealing  with  the 
production  of  commodities,  and  that,  up  to  this  point,  we  have 
only  considered  one  aspect  of  the  process.  Just  as  commodities 
are,  at  the  same  time,  use-values  and  values,  so  the  process  of 
producing  them  must  be  a  labour-process,  and  at  the  same 
time,  a  process  of  creating  value.  ^ 

before;  it  is  no  way  altered  by  the  bargain  we  have  mentioned.  The  product  be- 
longs exclusively  to  the  capitalist,  who  supplied  the  raw  material  and  the  neces- 
saries of  life;  and  this  is  a  rigorous  consequence  of  the  law  of  appropriation,  a  law 
whose  fundamental  principle  was  the  very  opposite,  namely,  that  every  labourer  has 
an  exclusive  right  to  the  ownership  of  what  he  produces."  (1.  c.  p.  58.)  "When 
the  labourers  receive  wages  for  their  labour  ....  the  capitalist  is  then  the 
owner  not  of  the  capital  only"  (he  means  the  means  of  production)  "but  of  the 
labour  also.  If  what  is  paid  as  wages  is  included,  as  it  commonly  is,  in  the 
term  capital,  it  is  absurd  to  talk  of  labour  separately  from  capital.  The  word 
capital  as  thus  employed  includes  labour  and  capital  both."  (James  Mill:  "Ele- 
ments of  Pol.   Econ.,"  &c.,  Ed.  1821,  pp.  70,  71.) 

1  As  has  been  stated  in  a  previous  note,  the  English  language  has  two  different 
expressions  for  these  two  different  aspects  of  labour;  in  the  Simple  Labour-process, 
the  process  of  producing  Use-Values,  it  is  Work;  in  the  process  of  creation  of 
Value,    it   is    Labour,    taking    the    term    in    its    strictly    economical    sense. — Ed. 


2o8  Capitalist  Production. 

Let  us  now  examine  production  as  a  creation  of  value. 

We  know  that  the  value  of  each  commodity  is  determined 
by  the  quantity  of  labour  expended  on  and  materialised  in  it, 
by  the  working-time  necessary,  under  given  social  conditions, 
for  its  production.  This  rule  also  holds  good  in  the  case  of 
the  product  that  accrued  to  our  capitalist,  as  the  result  of  the 
labour-process  carried  on  for  him.  Assuming  this  product  to 
be  10  lbs.  of  yarn,  our  first  step  is  to  calculate  the  quantity  of 
labour  realised  in  it. 

For  spinning  the  yarn,  raw  material  is  required ;  suppose  in 
this  case  10  lbs.  of  cotton.  We  have  no  need  at  present  to 
investigate  the  value  of  this  cotton,  for  our  capitalist  has,  we 
will  assume,  bought  it  at  its  full  value,  say  of  ten  shillings. 
In  this  price  the  labour  required  for  the  production  of  the 
cotton  is  already  expressed  in  terms  of  the  average  labour  of 
society.  We  will  further  assume  that  the  wear  and  tear  of  the 
spindle,  which,  for  our  present  purpose,  may  represent  all  other 
instruments  of  labour  employed,  amounts  to  the  value  of  2s. 
If,  then,  twenty-four  hours'  labour,  or  two  working  days,  are 
required  to  produce  the  quantity  of  gold  represented  by  twelve 
shillings,  we  have  here,  to  begin  with,  two  days'  labour  already 
incorporated  in  the  yarn. 

We  must  not  let  ourselves  be  misled  by  the  circumstance 
that  the  cotton  has  taken  a  new  shape  while  the  substance  of 
the  spindle  has  to  a  certain  extent  been  used  up.  By  the 
general  law  of  value,  if  the  value  of  40  lbs.  of  yarn=:the  value 
of  40  lbs.  of  cotton-|-the  value  of  a  whole  spindle,  i.e.,  if  the 
same  working  time  is  required  to  produce  the  commodities  on 
either  side  of  this  equation,  then  10  lbs.  of  yarn  are  an  equiva- 
lent for  10  lbs.  of  cotton,  together  with  one-fourth  of  a  spindle. 
In  the  case  we  are  considering  the  same  working  time  is  ma- 
terialised in  the  10  lbs.  of  yam  on  the  one  hand,  and  in  the  10 
lbs.  of  cotton  and  the  fraction  of  a  spindle  on  the  other. 
Therefore,  whether  value  appears  in  cotton,  in  a  spindle,  or 
in  yarn,  makes  no  difference  in  the  amount  of  that  value. 
The  spindle  and  cotton,  instead  of  resting  quietly  side  by  side, 
join  together  in  the  process,  their  forms  are  altered,  and  they 
are  turned  into  yarn ;  but  their  value  is  no  more  affected  by 


The  Labour  Process.  209 

this  fact  than  it  would  be  if  they  had  been  simply  exchanged 
for  their  equivalent  in  yarn. 

The  labour  required  for  the  production  of  the  cotton,  the 
raw  material  of  the  yarn,  is  part  of  the  labour  necessary  to 
produce  the  yarn,  and  is  therefore  contained  in  the  yarn.  The 
same  applies  to  the  labour  embodied  in  the  spindle,  without 
whose  wear  and  tear  the  cotton  could  not  be  spun. 

Hence,  in  determining  the  value  of  the  yarn,  or  the  labour- 
time  required  for  its  production,  all  the  special  processes  car- 
ried on  at  various  times  and  in  different  places,  which  were 
necessary,  first  to  produce  the  cotton  and  the  wasted  portion  of 
the  spindle,  and  then  with  the  cotton  and  spindle  to  spin  the 
yarn,  may  together  be  looked  on  as  different  and  successive 
phases  of  one  and  the  same  process.  The  whole  of  the  labour 
in  the  yarn  is  past  labour ;  and  it  is  a  matter  of  no  importance 
that  the  operations  necessary  for  the  production  of  its  con- 
stituent elements  were  carried  on  at  times  which,  referred  to 
the  present,  are  more  remote  than  the  final  operation  of  spin- 
ning. If  a  definite  quantity  of  labour,  say  thirty  days,  is 
requisite  to  build  a  house,  the  total  amount  of  labour  incor- 
porated in  it  is  not  altered  by  the  fact  that  the  work  of  the 
last  day  is  done  twenty-nine  days  later  than  that  of  the  first. 
Therefore  the  labour  contained  in  the  raw  material  and  the 
instruments  of  labour  can  be  treated  just  as  if  it  were  labour 
expended  in  an  earlier  stage  of  the  spinning  process,  before  the 
labour  of  actual  spinning  commenced. 

The  values  of  the  means  of  production,  i.e.,  the  cotton  and 
the  spindle,  which  values  are  expressed  in  the  price  of  twelve 
shillings,  are  therefore  constituent  parts  of  the  value  of  the 
yam,  or,  in  other  words,  of  the  value  of  the  product. 

Two  conditions  must  nevertheless  be  fulfilled.  First,  the 
cotton  and  spindle  must  concur  in  the  production  of  a  use- 
value  ;  they  must  in  the  present  case  become  yarn.  Value  is 
independent  of  the  particular  use-value  by  which  it  is  borne, 
but  it  must  be  embodied  in  a  use-value  of  some  kind.  Sec- 
ondly, the  time  occupied  in  the  labor  of  production  must  not 
exceed  the  time  really  necessary  under  the  given  social  con- 
ditions of  the  case.     Therefore,  if  no  more  than  1  lb.  of  cotton 


210  Capitalist  Production. 

be  requisite  to  spin  1  lb.  of  yarn,  care  must  be  taken  that  no 
more  than  this  weight  of  cotton  is  consumed  in  the  production 
of  1  lb.  of  yarn;  and  similarly  with  regard  to  the  spindle. 
Though  the  capitalist  have  a  hobby,  and  use  a  gold  instead  of  a 
steel  spindle,  yet  the  only  labour  that  counts  for  anything  in 
the  value  of  the  yam  is  that  which  would  be  required  to  pro- 
duce a  steel  spindle,  because  no  more  is  necessary  under  the 
given  social  conditions. 

We  now  know  what  portion  of  the  value  of  the  yam  is  owing 
to  the  cotton  and  the  spindle.  It  amounts  to  twelve  shillings 
or  the  value  of  two  days'  work.  The  next  point  for  our  con- 
sideration is,  what  portion  of  the  value  of  the  yarn  is  added 
to  the  cotton  by  the  labour  of  the  spinner. 

We  have  now  to  consider  this  labour  under  a  very  different 
aspect  from  that  which  it  had  during  the  labour-process ;  there, 
we  viewed  it  solely  as  that  particular  kind  of  human  activity 
which  changes  cotton  into  yam ;  there,  the  more  the  labour 
was  suited  to  the  work,  the  better  the  yarn,  other  circumstances 
remaining  the  same.  The  labour  of  the  spinner  was  then 
viewed  as  specifically  different  from  other  kinds  of  productive 
labour,  different  on  the  one  hand  in  its  special  aim,  viz.,  spin- 
ning, different,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  special  character  of  its 
operations,  in  the  special  nature  of  its  means  of  production  and 
in  the  special  use-value  of  its  product.  For  the  operation  of 
spinning,  cotton  and  spindles  are  a  necessity,  but  for  making 
rifled  cannon  they  would  be  of  no  use  whatever.  Here,  on  the 
contrary,  where  we  consider  the  labour  of  the  spinner  only  so 
far  as  it  is  value-creating,  i.e.,  a  source  of  value,  his  labour  dif- 
fers in  no  respect  from  the  labour  of  the  man  who  bores  cannon, 
or  (what  here  more  nearly  concerns  us),  from  the  labour  of  the 
cotton-planter  and  spindle-maker  incorporated  in  the  means  of 
production.  It  is  solely  by  reason  of  this  identity,  that  cotton . 
planting,  spindle  making  and  spinning,  are  capable  of  forming 
the  component  parts,  differing  only  quantitatively  from  each 
other,  of  one  whole,  namely,  the  value  of  the  yarn.  Here,  we 
have  iiothing  more  to  do  with  the  quality,  the  nature  and  the 
specific  character  of  the  labour,  but  merely  with  its  quantity. 
And  this  simply  requires  to  be  calculated.     We  proceed  upon 


The  Labour  Process.  211 

the  assumption  that  spinning  is  simple,  unskilled  labour,  the 
average-  labour  of  a  given  state  of  society.  Hereafter  we  shall 
see  that  the  contrary  assumption  would  make  no  difference. 

While  the  labourer  is  at  work,  his  labour  constantly  under- 
goes a  transformation :  from  being  motion,  it  becomes  an  object 
without  motion ;  from  being  the  labourer  working,  it  becomes 
the  thing  produced.  At  the  end  of  one  hour's  spinning,  that 
act  is  represented  by  a  definite  quantity  of  yam;  in  other 
words,  a  definite  quantity  of  labour,  namely  that  of  one  hour, 
has  become  embodied  in  the  cotton.  We  say  labour,  i.e.,  the 
expenditure  of  his  vital  force  by  the  spinner,  and  not  spinning 
labour,  because  the  special  work  of  spinning  counts  here,  only 
so  far  as  it  is  the  expenditure  of  labour-power  in  general,  and 
not  in  so  far  as  it  is  the  specific  work  of  the  spinner. 

In  the  process  we  are  now  considering  it  is  of  extreme  im- 
portance, that  no  more  time  be  consumed  in  the  work  of  trans- 
forming the  cotton  into  yarn  than  is  necessary  under  the  given 
social  conditions.  If  under  normal,  i.e.,  average  social  condi- 
tions of  production,  a  pounds  of  cotton  ought  to  be  made  into 
h  pounds  of  yam  by  one  hour's  labour,  then  a  day's  labour 
does  not  count  as  12  hours'  labour  unless  12  a  pounds  of  cotton 
have  been  made  into  12  6  pounds  of  yam ;  for  in  the  creation 
of  value,  the  time  that  is  socially  necessary  alone  counts. 

Not  only  the  labour,  but  also  the  raw  material  and  the  pro- 
duct now  appear  in  quite  a  new  light,  very  different  from  that 
in  which  we  viewed  them  in  the  labour-process  pure  and  sim- 
ple. The  raw  material  serves  now  merely  as  an  absorbent  of 
a  definite  quantity  of  labour.  By  this  absorption  it  is  in  fact 
changed  into  yarn,  because  it  is  spun,  because  labour-power 
in  the  form  of  spinning  is  added  to  it;  but  the  product,  the 
yarn,  is  now  nothing  more  than  a  measure  of  the  labour  ab- 
sorbed by  the  cotton.  If  in  one  hour  1§  lbs.  of  cotton  can  be 
spun  into  If  lbs.  of  yarn,  then  10  lbs.  of  yarn  indicate  the 
absorption  of  6  hours'  labour.  Definite  quantities  of  product, 
these  quantities  being  determined  by  experience,  now  represent 
nothing  but  definite  quantities  of  labour,  definite  masses  of 
crystallized  labour-time.     They   are  nothing  more  than  the 


212  Capitalist  Production. 

materialisation  of  so  many  hours  or  so  many  days  of  social 
labour. 

We  are  here  no  more  concerned  about  the  facts,  that  the 
labour  is  the  specific  work  of  spinning,  that  its  subject  is  cotton 
and  its  product  yarn,  than  we  are  about  the  fact  that  the  sub- 
ject itself  is  already  a  product  and  therefore  raw  material. 
If  the  spinner,  instead  of  spinning,  were  working  in  a  coal 
mine,  the  subject  of  his  labour,  the  coal^  would  be  supplied  by 
Nature;  nevertheless,  a  definite  quantity  of  extracted  coal,  a 
hundred  weight,  for  example,  would  represent  a  definite  quan- 
tity of  absorbed  labour. 

We  assumed,  on  the  occasion  of  its  sale,  that  the  value  of 
a  day's  labour-power  is  three  shillings,  and  that  six  hours'  la- 
bour are  incorporated  in  that  sum ;  and  consequently  that  this 
amount  of  labour  is  requisite  to  produce  the  necessaries  of  life 
daily  required  on  an  average  by  the  labourer.  If  now  our 
spinner  by  working  for  one  hour,  can  convert  1§  lbs.  of  cotton 
into  If  lbs.  of  yarn,^  it  follows  that  in  six  hours  he  will  convert 
10  lbs.  of  cotton  into  10  lbs.  of  yam.  Hence,  during  the  spin- 
ning process,  the  cotton  absorbs  six  hours'  labour.  The  same 
quantity  of  labour  is  also  embodied  in  a  piece  of  gold  of  the 
value  of  three  shillings.  Consequently  by  the  mere  labour  of 
spinning,  a  value  of  three  shillings  is  added  to  the  cotton. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  total  value  of  the  product,  the  10 
lbs.  of  yarn.  Two  and  a  half  days'  labour  have  been  embodied 
in  it,  of  which  two  days  were  contained  in  the  cotton  and  in 
the  substance  of  the  spindle  worn  away,  and  half  a  day  was 
absorbed  during  the  process  of  spinning.  This  two  and  a  half 
days'  labour  is  also  represented  by  a  piece  of  gold  of  the  value 
of  fifteen  shillings.  Hence,  fifteen  shillings  is  an  adequate 
price  for  the  10  lbs.  of  yarn,  or  the  price  of  one  pound  is  eight- 
een-pence. 

Our  capitalist  stares  in  astonishment.  The  value  of  the 
product  is  exactly  equal  to  the  value  of  the  capital  advanced. 
The  value  so  advanced  has  not  expanded,  no  surplus-value  has 
been  created,  and  consequently  money  has  not  been  converted 
into  capital.     The  price  of  the  yam  is  fifteen  shillings,  and 

*  These   figures   are   quite   arbitrary. 


The  Labour  Process.  213 

fifteen  shillings  were  spent  in  the  open  market  upon  the  con- 
stituent elements  of  the  product,  or,  what  amounts  to  the  same 
thing,  upon  the  factors  of  the  labour-process ;  ten  shillings  were 
paid  for  the  cotton,  two  shillings  for  the  substance  of  the  spin- 
dle worn  away,  and  three  shillings  for  the  labour-power.  The 
swollen  value  of  the  yam  is  of  no  avail,  for  it  is  merely  the 
sum  of  the  values  formerly  existing  in  the  cotton,  the  spindle, 
and  the  labour-power ;  out  of  such  a  simple  addition  of  existing 
values,  no  surplus-value  can  possibly  arise.  ^  These  separate 
values  are  now  all  concentrated  in  one  thing ;  but  so  they  were 
also  in  the  sum  of  fifteen  shillings,  before  it  was  split  up  into 
three  parts,  by  the  purchase  of  the  commodities. 

There  is  in  reality  nothing  very  strange  in  this  result.  The 
value  of  one  pound  of  yarn  being  eighteenpence,  if  our  capita- 
list buys  10  lbs.  of  yarn  in  the  market,  he  must  pay  fifteen 
shillings  for  them.  It  is  clear  that,  whether  a  man  buys  his 
house  ready  built,  or  gets  it  built  for  him,  in  neither  case  will 
the  mode  of  acquisition  increase  the  amount  of  money  laid  out 
on  the  house. 

Our  capitalist,  who  is  at  home  in  his  vulgar  economy,  ex- 
claims :  "Oh !  but  I  advanced  my  money  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  making  more  money."  The  way  to  Hell  is  paved  with 
good  intentions,  and  he  might  just  as  easily  have  intended  to 
make  money,  without  producing  at  all.^  He  threatens  all  sorts 
of  things.  He  won't  be  caught  napping  again.  In  future  he 
will  buy  the  commodities  in  the  market,  instead  of  manufac- 
turing them  himself.  But  if  all  his  brother  capitalists  were  to 
do  the  same,  where  would  he  find  his  commodities  in  the  mar- 
ket?    And  his  money  he  cannot  eat.     He  tries  persuasion. 

*  This  is  the  fundamental  proposition  on  which  is  based  the  doctrine  of  the 
Physiocrats  as  to  the  unproductiveness  of  all  labour  that  is  not  agriculture:  it  is 
irrefutable  for  the  orthodox  economist.  "Cette  fagon  d'imputer  a  une  seule  chose 
la  valeur  de  plusieurs  autres"  (par  exemple  au  Hn  la  consommation  du  tisserand), 
"d'appliquer,  pour  ainsi  dire,  couche  sur  couche,  plusieurs  valeurs  sur  une  seule, 
fait  que  celle-ci  grossit  d'autant  .  .  .  .  Le  terme  d'addition  peint  tres-bien  la 
maniere  dont  se  forme  le  prix  des  ouvrages  de  main-d'ceuvre;  ce  prix  n'est  qu'un 
total  de  plusieurs  valeurs  consommees  et  additionees  ensemble;  or,  additionner  n'est 
pas   multiplier."     ("Mercier   de   la   Riviere,"    1.   c,   p.   599.) 

*  Thus  from  1844-47  he  withdrew  part  of  his  capital  from  productive  employment, 
in  order  to  throw  it  away  in  railway  speculations;  and  so  also,  during  the  Ameri- 
can Civil  War,  he  closed  his  factory,  and  turned  his  work-people  into  the  streets, 
in  order  to  gamble  on  the  Liverpool  cotton  exchange. 


214  Capitalist  Production, 

"Consider  ray  abstinence;  I  might  have  played  ducks  and 
drakes  with  the  15  shillings;  but  instead  of  that  I  consumed 
it  productively,  and  made  yarn  with  it."  Very  well,  and  by 
way  of  reward  he  is  now  in  possession  of  good  yarn  instead 
of  a  bad  conscience;  and  as  for  playing  the  part  of  a  miser, 
it  would  never  do  for  him  to  relapse  into  such  bad  ways  as 
that;  we  have  seen  before  to  what  results  such  asceticism 
leads.  Besides,  where  nothing  is,  the  king  has  lost  his  rights : 
whatever  may  be  the  merit  of  his  abstinence,  there  is  nothing 
wherewith  specially  to  remunerate  it,  because  the  value  of  the 
product  is  merely  the  sum  of  the  values  of  the  commodities 
that  were  thrown  into  the  process  of  production.  Let  him 
therefore  console  himself  with  the  reflection  that  virtue  is  its 
own  reward.  But  no,  he  becomes  importunate.  He  says: 
"The  yam  is  of  no  use  to  me:  I  produced  it  for  sale."  In 
that  case  let  him  sell  it,  or,  still  better,  let  him  for  the  future 
produce  only  things  for  satisfying  his  personal  wants,  a  rem- 
edy that  his  physician  M'Culloch  has  already  prescribed  as 
infallible  against  an  epidemic  of  over-production.  He  now 
gets  obstinate.  "Can  the  labourer,"  he  asks,  "merely  with 
his  arms  and  l^s,  produce  commodities  out  of  nothing  ?  Did 
I  not  supply  him  with  the  materials,  by  means  of  which,  and 
in  which  alone,  his  labour  could  be  embodied?  And  as  the 
greater  part  of  society  consists  of  such  ne'er-do-weels,  have  I 
not  rendered  society  incalculable  service  by  my  instruments 
of  production,  my  cotton  and  my  spindle,  and  not  only  society, 
but  the  labourer  also,  whom  in  addition  I  have  provided  with 
the  necessaries  of  life  ?  And  am  I  to  be  allowed  nothing  in 
return  for  all  this  service  ?"  Well,  but  has  not  the  labourer 
rendered  him  the  equivalent  service  of  changing  his  cotton 
and  spindle  into  yarn  ?  Moreover,  there  is  here  no  question  of 
service.^     A  service  is  nothing  more  than  the  useful  effect  of 

*  Extol  thyself,  put  on  finery  and  adorn  thyself  .  .  .  but  whoever  takes  more 
or  better  than  he  gives,  that  is  usury,  and  is  not  service,  but  wrong  done  to  his 
neighbour,  as  when  one  steals  and  robs.  All  is  not  service  and  benefit  to  a  neigh- 
bour that  is  called  service  and  benefit.  For  an  adulteress  and  adulterer  do  one 
another  great  service  and  pleasure.  A  horseman  does  an  incendiary  a  great  serv- 
ice, by  helping  him  to  rob  on  the  highway,  and  pillage  land  and  houses.  The 
papists  do  ours  a  g^eat  service  in  that  they  don't  drown,  burn,  murder  all  of 
them,   or   let  them   all  rot  in  prison;  but  let  some  live,   and  only  drive  them  out. 


The  Labour  Process.  215 

a  use-value,  be  it  of  a  commodity,  or  be  it  of  labour.^  But 
here  we  are  dealing  with  exchange-value.  The  capitalist  paid 
to  the  labourer  a  value  of  3  shillings,  and  the  labourer  gave 
him  back  an  exact  equivalent  in  the  value  of  3  shillings,  added 
by  him  to  the  cotton:  he  gave  him  value  for  value.  Our 
friend,  up  to  this  time  so  purse-proud,  suddenly  assumes  the 
modest  demeanour  of  his  own  workman,  and  exclaims :  "Have 
I  myself  not  worked  ?  Have  I  not  performed  the  labour  of 
superintendence  and  of  overlooking  the  spinner?  And  does 
not  this  labour,  too,  create  value  ?"  His  overlooker  and  his 
manager  try  to  hide  their  smiles.  Meanwhile,  after  a  hearty 
laugh,  he  re-assumes  his  usual  mien.  Though  he  chanted  to 
us  the  whole  creed  of  the  economists,  in  reality,  he  says,  he 
would  not  give  a  brass  farthing  for  it.  He  leaves  this  and  all 
such  like  subterfuges  and  juggling  tricks  to  the  professors  of 
political  economy,  who  are  paid  for  it.  He  himself  is  a  prac- 
tical man ;  and  though  he  does  not  always  consider  what  he 
says  outside  his  business,  yet  in  his  business  he  knows  what 
he  is  about. 

Let  us  examine  the  matter  more  closely.  The  value  of  a 
day's  labour-power  amounts  to  3  shillings,  because  on  our  as- 
sumption half  a  day's  labour  is  embodied  in  that  quantity  of 
labour-power,  i.e.,  because  the  means  of  subsistence  that  are 
daily  required  for  the  production  of  labour-power^  cost  half  a 
day's  labour.  But  the  past  labour  that  is  embodied  in  the 
labour-power,  and  the  living  labour  that  it  can  call  into  action ; 
the  daily  cost  of  maintaining  it,  and  its  daily  expenditure  in 
work,  are  two  totally  different  things.  The  former  determines 
the  exchange-value  of  the  labour-power,  the  latter  is  its  use- 
value.  The  fact  that  half  a  day's  labour  is  necessary  to  keep 
the  labourer  alive  during  24  hours,  does  not  in  any  way  pre- 
vent him  from  working  a  whole  day.  Therefore,  the  value  of 
labour-power,  and  the  value  which  that  labour-power  creates 

or  take  from  them  what  they  have.  The  devil  himself  does  his  servants  inestimable 
service  ...  To  sum  up,  the  world  is  full  of  great,  excellent,  and  daily  service 
and  benefit."  (Martin  Luther:  "An  die  Pfarherrn,  wider  den  Wucher  zu 
piedigen,"    Wittenberg,    1540.) 

'In  "Critique  of  Pol.  Ec,"  p.  34,  I  make  the  following  remark  on  this  point — "It 
is  not  difficult  to  understand  what  'service'  the  category  'service'  must  render  to  a 
class  of  economists  like  J.    B.   Say  and   F.    Bastiat." 


2i6  Capitalist  Production. 

in  the  labour  process,  are  two  entirely  different  magnitudes; 
and  this  difference  of  the  two  values  was  what  the  capitalist 
had  in  view,  when  he  was  purchasing  the  labour-power.  The 
useful  qualities  that  labour-power  possesses,  and  by  virtue  of 
which  it  makes  yarn  or  boots,  were  to  him  nothing  more  than 
a  conditio  sine  qua  non;  for  in  order  to  create  value,  labour 
must  be  expended  in  a  useful  manner.  What  really  influenced 
him  was  the  specific  use-value  which  this  commodity  possesses 
of  being  a  source  not  only  of  value,  bui  of  more  value  than  it 
has  it^lf.  This  is  the  special  service  that  the  capitalist  ex- 
pects from  labour-power,  and  in  this  transaction  he  acts  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  "eternal  laws"  of  the  exchange  of  commodi- 
ties. The  seller  of  labour-power,  like  the  seller  of  any  other 
commodity,  realises  its  exchange-value,  and  parts  with  its  use- 
value.  *  He  cannot  take  the  one  without  giving  the  other.  The 
use-value  of  labour-power,  or  in  other  words,  labour,  belongs 
just  as  little  to  its  seller,  as  the  use-value  of  oil  after  it  has 
been  sold  belongs  to  the  dealer  who  has  sold  it.  The  owner 
of  the  money  has  paid  the  value  of  a  day's  labour-power ;  his, 
therefore,  is  the  use  of  it  for  a  day ;  a  day's  labour  belongs  to 
him.  The  circumstance,  that  on  the  one  hand  the  daily  sus- 
tenance of  labour-power  costs  only  half  a  day's  labour,  while 
on  the  other  hand  the  very  same  labour-power  can  work  during 
a  whole  day,  that  consequently  the  value  which  its  use  during 
one  day  creates,  is  double  what  he  pays  for  that  use,  this  cir- 
cumstance is,  without  doubt,  a  piece  of  good  luck  for  the 
buyer,  but  by  no  means  an  injury  to  the  seller. 

Our  capitalist  foresaw  this  state  of  things,  and  that  was  the 
cause  of  his  laughter.  The  labourer  therefore  finds,  in  the 
workshop,  the  means  of  production  necessary  for  working,  not 
only  during  six,  but  during  twelve  hours.  Just  as  during  the 
six  hours'  process  our  10  lbs.  of  cotton  absorbed  six  hours' 
labour,  and  became  10  lbs.  of  yam,  so  now,  20  lbs.  of  cotton 
will  absorb  12  hours'  labour  and  be  changed  into  20  lbs.  of 
yam.  Let  us  now  examine  the  product  of  this  prolonged 
process.  There  is  now  materialised  in  this  20  lbs.  of  yarn  the 
labour  of  five  days,  of  which  four  days  are  due  to  the  cotton 
and  the  lost  steel  of  the  spindle,  the  remaining  day  having 


The  Labour  Process.  217 

been  absorbed  by  tbe  cotton  during  the  spinning  process.  Ex- 
pressed in  gold,  the  labour  of  five  days  is  thirty  shillings. 
This  is  therefore  the  price  of  the  20  lbs.  of  yarn,  giving,  as 
before,  eighteenpence  as  the  price  of  a  pound.  But  the  sum 
of  the  values  of  the  commodities  that  entered  into  the  process 
amounts  to  27  shillings.  The  value  of  the  yarn  is  30  shillings. 
Therefore  the  value  of  the  product  is  |-  greater  than  the  value 
advanced  for  its  production ;  27  shillings  have  been  trans- 
formed into  30  shillings;  a  surplus-value  of  3  shillings  has 
been  created.  The  trick  has  at  last  succeeded;  money  has 
been  converted  into  capital. 

Every  condition  of  the  problem  is  satisfied,  while  the  laws 
that  regulate  the  exchange  of  commodities,  have  been  in  no 
way  violated.  Equivalent  has  been  exchanged  for  equivalent. 
For  the  capitalist  as  buyer  paid  for  each  commodity,  for  the 
cotton,  the  spindle  and  the  labour-power,  its  full  value.  He 
then  did  what  is  done  by  every  purchaser  of  commodities ;  he 
consumed  their  use-value.  The  consumption  of  the  labour- 
power,  which  was  also  the  process  of  producing  commodities, 
resulted  in  20  lbs.  of  yarn,  having  a  value  of  30  shillings. 
The  capitalist,  formerly  a  buyer,  now  returns  to  market  as  a 
seller,  of  commodities.  He  sells  his  yarn  at  eighteenpence  a 
pound,  which  is  its  exact  value.  Yet  for  all  that  he  with- 
draws 3  shillings  more  from  circulation  than  he  originally 
threw  into  it.  This  metamorphosis,  this  conversion  of  money 
into  capital,  takes  place  both  within  the  sphere  of  circulation 
and  also  outside  it;  within  the  circulation,  because  conditioned 
by  the  purchase  of  the  labour-power  in  the  market :  outside  the 
circulation,  because  what  is  done  within  it  is  only  a  stepping- 
stone  to  the  production  of  surplus-value,  a  process  which  is 
entirely  confined  to  the  sphere  of  production.  Thus  "tout  est 
pour  le  mieux  dans  le  meilleur  des  mondes  possibles." 

By  turning  his  money  into  commodities  that  serve  as  the 
material  elements  of  a  new  product,  and  as  factors  in  the  la- 
bour-process, by  incorporating  living  labour  with  their  dead 
substance,  the  capitalist  at  the  same  time  converts  value,  i.e., 
past,  materialised,  and  dead  labour  into  capital,  into  value  big 
with  value,  a  live  monster  that  is  fruitful  and  multiplies. 


2i8  Capitalist  Production. 

If  we  now  compare  the  two  processes  of  producing  value  and 
of  creating  surplus-value,  we  see  that  the  latter  is  nothing  but 
the  continuation  of  the  former  beyond  a  definite  point.  If  on 
the  one  hand  the  process  be  not  carried  beyond  the  point, 
where  the  value  paid  by  the  capitalist  for  the  labour-power  is 
replaced  by  an  exact  equivalent,  it  is  simply  a  process  of  pro- 
ducing value;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  it  be  continued  beyond 
that  point,  it  becomes  a  process  of  creating  surplus-value. 

If  we  proceed  further,  and  compare  the  process  of  producing 
value  with  the  labour-process,  pure  and  simple,  we  find  that 
the  latter  consists  of  the  useful  labour,  the  work,  that  produces 
use-values.  Here  we  contemplate  the  labour  as  producing  a 
particular  article ;  we  view  it  under  its  qualitative  aspect  alone, 
with  regard  to  its  end  and  aim.  But  viewed  as  a  value-creat- 
ing process,  the  same  labour-process  presents  itself  under  its 
quantitative  aspect  alone.  Here  it  is  a  question  merely  of  the 
time  occupied  by  the  labourer  in  doing  the  work ;  of  the  period 
during  which  the  labour-power  is  usefully  expended.  Here, 
the  commodities  that  take  part  in  the  process,  do  not  count 
any  longer  as  necessary  adjuncts  of  labour-power  in  the  pro- 
duction of  a  definite,  useful  object.  They  count  merely  as 
depositaries  of  so  much  absorbed  or  materialised  labour;  that 
labour,  whether  previously  embodied  in  the  means  of  produc- 
tion, or  incorporated  in  them  for  the  first  time  during  the 
process  by  the  action  of  labour-power,  counts  in  either  case 
only  according  to  its  duration ;  it  amounts  to  so  many  hours  or 
days  as  the  case  may  be. 

Moreover,  only  so  much  of  the  time  spent  in  the  production 
of  any  article  is  counted,  as,  under  the  given  social  conditions, 
is  necessary.  The  consequences  of  this  are  various.  In  the 
first  place,  it  becomes  necessary  that  the  labour  should  be 
carried  on  under  normal  conditions.  If  a  self-acting  mule  is 
the  implement  in  general  use  for  spinning,  it  would  be  absurd 
to  supply  the  spinner  with  a  distaff  and  spinning  wheel.  The 
cotton  too  must  not  be  such  rubbish  as  to  cause  extra  waste  in 
being  worked,  but  must  be  of  suitable  quality.  Otherwise  the 
spinner  would  be  found  to  spend  more  time  in  producing  a 
pound  of  yam  than  is  socially  necessary,  in  which  case  the 


The  Labour  Process.  219 

excess  of  time  would  create  neither  value  nor  money.  But 
whether  the  material  factors  of  the  process  are  of  normal 
quality  or  not,  depends  not  upon  the  labourer,  but  entirely 
upon  the  capitalist.  Then  again,  the  labour-power  itself  must 
be  of  average  efficacy.  In  the  trade  in  which  it  is  being  em- 
ployed, it  must  possess  the  average  skill,  handiness  and  quick- 
ness prevalent  in  that  trade,  and  our  capitalist  took  good  care 
to  buy  labour-power  of  such  normal  goodness.  This  power 
must  be  applied  with  the  average  amount  of  exertion  and  with 
the  usual  degree  of  intensity;  and  the  capitalist  is  as  careful 
to  see  that  this  is  done,  as  that  his  workmen  are  not  idle  for  a 
single  moment.  He  has  bought  the  use  of  the  labour-power 
for  a  definite  period,  and  he  insists  upon  his  rights.  He  has 
no  intention  of  being  robbed.  Lastly,  and  for  this  purpose  our 
friend  has  a  penal  code  of  his  own,  all  wasteful  consumption  of 
raw  material  or  instruments  of  labour  is  strictly  forbidden,  be- 
cause what  is  so  wasted,  represents  labour  superfluously  ex- 
pended, labour  that  does  not  count  in  the  product  or  enter  into 
its  value.  ^ 

We  now  see,  that  the  difference  between  labour,  considered 
on  the  one  hand  as  producing  utilities,  and  on  the  other  hand, 

*  This  is  one  of  the  circumstances  that  makes  production  by  slave  labour  such 
a  costly  process.  The  labourer  here  is,  to  use  a  striking  expression  of  the  ancients, 
distinguishable  only  as  instrumentum  vocale,  from  an  animal  as  instrumentum 
semi-vocale,  and  from  an  implement  as  instrumentum  mutum.  But  he  himself 
takes  care  to  let  both  beast  and  implement  feel  that  he  is  none  of  them,  but  is  a 
man.  He  convinces  himself  with  immense  satisfaction,  that  he  is  a  different  being, 
by  treating  the  one  unmercifully  and  damaging  the  other  con  amore.  Hence  the 
principle,  universally  applied  in  this  method  of  production,  only  to  employ  the  rudest 
and  heaviest  implements  and  such  as  are  difficult  to  damage  owing  to  their  sheer 
clumsiness.  In  the  slave-states  bordering  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  down  to  the  date 
of  the  civil  war,  ploughs  constructed  on  old  Chinese  models,  which  turned  up  the 
soil  like  a  hog  or  a  mole,  instead  of  making  furrows,  were  alone  to  be  found.  Conf. 
J.  C.  Cairns.  "The  Slave  Power,"  London,  1862,  p.  46-49.  In  his  "Sea  Board 
Slave  States,"  Olmsted  tells  us:  "I  am  here  shown  tools  that  no  man  in  his  senses, 
with  us,  would  allow  a  labourer,  for  whom  he  was  paying  wages,  to  be  incumbered 
with;  and  the  excessive  weight  and  clumsiness  of  which,  I  would  judge,  would  make 
work  at  least  ten  per  cent  greater  than  with  those  ordinarily  used  with  us.  And  I 
am  assured  that,  in  the  careless  and  clumsy  way  they  must  be  used  by  the  slaves, 
anything  lighter  or  less  rude  could  not  be  furnished  them  with  good  economy,  and 
that  such  tools  as  we  constantly  give  our  labourers  and  find  our  profit  in  giving 
them,  would  not  last  out  a  day  in  a  Virginia  cornfield — much  lighter  and  more 
free  from  stones  though  it  be  than  ours.  So,  too,  when  I  ask  why  mules  are  so 
universally  substituted  for  horses  on  the  farm,  the  first  reason  given,  and  confessedly 
the  most  conclusive  one,  is  that  horses  cannot  bear  the  treatment  that  they  always 
must  get  from  the  negroes;   horses  are  always  soon   foundered  or  crippled  by  them, 


220  Capitalist  Production. 

as  creating  value,  a  difference  which  we  discovered  by  our 
analysis  of  a  commodity,  resolves  itself  into  a  distinction  be- 
tween two  aspects  of  the  process  of  production. 

The  process  of  production,  considered  on  the  one  hand  as 
the  unity  of  the  labour-process  and  the  process  of  creating 
value,  is  production  of  commodities;  considered  on  the  other 
hand  as  the  unity  of  the  labour-process  and  the  process  of  pro- 
ducing surplus-value,  it  is  the  capitalist  process  of  production, 
or  capitalist  production  of  commodities. 

We  stated,  on  a  previous  page,  that  in  the  creation  of 
surplus-value  it  does  not  in  the  least  matter,  whether  the  labour 
appropriated  by  the  capitalist  be  simple  unskilled  labour  of 
average  quality  or  more  complicated  skilled  labour.  '  All 
labour  of  a  higher  or  more  complicated  character  than  average 
labour  is  expenditure  of  labour-power  of  a  more  costly  kind, 
labour-power  whose  production  has  cost  more  time  and  labour, 
and  which  therefore  has  a  higher  value,  than  unskilled  or 
simple  labour-power.  This  power  being  of  higher  value,  its 
consumption  is  labour  of  a  higher  class,  labour  that  creates  in 
equal  times  proportionally  higher  values  than  unskilled  labour 
does.  Whatever  difference  in  skill  there  may  be  between  the 
labour  of  a  spinner  and  that  of  a  jeweller,  the  portion  of  his 
labour  by  which  the  jeweller  merely  replaces  the  value  of  his 
own  labour-power,  does  not  in  any  way  differ  in  quality  from 
the  additional  portion  by  which  he  creates  surplus-value.  In 
the  making  of  jewellery,  just  as  in  spinning,  the  surplus-value 
results  only  from  a  quantitative  excess  of  labour,  from  a 
lengthening-out  of  one  and  the  same  labour-process,  in  the  one 
case,  of  the  process  of  making  jewels,  in  the  other  of  the  pro- 
cess of  making  yarn.^ 

while  mules  will  bear  cudgelling,  or  lose  a  meal  or  two  now  and  then,  and  not  be 
materially  injured,  and  they  do  not  take  cold  or  get  sick,  if  neglected  or  over- 
worked. But  I  do  not  need  to  go  further  than  the  window  of  the  room  in  which  I 
am  writing,  to  see  at  almost  any  time,  treatment  of  cattle  that  would  ensure  the  im- 
mediate discharge  of  the  driver  by  almost  any  farmer  owning  them  in  the  North." 

*  The  distinction  between  skilled  and  unskilled  labour  rests  in  part  on  pure  illu- 
sion, or,  to  say  the  least,  on  distinctions  that  have  long  since  ceased  to  be  real,  and 
that  survive  only  by  virtue  of  a  traditional  convention;  in  part  on  the  helpless  con- 
dition of  some  groups  of  the  working-class,  a  condition  that  prevents  them  from 
exacting  equally  with  the  rest  the  value  of  their  labour-power.  Accidental  cir- 
cumstances  here   play   so   great  a   part,    that   these   two    forms   of   labour   sometimes 


Constant  Capital  and  Variable  Capital.  221 

But  on  the  other  hand,  in  every  process  of  creating  value, 
the  reduction  of  skilled  labour  to  average  social  labour,  e.g., 
one  day  of  skilled  to  six  days  of  unskilled  labour,  is  un- 
avoidable.^ We  therefore  save  ourselves  a  superfluous  oper- 
ation, and  simplify  our  analysis,  by  the  assumption,  that  the 
labour  of  the  workman  employed  by  the  capitalist  is  unskilled 
average  labour. 


CHAPTEE  VIII. 

CONSTAJVTT  CAPITAL  AND  VARIABLE  CAPITAI.. 

The  various  factors  of  the  labour-process  play  different  parts 
in  forming  the  value  of  the  product. 

The  labourer  adds  fresh  value  to  the  subject  of  his  labour 
by  expending  upon  it  a  given  amount  of  additional  labour,  no 
matter  what  the  specific  character  and  utility  of  that  labour 
may  be.  On  the  other  hand,  the  values  of  the  means  of  pro- 
duction used  up  in  the  process  are  preserved,  and  present 

change  places.  Where,  for  instance,  the  physique  of  the  working-class  has  deterio- 
rated, and  is,  relatively  speaking,  exhausted,  which  is  the  case  in  all  countries  with  a 
well  developed  capitalist  production,  the  lower  forms  of  labour  which  demand  great 
expenditure  of  muscle,  are  -in  general  considered  as  skilled,  compared  with  much 
more  delicate  forms  of  labour;  the  latter  sink  down  to  the  level  of  unskilled  labour. 
Take  as  an  example  the  labour  of  a  bricklayer,  which  in  England  occupies  a  much 
higher  level  than  that  of  a  damask-weaver.  Again,  although  the  labour  of  a  fustian 
cutter  demands  great  bodily  exertion,  and  is  at  the  same  time  unhealthy,  yet  it 
counts  only  as  unskilled  labour.  And  then,  we  must  not  forget,  that  the  so-called 
skilled  labour  does  not  occupy  a  large  space  in  the  field  of  national  labour.  Laing 
estimates  that  in  England  (and  Wales)  the  livelihood  of  11,300,000  people  depends 
on  unskilled  labour.  If  from  the  total  population  of  18,000,000  living  at  the  time 
when  he  wrote,  we  deduct  1,000,000  for  the  "genteel  population,"  and  1,500,000 
for  paupers,  vagrants,  criminals,  prostitutes,  &c.,  and  4,650,000  who  compose  the 
middle-class,  there  remain  the  above  mentioned  11,000,000.  But  in  his  middle-class 
he  includes  people  that  live  on  the  interest  of  small  investments,  officials,  men  of 
letters,  artists,  schoolmasters  and  the  like,  and  in  order  to  swell  the  number  he  also 
includes  in  these  4,650,000  the  better  paid  portion  of  the  factory  operatives!  The 
bricklayers,  too,  figure  amongst  them.  (S.  Laing:  "National  Distress,"  &c.,  London, 
1844.)  "The  great  class  who  have  nothing  to  give  for  food  but  ordinary  labour,  are 
the  great  bulk  of  the  people."  (James  Mill,  in  art:  "Colony,"  Supplement  to  the 
Encyclop.    Brit.,   1831.) 

*  "Where  reference  is  made  to  labour  as  a  measure  of  value,  it  necessarily  implies 
labour  of  one  particular  kind  .  .  .  the  proportion  which  the  other  kinds  bear  to  it 
being  easily  ascertained."     ("Outlines  of  Pol.   Econ.,"   Lond.,  1832,  pp.   22  and  23.) 


222  Capitalist  Production. 

themselves  afresh  as  constituent  parts  of  the  value  of  the  pro- 
duct ;  the  values  of  the  cotton  and  the  spindle,  for  instance,  re- 
appear again  in  the  value  of  the  yarn.  The  value  of  the 
means  of  production  is  therefore  preserved,  by  being  trans- 
ferred to  the  product.  This  transfer  takes  place  during  the 
conversion  of  those  means  into  a  product,  or  in  other  words, 
during  the  labour-process.  It  is  brought  about  by  labour ;  but 
how? 

The  labourer  does  not  perform  two  operations  at  once,  one 
in  order  to  add  value  to  the  cotton,  the  other  in  order  to  pre- 
serve the  value  of  the  means  of  production,  or,  in  what  amounts 
to  the  same  thing,  to  transfer  to  the  yarn,  to  the  product,  the 
value  of  the  cotton  on  which  he  works,  and  part  of  the  value 
of  the  spindle  with  which  he  works.  But,  by  the  very  act  of 
adding  new  value,  he  preserves  their  former  values.  Since, 
however,  the  addition  of  new  value  to  the  subject  of  his  labour, 
and  the  preservation  of  its  former  value,  are  two  entirely  dis- 
tinct results,  produced  simultaneously  by  the  labourer,  during 
one  operation,  it  is  plain  that  this  twofold  nature  of  the  re- 
sult can  be  explained  only  by  the  twofold  nature  of  his  labour ; 
at  one  and  the  same  time,  it  must  in  one  character  create  value, 
and  in  another  character  preserve  or  transfer  value. 

Now,  in  what  manner  does  every  labourer  add  new  labour 
and  consequently  new  value  ?  Evidently,  only  by  labouring 
productively  in  a  particular  way ;  the  spinner  by  spinning,  the 
weaver  by  weaving,  the  smith  by  forging.  But,  while  thus 
incorporating  labour  generally,  that  is  value,  it  is  by  the  par- 
ticular form  alone  of  the  labour,  by  the  spinning,  the  weaving 
and  the  forging  respectively,  that  the  means  of  production,  the 
cotton  and  spindle,  the  yarn  and  loom,  and  the  iron  and  anvil 
become  constituent  elements  of  the  product,  of  a  new  use- 
value.^  Each  use-value  disappears,  but  only  to  re-appear 
under  a  new  form  in  a  new  use-value.  Now,  we  saw,  when 
we  were  considering  the  process  of  creating  value,  that,  if  a 
use-value  be  effectively  consumed  in  the  production  of  a  new 
use-value,  the  quantity  of  labour  expended  in  the  production 

*  "Labour  gives  a  new  creation  for  one  extinguished."  ("An  essay  on  the  Pol  it. 
Econ.  of  Nations,"  London,  1821.  p.  13.) 


Constant  Capital  and  Variable  Capital.  22^ 

of  the  consumed  article,  forms  a  portion  of  the  quantity  of 
labour  necessary  to  produce  the  liew  use-value ;  this  portion  is 
therefore  labour  transferred  from  the  means  of  production  to 
the  new  product.  Hence,  the  labourer  preserves  the  values  of 
the  consumed  means  of  production,  or  transfers  them  as  por- 
tions of  its  value  to  the  product,  not  by  virtue  of  his  additional 
labour,  abstractedly  considered,  but  by  virtue  of  the  particular 
useful  character  of  that  labour,  by  virtue  of  its  special  pro- 
ductive form.  In  so  far  then  as  labour  is  such  specific  produc- 
tive activity,  in  so  far  as  it  is  spinning,  v^^eaving,  or  forging, 
it  raises,  by  mere  contact,  the  means  of  production  from  the 
dead,  makes  them  living  factors  of  the  labour-process,  and 
combines  with  them  to  form  the  new  products. 

If  the  special  productive  labour  of  the  workman  were  not 
spinning,  he  could  not  convert  the  cotton  into  yam,  and  there- 
fore could  not  transfer  the  values  of  the  cotton  and  spindle  to 
the  yarn.  Suppose  the  same  workman  were  to  change  his 
occupation  to  that  of  a  joiner,  he  would  still  by  a  day's  labour 
add  value  to  the  material  he  works  upon.  Consequently,  we 
see,  first,  that  the  addition  of  new  value  takes  place  not  by 
virtue  of  his  labour  being  spinning  in  particular,  or  joinering 
in  particular,  but  because  it  is  labour  in  the  abstract,  a  portion 
of  the  total  labour  of  society ;  and  we  see  next,  that  the  value 
added  is  of  a  given  definite  amount,  not  because  his  labour 
has  a  special  utility,  but  because  it  is  exerted  for  a  definite 
time.  On  the  one  hand,  then,  it  is  by  virtue  of  its  general 
character,  as  being  expenditure  of  human  labour-power  in  the 
abstract,  that  spinning  adds  new  value  to  the  values  of  the 
cotton  and  the  spindle;  and  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  by  virtue 
of  its  special  character,  as  being  a  concrete,  useful  process,  that 
the  same  labour  of  spinning  both  transfers  the  values  of  the 
means  of  production  to  the  product,  and  preserves  them  in  the 
product.  Hence  at  one  and  the  same  time  there  is  produced  a 
twofold  result. 

By  the  simple  addition  of  a  certain  quantity  of  labour, 
new  value  is  added,  and  by  the  quality  of  this  added  labour, 
the  original  values  of  the  means  of  production  are  preserved 
'.n  the  product.     This  twofold  effect,  resulting  from  the  two- 


224  Capitalist  Frodui^tion. 

fold  character  of  labour,  may  be  traced  in  various  phenomena. 
Let  us  assume,  that  some  invention  enables  the  spinner  to 
spin  as  much  cotton  in  6  hours  as  he  was  able  to  spin  before  in 
36  hours.  His  labour  is  now  six  times  as  effective  as  it  was, 
for  the  purposes  of  useful  production.  The  product  of  6 
hours'  work  has  increased  sixfold,  from  6  lbs.  to  36  lbs.  But 
now  the  36  lbs.  of  cotton  absorb  only  the  same  amount  of 
labour  as  formerly  did  the  6  lbs.  One-sixth  as  much  new 
labour  is  absorbed  by  each  pound  of  cotton,  and  consequently, 
the  value  added  by  the  labour  to  each  pound  is  only  one-sixth 
of  what  it  formerly  was.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  product, 
in  the  36  lbs.  of  yarn,  the  value  transferred  from  the  cotton  is 
six  times  as  great  as  before.  By  the  6  hours'  spinning,  the 
value  of  the  raw  material  preserved  and  transferred  to  the 
product  is  six  times  as  great  as  before,  although  the  new  value 
added  by  the  labour  of  the  spinner  to  each  pound  of  the  very 
same  raw  material  is  one-sixth  what  it  was  formerly.  This 
shows  that  the  two  properties  of  labour,  by  virtue  of  which 
it  is  enabled  in  one  case  to  preserve  value,  and  in  the  other  to 
create  value,  are  essentially  different.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
longer  the  time  necessary  to  spin  a  given  weight  of  cotton  into 
yarn,  the  greater  is  the  new  value  added  to  the  material;  on 
the  other  hand,  the  greater  the  weight  of  the  cotton  spun  in  a 
given  time,  the  greater  is  the  value  preserved,  by  being  trans- 
ferred from  it  to  the  product. 

Let  us  now  assume,  that  the  productiveness  of  the  spinner's 
labour,  instead  of  varying,  remains  constant,  that  he  therefore 
requires  the  same  time  as  he  formerly  did,  to  convert  one 
pound  of  cotton  into  yarn,  but  that  the  exchange  value  of  the 
cotton  varies,  either  by  rising  to  six  times  its  former  value  or 
falling  to  one-sixth  of  that  value.  In  both  these  cases,  the 
spinner  puts  the  same  quantity  of  labour  into  a  pound  of  cot- 
ton, and  therefore  adds  as  much  value,  as  he  did  before  the 
change  in  the  value :  he  also  produces  a  given  weight  of  yarn  in 
the  same  time  as  he  did  before.  Nevertheless,  the  value  that 
he  transfers  from  the  cotton  to  the  yam  is  either  one-sixth 
of  what  it  was  before  the  variation,  or,  as  the  case  may  be, 
six  times  as  much  as  before.     The  same  result  occurs  when  the 


Constant  Capital  and  Variable  Capital.  225 

value  of  the  instruments  of  labour  rises  or  falls,  while  their 
useful  efficacy  in  the  process  remains  unaltered. 

Again,  if  the  technical  conditions  of  the  spinning  process  re- 
main unchanged,  and  no  change  of  value  takes  place  in  the 
means  of  production,  the  spinner  continues  to  consume  in 
equal  working-times  equal  quantities  of  raw  material,  and 
equal  quantities  of  machinery  of  unvarying  value.  The  value 
that  he  preserves  in  the  product  is  directly  proportional  to  the 
new  value  that  he  adds  to  the  product.  In  two  weeks  he  incor- 
porates twice  as  much  labour,  and  therefore  twice  as  much 
value,  as  in  one  week,  and  during  the  same  time  he  consumes 
twice  as  much  material,  and  wears  out  twice  as  much  ma- 
chinery, of  double  the  value  in  each  case;  he  therefore  pre- 
serves, in  the  product  of  two  weeks,  twice  as  much  value  as  in 
the  product  of  one  week.  So  long  as  the  conditions  of  produc- 
tion remain  the  same,  the  more  value  the  labourer  adds  by 
fresh  labour,  the  more  value  he  transfers  and  preserves;  but 
he  does  so  merely  because  this  addition  of  new  value  takes  place 
under  conditions  that  have  not  varied  and  are  independent  of 
his  own  labour.  Of  course,  it  may  be  said  in  one  sense,  that 
the  labourer  preserves  old  value  always  in  proportion  to  the 
quantity  of  new  value  that  he  adds.  Whether  the  value  of 
cotton  rise  from  one  shilling  to  two  shillings,  or  fall  to  six- 
pence, the  workman  invariably  preserves  in  the  product  of  one 
hour  only  one  half  as  much  value  as  he  preserves  in  two  hours. 
In  like  manner,  if  the  productiveness  of  his  own  labour  varies 
by  rising  or  falling,  he  will  in  one  hour  spin  either  more  or  less 
cotton,  as  the  case  may  be,  than  he  did  before,  and  will  con- 
sequently preserve  in  the  product  of  one  hour,  more  or  less 
value  of  cotton;  but,  all  the  same,  he  will  preserve  by  two 
hours'  labour  twice  as  much  value  as  he  will  by  one. 

Value  exists  only  in  articles  of  utility,  in  objects :  we  leave 
out  of  consideration  its  purely  symbolical  representation  by 
tokens.  (Man  himself,  viewed  as  the  impersonation  of  labour- 
power,  is  a  natural  object,  a  thing,  although  a  living  conscious 
thing,  and  labour  is  the  manifestation  of  this  power  residing 
in  him.)  If  therefore  an  article  loses  it  utility,  it  also  loses 
its  value.     The  reason  why  means  of  production  do  not  lose 


226  Capitalist  Production. 

their  value,  at  the  same  time  that  they  lose  their  use-value,  is 
this :  they  lose  in  the  labour-process  the  original  form  of  their 
use-value,  only  to  assume  in  the  product  the  form  of  a  new  use- 
value.  But,  however  important  it  may  be  to  value,  that  it 
should  have  some  object  of  utility  to  embody  itself  in,  yet  it 
is  a  matter  of  complete  indifference  what  particular  object 
serves  this  purpose;  this  we  saw  when  treating  of  the  meta- 
morphosis of  commodities.  Hence  it  follows  that  in  the 
labour-process  the  means  of  production  transfer  their  value 
to  the  product  only  so  far  as  along  with  their  use-value  they 
lose  also  their  exchange  value.  They  give  up  to  the  product 
that  value  alone  which  they  themselves  lose  as  means  of  pro- 
duction. But  in  this  respect  the  material  factors  of  the  labour- 
process  do  not  all  behave  alike. 

The  coal  burnt  under  the  boiler  vanishes  without  leaving  a 
trace;  so,  too,  the  tallow  with  which  the  axles  of  wheels  are 
greased.  Dye  stuffs  and  other  auxiliary  substances  also  vanish 
but  re-appear  as  properties  of  the  product.  Raw  material 
forms  the  substance  of  the  product,  but  only  after  it  has 
changed  its  form.  Hence  raw  material  and  auxiliary  sub- 
stances lost  the  characteristic  form  with  which  they  are  clothed 
on  entering  the  labour-process.  It  is  otherwise  with  the  in- 
struments of  labour.  Tools,  machines,  workshops,  and  vessels, 
are  of  use  in  the  labour-process,  only  so  long  as  they  retain 
their  original  shape,  and  are  ready  each  morning  to  renew  the 
process  with  their  shape  unchanged.  And  just  as  during  their 
lifetime,  that  is  to  say,  during  the  continued  labour-process  in 
which  they  serve,  they  retain  their  shape  independent  of  the 
product,  so,  too,  they  do  after  their  death.  The  corpses  of 
machines,  tools,  workshops,  &c.,  are  always  separate  and  dis- 
tinct from  the  product  they  helped  to  turn  out.  If  we  now 
consider  the  case  of  any  instrument  of  labour  during  the  whole 
period  of  its  service,  from  the  day  of  its  entry  into  the  work- 
shop, till  the  day  of  its  banishment  into  the  lumber  room,  we 
find  that  during  this  period  its  use-value  has  been  completely, 
consumed,  and  therefore  its  exchange  value  completely  trans- 
ferred to  the  product.  For  instance,  if  a  spinning  machine 
lasts  for  10  years,  it  is  plain  that  during  that  working  period 


Constant  Capital  and  Variable  Capital.  227 

its  total  value  is  gradually  transferred  to  the  product  of  the 
10  years.  The  lifetime  of  an  instrument  of  labour,  therefore, 
is  spent  in  the  repetition  of  a  greater  or  less  number  of  similar 
operations.  Its  life  may  be  compared  with  that  of  a  human 
being.  Every  day  brings  a  man  24  hours  nearer  to  his  grave : 
but  how  many  days  he  has  still  to  travel  on  that  road,  no  man 
can  tell  accurately  by  merely  looking  at  him.  This  difficulty, 
however,  does  not  prevent  life  insurance  offices  from  drawing, 
by  means  of  the  theory  of  averages,  very  accurate,  and  at  the 
same  time  very  profitable  conclusions.  So  it  is  with  the  instru- 
ments of  labour.  It  is  known  by  experience  how  long  on  the 
average  a  machine  of  a  particular  kind  will  last.  Suppose  its 
use-value  in  the  labour-process  to  last  only  six  days.  Then, 
on  the  average,  it  loses  each  day  one-sixth  of  its  use-value,  and 
therefore  parts  with  one-sixth  of  its  value  to  the  daily  product. 
The  wear  and  tear  of  all  instruments,  their  daily  loss  of  use- 
value,  and  the  corresponding  quantity  of  value  they  part  with 
to  the  product,  are  accordingly  calculated  upon  this  basis. 

It  is  thus  strikingly  clear,  that  means  of  production  never 
transfer  more  value  to  the  product  than  they  themselves  lose 
during  the  labour-process  by  the  destruction  of  their  own  use- 
value.  If  such  an  instrument  has  no  value  to  lose,  if,  in  other 
words,  it  is  not  the  product  of  human  labour,  it  transfers  no 
value  to  the  product.  It  helps  to  create  use-value  without  con- 
tributing to  the  formation  of  exchange  value.  In  this  class 
are  included  all  means  of  production  supplied  by  Nature  with- 
out human  assistance,  such  as  land,  wind,  water,  metals  in 
situ,  and  timber  in  virgin  forests. 

Yet  another  interesting  phenomenon  here  presents  itself. 
Suppose  a  machine  to  be  worth  £1000,  and  to  wear  out  in  1000 
days.  Then  one  thousandth  part  of  the  value  of  the  machine 
is  daily  transferred  to  the  day's  product.  At  the  same  time, 
though  with  diminishing  vitality,  the  machine  as  a  whole  con- 
tinues to  take  part  in  the  labour-process.  Thus  it  appears 
that  one  factor  of  the  labour-process,  a  means  of  production, 
continually  enters  as  a  whole  into  that  process,  while  it  enters 
into  the  process  of  the  formation  of  value  by  fractions  only. 
The  difference  between  the  two  processes  is  here  reflected  in 


228  Capitalist  Production. 

their  material  factors,  by  the  same  instrument  of  production 
taking  part  as  a  whole  in  the  labour-process,  while  at  tlie  same 
time  as  an  element  in  the  formation  of  value,  it  enters  only  by 
fractions.^ 

On  the  other  hand,  a  means  of  production  may  take  part  as  a 
whole  in  the  formation  of  value,  while  into  the  labour-process 
it  enters  only  bit  by  bit.  Suppose  that  in  spinning  cotton,  the 
waste  for  every  115  lbs.  used  amounts  to  15  lbs.,  which  is  con- 
verted, not  into  yarn,  but  into  "devil's  dust."  Now,  although 
this  15  lbs.  of  cotton  never  becomes  a  constituent  element  of 
the  yarn,  yet  assuming  this  amount  of  waste  to  be  normal  and 
inevitable  under  average  conditions  of  spinning,  its  value  is 
just  as  surely  transferred  to  the  value  of  the  yam,  as  is  the 
value  of  the  100  lbs.  that  form  the  substance  of  the  yam.  The 
use-value  of  15  lbs.  of  cotton  must  vanish  into  dust,  before  100 
lbs.  of  yarn  can  be  made.  The  destruction  of  this  cotton  is 
therefore  a  necessary  condition  in  the  production  of  the  yam. 
And  because  it  is  a  necessary  condition,  and  for  no  other  rea- 
son, the  value  of  that  cotton  is  transferred  to  the  product. 
The  same  holds  good  for  every  kind  of  refuse  resulting  from  a 
labour-process,  so  far  at  least  as  such  refuse  cannot  be  further 
employed  as  a  means  in  the  production  of  new  and  independent 

*  The  subject  of  repairs  of  the  implements  of  labour  does  not  concern  us  here.  A 
machine  that  is  undergoing  repair,  no  longer  plays  the  part  of  an  instrument,  but 
that  of  a  subject  of  labour.  Work  is  no  longer  done  with  it,  but  upon  it.  It  is 
quite  permissible  for  our  purpose  to  assume,  that  the  labour  expended  on  the  repairs 
of  instruments  is  included  in  the  labour  necessary  for  their  original  production. 
But  in  the  text  we  deal  with  that  wear  and  tear,  which  no  doctor  cart  cure,  and 
which  little  by  little  brings  about  death,  with  "that  kind  of  wear  which  cannot  be 
repaired  from  time  to  time,  and  which,  in  the  case  of  a  knife,  would  ultimately  re- 
duce it  to  a  state  in  which  the  cutler  would  say  of  it,  it  is  not  worth  a  new  blade." 
We  have  shewn  in  the  text,  that  a  machine  takes  part  in  every  labour-process  as  an 
integral  machine,  but  that  into  the  simultaneous  process  of  creating  value  it  enters 
only  bit  by  bit.  How  great  then  is  the  confusion  of  ideas  exhibited  in  the  following 
extract!  "Mr.  Ricardo  says  a  portion  of  the  labour  of  the  engineer  in  making 
[stocking]  machines"  is  contained  for  example  in  the  value  of  a  pair  of  stockings. 
"Yet  the  total  labour,  that  produced  each  single  pair  of  stockings  ....  in- 
cludes the  whole  labour  of  the  engineer,  not  a  portion;  for  one  machine  makes  many 
pairs,  and  none  of  those  pairs  could  have  been  done  without  any  part  of  the  ma- 
chine." ("Obs.  on  certain  verbal  disputes  in  Pol.  Econ.  particularly  relating  to 
value,"  p.  54.)  The  author,  an  uncommonly  self-satisfied  wiseacre,  is  right  in  his 
confusion  and  therefore  in  his  contention,  to  this  extent  only,  that  neither  Ricardo 
nor  any  other  economist,  before  or  since  him,  has  accurately  distinguished  the  two 
aspects  of  labour,  and  still  less,  therefore,  the  part  played  by  it  under  each  of  these 
aspects  in  the  formation  of  value. 


Constant  Capital  and  Variable  Capital.  229 

use-values.  Such  an  employment  of  refuse  may  be  seen  in  the 
large  machine  works  at  Manchester,  where  mountains  of  iron 
turnings  are  carted  away  to  the  foundry  in  the  evening,  in 
order  the  next  morning  to  re-appear  in  the  workshops  as  solid 
masses  of  iron. 

We  have  seen  that  the  means  of  production  transfer  value  to 
the  new  product,  so  far  only  as  during  the  labour-process  they 
lose  value  in  the  shape  of  their  old  use-value.  The  maximum 
loss  of  value  that  they  can  suffer  in  the  process,  is  plainly 
limited  by  the  amount  of  the  original  value  with  which  they 
came  into  the  process,  or  in  other  words,  by  the  labour-time 
necessary  for  their  production.  Therefore  the  means  of  pro- 
duction can  never  add  more  value  to  the  product  than  they 
themselves  possess  independently  of  the  process  in  which  they 
assist.  However  useful  a  given  kind  of  raw  material,  or  a 
machine,  or  other  means  of  production  may  be,  though  it  may 
cost  £150,  or,  say,  500  days'  labour,  yet  it  cannot,  under  any 
circumstances,  add  to  the  value  of  the  product  more  than  £150. 
Its  value  is  determined  not  by  the  labour-process  into  which  it 
enters  as  a  means  of  production,  but  by  that  out  of  which  it  has 
issued  as  a  product.  In  the  labour-process  it  only  serves  as  a 
mere  use-value,  a  thing  with  useful  properties,  and  could  not, 
therefore,  transfer  any  value  to  the  product,  unless  it  possessed 
such  value  previously.^ 

*  From  this  we  may  judge  of  the  absurdity  of  J.  B.  Say,  who  pretends  to  account 
for  surplus-value  (Interest,  Profit,  Rent),  by  the  "services  productifs"  which  the 
means  of  production,  soil,  instruments,  and  raw  material,  render  in  the  labour-proc- 
ess by  means  of  their  use-values.  Mr.  Wm.  Roscher  who  seldom  loses  an  occasion 
of  registering,  in  black  and  white,  ingenious  apologetic  fancies,  records  the  following 
specimen: — "J.  B.  Say  (Traite,  t.  1.  ch.  4)  very  truly  remarks:  the  value  produced 
by  an  oil  mill,  after  deduction  of  all  costs,  is  something  new,  something  quite  differ- 
ent from  the  labour  by  which  the  oil  mill  itself  was  erected."  (1.  c,  p.  82,  note.) 
Very  true,  Mr.  Professor!  the  oil  produced  by  the  oil  mill  is  indeed  something  very 
different  from  the  labour  expended  in  constructing  the  mill!  By  value,  Mr.  Roscher 
understands  such  stuff  as  "oil,"  because  oil  has  value,  notwithstanding  that  "Na- 
ture" produces  petroleum,  though  relatively  "in  small  quantities,"  a  fact  to  which 
he  seems  to  refer  in  his  further  observation :  "It  (Nature)  produces  scarcely  any 
exchange  value."  Mr.  Roscher's  "Nature"  and  the  exchange  value  it  produces  are 
rather  like  the  foolish  virgin  who  admitted  indeed  that  she  had  had  a  child,  but  "it 
was  such  a  little  one."  This  "savant  serieux"  in  continuation  remarks:  "Ricardo's 
school  is  in  the  habit  of  including  capital  as  accumulated  labour  under  the  head  of 
labour.  This  is  unskilful  work,  because,  indeed,  the  owner  of  capital,  after  all,  does 
something  more  than  the  merely  creating  and  preserving  of  the  same:  namely,  the 
abstention  from  the  enjoyment  of  it,  for  which  he  demands,  e.g.,  interest."     (1.  c.) 


230  Capitalist  Production. 

While  productive  labour  is  changing  the  means  of  produc- 
tion into  constituent  elements  of  a  new  product,  their  value 
undergoes  a  metempsychosis.  It  deserts  the  consumed  body, 
to  occupy  the  newly  created  one.  But  this  transmigration 
takes  place,  as  it  were,  behind  the  back  of  the  labourer.  He 
is  unable  to  add  new  labour,  to  create  new  value,  without  at 
the  same  time  preserving  old  values,  and  this,  because  the 
labour  he  adds  must  be  of  a  specific  useful  kind ;  and  he  can- 
not do  work  of  a  useful  kind,  without  employing  products  as 
the  means  of  production  of  a  new  product,  and  thereby  trans- 
ferring their  value  to  the  new  product.  The  property  there- 
fore which  labour-power  in  action,  living  labour,  possesses  of 
preserving  value,  at  the  same  time  that  it  adds  it,  is  a  gift  of 
Nature  which  costs  the  labourer  nothing,  but  which  is  very 
advantageous  to  the  capitalist  inasmuch  as  it  preserves  the 
existing  value  of  his  capital.*  So  long  as  trade  is  good,  the 
capitalist  is  too  much  absorbed  in  money-grubbing  to  take 
notice  of  this  gratuitous  gift  of  labour.  A  violent  interruption 
of  the  labour-process  by  a  crisis,  makes  him  sensitively  aware 
of  it.2 

As  regards  the  means  of  production,  what  is  really  consumed 
is  their  use-value,  and  the  consumption  of  this  use-value  by 
labour  results  in  the  product.     There  is  no  consumption  of 

How  very  "skilful"   is  this   "anatomico-physiological  method"   of  political  economy, 
■which,   "indeed,"  converts  a  mere  desire  "after  all"  into  a  source  of  value. 

*  "Of  all  the  instruments  of  the  farmers*  trade,  the  labour  of  man  ...  is  that  on. 
which  he  is  most  to  rely  for  the  repayment  of  his  capital.  The  other  two  .  .  .  the 
working  stock  of  the  cattle  and  the  .  .  .  carts,  ploughs,  spades,  and  so  forth, 
without  a  given  portion  of  the  first,  are  nothing  at  all."  (Edmund  Burke: 
"Thoughts  and  Details  on  Scarcity,  originally  presented  to  the  Right  Hon.  W.  Pitt, 
in  the  month  of  November  1795,"  Edit.  London,  1800,  p.  10.) 

*  In  "The  Times"  of  26th  November,  1862,  a  manufacturer,  whose  mill  employed 
800  hands,  and  consumed,  on  the  average,  150  bales  of  East  Indian,  or  130  bales  of 
American  cotton,  complains,  in  doleful  manner,  of  the  standing  expenses  of  his 
factory  when  not  working.  He  estimates  them  at  £6,000  a  year.  Among  them  are 
a  number  of  items  that  do  not  concern  us  here,  such  as  rent,  rates,  and  taxes,  in- 
surance, salaries  of  the  manager,  book-keeper,  engineer,  and  others.  Then  he  reck- 
ons £150  for  coal  used  to  heat  the  mill  occasionally,  and  run  the  engine  now  and 
then.  Besides  this,  he  includes  the  wages  of  the  people  employed  at  odd  times  to 
keep  the  machinery  in  working  order.  Lastly,  he  puts  down  £1,200  for  depreciation 
of  machinery,  because  "the  weather  and  the  natural  principle  of  decay  do  not  sus- 
pend their  operations  because  the  steam-engine  ceases  to  revolve."  He  says,  em- 
phatically, he  does  not  estimate  his  depreciation  at  more  than  the  small  sum  of 
£1,200,  because  his  machinery  is  already  nearly  worn  out. 


Constant  Capital  and  Variable  Capital.  231 

their  value/  and  it  would  therefore  be  inaccurate  to  say  that 
it  is  reproduced.  It  is  rather  preserved ;  not  by  reason  of  any 
operation  it  undergoes  itself  in  the  process;  but  because  the 
article  in  which  it  originally  exists,  vanishes,  it  is  true,  but 
vanishes  into  some  other  article.  Hence,  in  the  value  of  the 
product,  there  is  a  re-appearance  of  the  value  of  the  means  of 
production,  but  there  is,  strictly  speaking,  no  reproduction  of 
that  value.  That  which  is  produced  is  a  new  use-value  in 
which  the  old  exchange-value  re-appears.^ 

It  is  otherwise  with  the  subjective  factor  of  the  labour-pro- 
cess, with  labour-power  in  action.  While  the  labourer,  by 
virtue  of  his  labour  being  of  a  specialised  kind  that  has  a 
special  object,  preserves  and  transfers  to  the  product  the  value 
of  the  means  of  production,  he  at  the  same  time,  by  the  mere 
act  of  working,  creates  each  instant  an  additional  or  new  value. 
Suppose  the  process  of  production  to  be  stopped  just  when  the 
workman  has  produced  an  equivalent  for  the  value  of  his  own 
labour-power,  when,  for  example,  by  six  hours'  labour,  he  has 
added  a  value  of  three  shillings.  This  value  is  the  surplus,  of 
the  total  value  of  the  product,  over  the  portion  of  its  value 
that  is  due  to  the  means  of  production.  It  is  the  only  original 
bit  of  value  formed  during  this  process,  the  only  portion  of  the 
value  of  the  product  created  by  this  process.  Of  course,  we 
do  not  forget  that  this  new  value  only  replaces  the  money 
advanced  by  the  capitalist  in  the  purchase  of  the  labour-power, 

^  "Productive  consumption  .  .  .  where  the  consumption  of  a  commodity  is  a  part 
of  the  process  of  production.  ...  In  these  instances  there  is  no  consumption  of 
value."     (S.  P.  Newman,  1.  c.  p.  296.) 

*  In  an  American  compendium  that  has  gone  through,  perhaps,  20  editions,  this 
passage  occurs:  "It  matters  not  in  what  form  capital  re-appears;"  then  after  a 
lengthy  enumeration  of  all  the  possible  ingredients  of  production  whose  value  re- 
appears in  the  product,  the  passage  concludes  thus:  "The  various  kinds  of  food, 
clothing,  and  shelter,  necessary  for  the  existence  and  comfort  of  the  human  being, 
are  also  changed.  They  are  consumed  from  time  to  time,  and  their  value  re-appears 
in  that  new  vigour  imparted  to  his  body  and  mind,  forming  fresh  capital,  to  be  em- 
ployed again  in  the  work  of  production."  (F.  Wayland,  1.  c.  pp.  31,  32.)  Without 
noticing  any  other  oddities,  it  suffices  to  observe,  that  what  re-appears  in  the  fresh 
vigour,  is  not  the  bread's  price,  but  its  blood-forming  substances.  What,  on  the 
other  hand,  re-appears  in  the  value  of  that  vigour,  is  not  the  means  of  subsistence, 
but  their  value.  The  same  necessaries  of  life,  at  half  the  price,  would  form  just  as 
much  muscle  and  bone,  just  as  much  vigour,  but  not  vigour  of  the  same  value.  This 
confusion  of  "value"  and  "vigour"  coupled  with  our  author's  pharisaical  indefinite- 
iiess,  mark  an  attempt,  futile  for  all  that,  to  thrash  out  an  explanation  of  surplus- 
value  from  a  mere  re-appearance  of  pre-existing  values. 


232  Capitalist  Production. 

and  spent  by  the  labourer  on  the  necessaries  of  life.  With 
regard  to  the  money  spent,  the  new  value  is  merely  a  repro- 
duction; but,  nevertheless,  it  is  an  actual,  and  not,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  value  of  the  means  of  production,  only  an  apparent, 
reproduction.  The  substitution  of  one  value  for  another,  is 
here  effected  by  the  creation  of  new  value. 

We  know,  however,  from  what  has  gone  before,  that  the 
labour-process  may  continue  beyond  the  time  necessary  to  re- 
produce and  incorporate  in  the  product  a  mere  equivalent  for 
the  value  of  the  labour-power.  Instead  of  the  six  hours  that 
are  sufficient  for  the  latter  purpose,  the  process  may  continue 
for  twelve  hours.  The  action  of  labour-power,  therefore,  not 
only  reproduces  its  own  value,  but  produces  value  over  and 
above  it.  This  surplus-value  is  the  difference  between  the 
value  of  the  product  and  the  value  of  the  elements  consumed 
in  the  formation  of  that  product,  in  other  words,  of  the  means 
of  production  and  the  labour-power. 

By  our  explanation  of  the  different  parts  played  by  the  vari- 
ous factors  of  the  labour-process  in  the  formation  of  the  pro- 
duct's value,  we  have,  in  fact,  disclosed  the  characters  of  the 
different  functions  allotted  to  the  different  elements  of  capital 
in  the  process  of  expanding  its  own  value.  The  surplus  of  the 
total  value  of  the  product,  over  the  sum  of  the  values  of  its 
constituent  factors,  is  the  surplus  of  the  expanded  capital  over 
the. capital  originally  advanced.  The  means  of  production  on 
the  one  hand,  labour-power  on  the  other,  are  merely  the  differ- 
ent modes  of  existence  which  the  value  of  the  original  capital 
assumed  when  from  being  money  it  was  transformed  into  the 
various  factors  of  the  labour-process.  That  part  of  capital 
then,  which  is  represented  by  the  means  of  production,  by  the 
raw  material,  auxiliary  material  and  the  instruments  of  labour, 
does  not,  in  the  process  of  production,  undergo  any  quantitative 
alteration  of  value.  I  therefore  call  it  the  constant  part  of 
capital,  or,  more  shortly,  constant  capital. 

On  the  other  hand,  that  part  of  capital,  represented  by 
labour-power,  does,  in  the  process  of  production,  undergo  an 
alteration  of  value.  It  both  reproduces  the  equivalent  of  its 
own  value,  and  also  produces  an  excess,  a  surplus-value,  which 


Constant  Capital  and  Variable  Capital.  233 

may  itself  vary,  may  be  more  or  less  according  to  circum- 
stances. This  part  of  capital  is  continually  being  transformed 
from  a  constant  into  a  variable  magnitude.  I  therefore  call  it 
the  variable  part  of  capital,  or,  shortly,  variable  capital.  The 
same  elements  of  capital  vphich,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
labour-process,  present  themselves  respectively  as  the  objective 
and  subjective  factors,  as  means  of  production  and  labour- 
power,  present  themselves,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  pro- 
cess of  creating  surplus-value,  as  constant  and  variable  capital. 
The  definition  of  constant  capital  given  above  by  no  means 
excludes  the  possibility  of  a  change  of  value  in  its  elements. 
Suppose  the  price  of  cotton  to  be  one  day  sixpence  a  pound, 
and  the  next  day,  in  consequence  of  a  failure  of  the  cotton  crop, 
a  shilling  a  pound.  Each  pound  of  the  cotton  bought  at  six- 
pence, and  worked  up  after  the  rise  in  value,  transfers  to  the 
product  a  value  of  one  shilling;  and  the  cotton  already  spun 
before  the  rise,  and  perhaps  circulating  in  the  markets  as  yarn, 
likewise  transfers  to  the  product  twice  its  original  value.  It 
is  plain,  however,  that  these  changes  of  value  are  independent 
of  the  increment  or  surplus-value  added  to  the  value  of  the 
cotton  by  the  spinning  itself.  If  the  old  cotton  had  never 
been  spun,  it  could,  after  the  rise,  be  resold  at  a  shilling  a 
pound  instead  of  at  sixpence.  Further,  the  fewer  the  processes 
the  cotton  has  gone  through,  the  more  certain  is  this  result. 
We  therefore  find  that  speculators  make  it  a  rule  when  such 
sudden  changes  in  value  occur  to  speculate  in  that  material  on 
which  the  least  possible  quantity  of  labour  has  been  spent:  to 
speculate,  therefore,  in  yam  rather  than  in  cloth,  in  cotton 
itself,  rather  than  in  yam.  The  change  of  value  in  the  case  we 
have  been  considering,  originates,  not  in  the  process  in  which 
the  cotton  plays  the  part  of  a  means  of  production,  and  in 
which  it  therefore  functions  as  constant  capital,  but  in  the  pro- 
cess in  which  the  cotton  itself  is  produced.  The  value  of  a 
commodity,  it  is  true,  is  determined  by  the  quantity  of  labour 
contained  in  it,  but  this  quantity  is  itself  limited  by  social  con- 
ditions. If  the  time  socially  necessary  for  the  production  of 
any  commodity  alters — and  a  given  weight  of  cotton  represents, 
after  a  bad  harvest,  more  labour  than  after  a  good  one — all 


234  Capitalist  Production. 

previously  existing  commodities  of  the  same  class  are  affected, 
because  they  are,  as  it  were,  only  individuals  of  the  species,^ 
and  their  value  at  any  given  time  is  measured  by  the  labour 
socially  necessary,  i.e.,  by  the  labour  necessary  for  their  pro- 
duction under  the  then  existing  social  conditions. 

As  the  value  of  the  raw  material  may  change,  so,  too,  may 
that  of  the  instruments  of  labour,  of  the  machinery,  &c.,  em- 
ployed in  the  process;  and  consequently  that  portion  of  the 
value  of  the  product  transferred  to  it  from  them,  may  also 
change.  If  in  consequence  of  a  new  invention,  machinery  of  a 
particular  kind  can  be  produced  by  a  diminished  expenditure 
of  labour,  the  old  machinery  becomes  depreciated  more  or  less 
and  consequently  transfers  so  much  less  value  to  the  product. 
But  here  again,  the  change  in  value  originates  outside  the 
process  in  "which  the  machine  is  acting  as  a  means  of  pro- 
duction. Once  engaged  in  this  process,  the  machine  cannot 
transfer  more  value  than  it  possesses  apart  from  the  process. 

Just  'as  a  change  in  the  value  of  the  means  of  production, 
even  after  they  have  commenced  to  take  a  part  in  the  labour 
process,  does  not  alter  their  character  as  constant  capital,  so, 
too,  a  change  in  the  proportion  of  constant  to  variable  capital 
does  not  affect  the  respective  functions  of  these  two  kinds  of 
capital.  The  technical  conditions  of  the  labour  process  may 
be  revolutionised  to  such  an  extent,  that  where  formerly  ten 
men  using  ten  implements  of  small  value  worked  up  a  relative- 
ly small  quantity  of  raw  material,  one  man  may  now,  with  the 
aid  of  one  expensive  machine,  work  up  one  hundred  times  as 
much  raw  material.  In  the  latter  case  we  have  an  enormous 
increase  in  the  constant  capital,  that  is  represented  by  the 
total  value  of  the  means  of  production  used,  and  at  the  same 
time  a  great  reduction  in  the  variable  capital,  invested  in 
labour-power.  Such  a  revolution,  however,  alters  only  the 
quantitave  relation  between  the  constant  and  the  variable  cap- 
ital, or  the  proportions  in  which  the  total  capital  is  split  up 
into  its  constant  and  variable  constituents;  it  has  not  in  the 
least  degree  affected  the  essential  difference  between  the  two. 

*  "Toutes  les  productions  d'un  meme  genre  ne  ferment  proprement  qu'une  masse, 
dent  le  prix  se  determine  en  general  et  sans  egard  aux  circonstances  particulieres." 
(Le  Trosne,  1.  c,  p.  893.) 


The  Rate  of  Surplus-value.  235 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  RATE  OF  SURPLUS- VALUE. 
SECTION  1. THE  DEGREE  OF  EXPLOITATION  OF  LABOUE-POWEB. 

The  surplus-value  generated  in  the  process  of  production  by 
C,  the  capital  advanced,  or  in  other  words,  the  self -expansion 
of  the  value  of  the  capital  C,  presents  itself  for  our  consider- 
ation, in  the  first  place,  as  a  surplus,  as  the  amount  by  which 
the  value  of  the  product  exceeds  the  value  of  its  constituent 
elements 

The  capital  C  is  made  up  of  two  components,  one,  the  sum 
of  money  c  laid  out  upon  the  means  of  production,  and  the 
other,  the  sum  of  money  v  expended  upon  the  labour-power; 
c  represents  the  portion  that  has  become  constant  capital,  and 
V  the  portion  that  has  become  variable  capital.  At  first  then, 
C^c-f-v:  for  example,  if  £500  is  the  capital  advanced,  its  com- 
ponents may  be  such  that  the  £500=£410  const. -j-£90  var. 
When  the  process  of  production  is  finished,  we  get  a  com- 
modity whose  valuer (c-|-v)-|-s,  where  s  is  the  surplus-value; 
or  taking  our  former  figures,  the  value  of  this  commodity  may 
be  (£410  const. -f-£90  var.)-|-£90  surpL  The  original  capital 
has  now  changed  from  C  to  C%  from  £500  to  £590.  The  dif- 
ference is  s  or  a  surplus  value  of  £90.  Since  the  value  of  the 
constituent  elements  of  the  product  is  equal  to  the  value  of 
the  advanced  capital,  it  is  mere  tautology  to  say,  that  the  ex- 
cess of  the  value  of  the  product  over  the  value  of  its  constitu- 
ent elements,  is  equal  to  the  expansion  of  the  capital  advanced 
or  to  the  surplus-value  produced. 

ISTevertheless,  we  must  examine  this  tautology  a  little  more 
closely.  The  two  things  compared  are,  the  value  of  the  pro- 
duct, and  the  value  of  its  constituents  consumed  in  the  process 
of  production.  !N'ow  we  have  seen  how  that  portion  of  the 
constant  capital  which  consists  of  the  instruments  of  labour, 
transfers  to  the  product  only  a  fraction  of  its  value,  while  the 
remainder  of  that  value  continues  to  reside  in  those  instni- 


236  Capitalist  Production. 

ments.  Since  this  remainder  plays  no  part  in  the  formation  of 
value,  we  may  at  present  leave  it  on  one  side.  To  introduce  it 
into  the  calculation  would  make  no  difference.  For  instance, 
taking  our  former  example,  c=£410 :  suppose  this  sum  to  con- 
sist of  £312  value  of  raw  material,  £44  value  of  auxiliary 
material,  and  £54  value  of  the  machinery  worn  away  in  the 
process;  and  suppose  that  the  total  value  of  the  machinery- 
employed  is  £1,054.  Out  of  this  latter  sum,  then,  we  reckon 
as  advanced  for  the  purpose  of  turning  out  the  product,  the 
sum  of  £54  alone,  which  the  machinery  loses  by  wear  and 
tear  in  the  process ;  for  this  is  all  it  parts  with  to  the  product. 
Now  if  we  also  reckon  the  remaining  £1,000,  which  still  con- 
tinues in  the  machinery,  as  transferred  to  the  product,  we 
ought  also  to  reckon  it  as  part  of  the  value  advanced,  and  thus 
make  it  appear  on  hoth  sides  of  our  calculation.^  We  should, 
in  this  way,  get  £1,500  on  one  side  and  £1,590  on  the  other. 
The  difference  of  these  two  sums,  or  the  surplus-value,  would 
still  be  £90.  Throughout  this  Book  therefore,  by  constant 
capital  advanced  for  the  production  of  value,  we  always  mean, 
unless  the  context  is  repugnant  thereto,  the  value  of  the  means 
of  production  actually  consumed  in  tiie  process,  and  that  value 
alone. 

This  being  so,  let  us  return  to  the  formula  C=c-|-v,  which 
we  saw  transformed  into  C'=(c-j-v)-|-s,  C  becoming  C. 
We  know  that  the  value  of  the  constant  capital  is  trans- 
ferred to,  and  merely  re-appears  in  the  product.  The 
new  value  actually  created  in  the  process,  the  value  pro- 
duced, or  value-product,  is  therefore  not  the  same  as  the  value 
of  the  product;  it  is  not,  as  it  would  at  first  sight  appear 
(c-l-v)+8  or  £410  const -f  £90  var.-f£90  surpl. ;  but  v-fs 
or  £90  var.+£90  surpl.  not  £590  but  £180.  If  c=o,  or  in 
other  words,  if  there  were  branches  of  industry  in  which  the 
capitalist  could  dispense  with  all  means  of  production  made 
by  previous  labour,  whether  they  be  raw  material,  auxiliary 
material,  or  instruments  of  labour,  employing  only  labour- 

*  "If  we  reckon  the  value  of  the  fixed  capital  employed  as  a  part  of  the  advances, 
we  must  reckon  the  remaining  value  of  such  capital  at  the  end  of  the  year  as  a  part 
of  the  annual  returns."  (Malthus,  "Princ.  of  Pol.  Econ."  2nd  ed.,  Lond.,  1836,  p. 
809.) 


The  Rate  of  Surplus-value.  237 

power  and  materials  supplied  by  N^ature,  in  that  case,  there 
would  be  no  constant  capital  to  transfer  to  the  product.  This 
component  of  the  value  of  the  product,  i.e.,  the  £410  in  our  ex- 
ample, would  be  eliminated,  but  the  sum  of  £180,  the  amount 
of  new  value  created,  or  the  value  produced,  which  contains 
£90  of  surplus-value,  would  remain  just  as  great  as  if  c  repre- 
sented the  highest  value  imaginable.  We  should  have  C=: 
(0-)-v)=v  or  C''  the  expanded  capital=v-|-s  and  therefore 
C — C=s  as  before.  On  the  other  hand,  if  s=0,  or  in  other 
words,  if  the  labour-power,  whose  value  is  advanced  in  the 
form  of  variable  capital,  were  to  produce  only  its  equivalent, 
we  should  have  C=c-|-v  or  C  the  value  of  the  product= 
(c-|-v)-(-0  or  C  =  C'.  The  capital  advanced  would,  in  this 
case,  not  have  expanded  its  value. 

From  what  has  gone  before,  we  know  that  surplus-value  is 
purely  the  result  of  a  variation  in  the  value  of  v,  of  that  portion 
of  the  capital  which  is  transformed  into  labour-power ;  con- 
sequently, v+s=v-l-v'  or  V  plus  an  increment  of  v.  But  the 
fact  that  it  is  v  alone  that  varies,  and  the  conditions  of  that 
variation,  are  obscured  by  the  circumstance  that  in  consequence 
of  the  increase  in  the  variable  component  of  the  capital,  there 
is  also  an  increase  in  the  sum  total  of  the  advanced  capital.  It 
was  originally  £500  and  becomes  £590.  Therefore  in  order 
that  our  investigation  may  lead  to  accurate  results,  we  must 
make  abstraction  from  that  portion  of  the  value  of  the  pro- 
duct, in  which  constant  capital  alone  appears,  and  consequently 
must  equate  the  constant  capital  to  zero  or  make  c=0.  This 
is  merely  an  application  of  a  mathematical  rule,  employed 
whenever  we  operate  with  constant  and  variable  magnitudes, 
related  to  each  other  by  the  symbols  of  addition  and  sub- 
traction only. 

A  further  difficulty  is  caused  by  the  original  form  of  the 
variable  capital.  In  our  example,  €'=£410  const. -j-£90  var 
-|-£90  surpl. ;  but  £90  is  a  given  and  therefore  a  constant 
quantity ;  hence  it  appears  absurd  to  treat  it  as  variable.  But 
in  fact,  the  term  £90  var.  is  here  merely  a  symbol  to  show  that 
this  value  undergoes  a  process.  The  portion  of  the  capital  in- 
vested in  the  purchase  of  labour-power  is  a  definite  quantity  of 


238  Capitalist  Production. 

materialised  labour,  a  constant  value  like  the  value  of  the 
labour-power  purchased.  But  in  the  process  of  production  the 
place  of  the  £90  is  taken  by  the  labour-power  in  action,  dead 
labour  is  replaced  by  living  labour,  something  stagnant  by 
something  flowing,  a  constant  by  a  variable.  The  result  is  the 
reproduction  of  v  plus  an  increment  of  v.  From  the  point  of 
view,  then,  of  capitalist  production,  the  whole  process  appears 
as  the  spontaneous  variation  of  the  originally  constant  value, 
which  is  transformed  into  labour-power.  Both  the  process  and 
its  result,  appear  to  be  owing  to  this  value.  If,  therefore,  such 
expressions  as  "£90  variable  capital,"  or  "so  much  self- 
expanding  value,"  appear  contradictory,  this  is  only  because 
they  bring  to  the  surface  a  contradiction  immanent  in  cap- 
italist production. 

At  first  sight  it  appears  a  strange  proceeding,  to  equate  the 
constant  capital  to  zero.  Yet  it  is  what  we  do  every  day.  If, 
for  example,  we  wish  to  calculate  the  amount  of  England's 
profits  from  the  cotton  industry,  we  first  of  all  deduct  the  sums 
paid  for  cotton  to  the  United  States,  India,  Egypt  and  other 
countries ;  in  other  words,  the  value  of  the  capital  that  merely 
re-appears  in  the  value  of  the  product,  is  put=0. 

Of  course  the  ratio  of  surplus-value  not  only  to  that  portion 
of  the  capital  from  which  it  immediately  springs,  and  whose 
change  of  value  it  represents,  but  also  to  the  sum  total  of  the 
capital  advanced  is  economically  of  very  great  importance. 
We  shall,  therefore,  in  the  third  book,  treat  of  this  ratio  ex- 
haustively. In  order  to  enable  one  portion  of  a  capital  to  ex- 
pand its  value  by  being  converted  into  labour-power,  it  is 
necessary  that  anothei:  portion  be  converted  into  means  of  pro- 
duction. In  order  that  variable  capital  may  perform  its  func- 
tion, constant  capital  must  be  advanced  in  proper  proportion, 
a  proportion  given  by  the  special  technical  conditions  of  each 
labour-process.  The  circumstance,  however,  that  retorts  and 
other  vessels,  are  necessary  to  a  chemical  process,  does  not 
compel  the  chemist  to  notice  them  in  the  result  of  his  analysis. 
If  we  look  at  the  means  of  production,  in  their  relation  to  the 
creation  of  value,  and  to  the  variation  in  the  quantity  of  value, 
apart  from  anything  else,  they  appear  simply  as  the  material 


The  Rate  of  Surplus-value.  239 

in  which  labour-power,  the  value-creator,  incorporates  itself. 
Neither  the  nature,  nor  the  value  of  this  material  is  of  any 
importance.  The  only  requisite  is  that  there  be  a  sufficient 
supply  to  absorb  the  labour  expended  in  the  process  of  pro- 
duction. That  supply  once  given,  the  material  may  rise  or 
fall  in  value,  or  even  be,  as  land  and  the  sea,  without  any  value 
in  itself ;  but  this  will  have  no  influence  on  the  creation  of  value 
or  on  the  variation  in  the  quantity  of  value.  ^ 

In  the  first  place  then  we  equate  the  constant  capital  to  zero. 
The  capital  advanced  is  consequently  reduced  from  c+v  to  v, 
and  instead  of  the  value  of  the  product  (c+v)  -j-s  we  have  now 
the  value  produced  (v-{-s).  Given  the  new  value  produced=: 
£180,  which  sum  consequently  represents  the  whole  labour  ex- 
pended during  the  process,  then  subtracting  from  it  £90  the 
value  of  the  variable  capital,  we  have  remaining  £90,  the 
amount  of  the  surplus-value.  This  sum  of  £90  or  s  expresses 
the  absolute  quantity  of  surplus-value  produced.  The  relative 
quantity  produced,  or  the  increase  per  cent  of  the  variable 
capital,  is  determined,  it  is  plain,  by  the  ratio  of  the  surplus- 
value  to  the  variable  capital,  or  is  expressed  by  y  .  In  our 
example  this  ratio  is  f  ^ ,  which  gives  an  increase  of  100%. 
This  relative  increase  in  the  value  of  the  variable  capital,  or 
the  relative  magnitude  of  the  surplus-value,  I  call,  "The  rate 
of  surplus-value."  ^ 

We  have  seen  that  the  labourer,  during  one  portion  of  the 
labour-process,  produces  only  the  value  of  his  labour-power, 
that  is,  the  value  of  his  means  of  subsistence.  Now  since  his 
work  forms  part  of  a  system,  based  on  the  social  division  of 
labour,  he  does  not  directly  produce  the  actual  necessaries 
which  he  himself  consumes;  he  produces  instead  a  particular 
commodity,  yam  for  example,  whose  value  is  equal  to  the 
value  of  those  necessaries  or  of  the  money  with  which  they 

*  What  Lucretius  says  is  self-evident;  "nil  posse  creari  de  nihilo,"  out  of  nothing, 
nothing  can  be  created.  Creation  of  value  is  transformation  of  labour-power  into 
labour.  Labour-power  itself  is  energy  transferred  to  a  human  organism  by  means  of 
nourishing  matter. 

*  In  the  same  way  that  the  English  use  the  terms  "rate  of  profit,"  "rate  of  in- 
terest." We  shall  see,  in  Book  III.,  that  the  rate  of  profit  is  no  mystery,  so  soon 
as  we  know  the  laws  of  surplus-value.  If  we  reverse  the  process,  we  cannot  com- 
prehend either  the  one  or  the  other. 


240  Capitalist  Production. 

can  be  bought.  The  portion  of  his  day's  labour  devoted  to 
this  purpose,  will  be  greater  or  less,  in  proportion  to  the  value 
of  the  necessaries  that  he  daily  requires  on  an  average,  or, 
what  amounts  to  the  same  thing,  in  proportion  to  the  labour- 
time  required  on  an  average  to  produce  them.  If  the  value 
of  those  necessaries  represents  on  an  average  the  expenditure 
of  six  hours'  labour,  the  workman  must  on  an  average  work 
for  six  hours  to  produce  that  value.  If  instead  of  working  for 
the  capitalist,  he  worked  independently  on  his  own  account,  he 
would,  other  things  being  equal,  still  be  obliged  to  labour  for 
the  same  number  of  hours,  in  order  to  produce  the  value  of  his 
labour-power,  and  thereby  to  gain  the  means  of  subsistence 
necessary  for  his  conservation  or  continued  reproduction.  But 
as  we  have  seen,  during  that  portion  of  his  day's  labour  in 
which  he  produces  the  value  of  his  labour-power,  say  three 
shillings,  he  produces  only  an  equivalent  for  the  value  of  his 
labour-power  already  advanced  by  the  capitalist;  the  new 
value  created  only  replaces  the  variable  capital  advanced.  It 
is  owing  to  this  fact,  that  the  production  of  the  new  value  of 
three  shillings  takes  the  semblance  of  a  mere  reproduction. 
That  portion  of  the  working  day,  then,  during  which  this  re- 
production takes  place,  I  call  '^necessary"  labour-time,  and  the 
labour  expended  during  that  time  I  call  ''necessary"  labour.* 
Necessary,  as  regards  the  labourer,  because  independent  of  the 
particular  social  form  of  his  labour;  necessary,  as  regards 
capital,  and  the  world  of  capitalists,  because  on  the  continued 
existence  of  the  labourer  depends  their  existence  also. 

During  the  second  period  of  the  labour-process,  that  in 
which  his  labour  is  no  longer  necessary  labour,  the  workman, 
it  is  true,  labours,  expends  labour-power ;  but  his  labour,  being 
no  longer  necessary  labour,  he  creates  no  value  for  himself. 
He  creates  surplus-value  which,  for  the  capitalist,  has  all  the 
charms  of  a  creation  out  of  nothing.     This  portion  of  the 

*  In  this  work,  we  have,  up  to  now,  employed  the  term  "necessary  labour-time," 
to  designate  the  time  r.ecessary  under  given  social  conditions  for  the  production  of 
any  commodity.  Henceforward  we  use  it  to  designate  also  the  time  necessary  for 
the  production  of  the  particular  commodity  labour-power.  The  use  of  one  and  the 
same  technical  term  in  different  senses  is  inconvenient,  but  in  no  science  can  it  be 
altogether  avoided.  Compare,  for  instance,  the  higher  with  the  lower  branches  of 
mathematics. 


The  Rate  of  Surplus-value.  241 

working  day,  I  name  surplus  labour-time,  and  to  the  labour 
expended  during  that  time,  I  give  the  name  of  surplus-labour. 
It  is  every  bit  as  important,  for  a^  correct  understanding  of 
surplus-value,  to  conceive  it  as  a  mere  congelation  of  surplus- 
labour-time,  as  nothing  but  materialised  surplus-labour,  as  it 
is,  for  a  proper  comprehension  of  value,  to  conceive  it  as  a  mere 
congelation  of  so  many  hours  of  labour,  as  nothing  but  ma- 
terialised labour.  The  essential  difference  between  the  various 
economic  forms  of  society,  between,  for  instance,  a  society 
based  on  slave  labour,  and  one  based  on  wage  labour,  lies  only 
in  the  mode  in  which  this  surplus-labour  is  in  each  case  ex- 
tracted from  the  actual  producer,  the  labourer.^ 

Since,  on  the  one  hand,  the  values  of  the  variable  capital 
and  of  the  labour-power  purchased  by  that  capital  are  equal, 
and  the  value  of  this  labour-power  determines  the  necessary 
portion  of  the  working  day ;  and  since,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
surplus-value  is  determined  by  the  surplus  portion  of  the 
working  day,  it  follows  that  surplus-value  bears  the  same  ratio 
to  variable  capital,  that  surplus-labour  does  to  necessary  labour, 

.1  1        ,1  ,  c  1  1  s  surplus  labor 

or  m  other  words,  the  rate  of  surplus-value  -^=  necessary  labor 
Both  ratios, -7  and  necessary ^abor  ©xprcss  the  same  thing  in  differ- 
ent ways;  in  the  one  case  by  reference  to  materialised,  incor- 
porated labour,  in  the  other  by  reference  to  living,  fluent 
labour. 

The  rate  of  surplus-value  is  therefore  an  exact  expression 
for  the  degree  of  exploitation  of  labour-power  by  capital,  or  of 
the  labourer  by  the  capitalist.^ 

*  Herr  Wilhelm  Thucydides  Roscher  has  found  a  mare's  nest.  He  has  made  the 
important  discovery  that  if,  on  the  one  hand,  the  formation  of  surplus-value,  or 
surplus-produce,  and  the  consequent  accumulation  of  capital,  is  now-a-days  due  to 
the  thrift  of  the  capitalist,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  lowest  stages  of  civilisation  it 
is  the  strong  who  compel  the  weak  to  economise  (1.  c.  p.  78).  To  economise  what? 
Labour?  Or  superfluous  wealth  that  does  not  exist?  What  is  it  that  makes  such 
men  as  Roscher  account  for  the  origin  of  surplus-value,  by  a  mere  rechauffe  of  the 
more  or  less  plausible  excuses  by  the  capitalist,  for  his  appropriation  of  surplus- 
value?  It  is,  besides  their  real  ignorance,  their  apologetic  dread  of  a  scientific 
analysis  of  value  and  surplus-value,  and  of  obtaining  a  result,  possibly  not  alto- 
gether palatable  to  the  powers  that  be. 

^  Although  the  rate  of  surplus-value  is  an  exact  expression  for  the  degree  of  ex- 
ploitation of  labour-power,  it  is,  in  no  sense,  an  expression  for  the  absolute  amount 
of  exploitation.  For  example,  if  the  necessary  labour=5  hours  and  the  surplus-la- 
bour=5  hours,   the   degree   of  exploitation   is  100%.     The  amount  of  exploitation   is 

P 


242  Capitalisi  Production. 

We  assumed  in  our  example,  that  the  vahie  of  the  product 
=£410  const. +£90  var.-f-£90  surpl.,  and  that  the  capital 
advanced  =:£500.  Since  the  surplus-value=£90,  and  the  ad- 
vanced capital=£500,  we  should,  according  to  the  usual  way 
•of  reckoning,  get  as  the  rate  of  surplus  value  (generally  con- 
founded with  rate  of  profits)  18%,  a  rate  so  low  as  possibly 
to  cause  a  pleasant  surprise  to  Mr.  Carey  and  other  harmon- 
isers.  But  in  truth,  the  rate  of  surplus-value  is  not  equal 
to  7  or  ^  but  to  -f :  thus  it  is  not  |^  but  f^  or  100%,  which 
is  more  than  five  times  the  apparent  degree  of  exploitation. 
Although,  in  the  case  we  have  supposed,  we  are  ignorant  of 
the  actual  length  of  the  working  day,  and  of  the  duration  in 
days  or  weeks  of  the  labour-process,  as  also  of  the  number  of 
labourers  employed,  yet  the  rate  of  surplus-value  -7  accurately 

T.-i  ,  1  /•.,  'li  •  surplus  labor 

discloses  to  us,  by  means  01  its  equivalent  expression,  necessary  labor 
the  relation  between  the  two  parts  of  the  working  day.  This 
relation  is  here  one  of  equality,  the  rate  being  100%.  Hence, 
it  is  plain,  the  labourer,  in  our  example,  works  one  half  of  the 
day  for  himself,  the  other  half  for  the  capitalist. 

The  method  of  calculating  the  rate  of  surplus  value  is  there- 
fore, shortly,  as  follows.  We  take  the  total  value  of  the  pro- 
duct and  put  the  constant  capital  which  merely  re-appears  in  it, 
equal  to  zero.  What  remains,  is  the  only  value  that  has,  in 
the  process  of  producing  the  commodity,  been  actually  created. 
If  the  amount  of  surplus-value  be  given,  we  have  only  to  deduct 
it  from  this  remainder,  to  find  the  variable  capital.  And  vice 
versa,  if  the  latter  be  given,  and  we  require  to  find  the  surplus- 
value.  If  both  be  given,  we  have  only  to  perform  the  conclud- 
ing operation,  viz.,  to  calculate  -^  ,  the  ratio  of  the  surplus- 
value  to  the  variable  capital. 

Though  the  method  is  so  simple,  yet  it  may  not  be  amiss,  by 
means  of  a  few  examples,  to  exercise  the  reader  in  the  applica- 
tion of  the  novel  principles  underlying  it. 

First  we  will  take  the  case  of  a  spinning  mill  containing 

here  measured  by  5  hours.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  necessary  labour=6  hours 
and  the  surplus-Iabour=6  hours,  the  degree  of  exploitation  remains,  as  before, 
100%,  while  the  actual  amount  of  exploitation  has  increased  20%,  namely  from  five 
hours  to  six. 


The  Rate  of  Surplus-value.  243 

10,000  mule  spindles,  spinning  No.  32  yam  from  American 
cotton,  and  producing  1  lb.  of  yarn  weekly  per  spindle.  We 
assume  the  waste  to  be  6%  :  under  these  circumstances  10,600 
lbs.  of  cotton  are  consumed  weekly,  of  which  600  lbs.  go  to 
waste.  The  price  of  the  cotton  in  April,  1871,  was  Vf  d.  per 
lb, ;  the  raw  material  therefore  costs  in  round  numbers  £342. 
The  10,000  spindles,  including  preparation-machinery,  and 
motive  power,  cost,  we  will  assume,  £1  per  spindle,  amounting 
to  a  total  of  £10,000.  The  wear  and  tear  we  put  at  10%,  or 
£1000  yearly=£20  weekly.  The  rent  of  the  building  we 
suppose  to  be  £300  a  year  or  £6  a  week.  Coal  consumed  (for 
100  horse-power  indicated,  at  4  lbs.  of  coal  per  horse-power  per 
hour  during  60  hours,  and  inclusive  of  that  consumed  in  heat- 
ing the  mill),  11  tons  a  week  at  8s.  6d.  a  ton,  amounts  to 
about  £4^  a  week :  gas,  £1  a  week,  oil,  &c.,  £4^  a  week.  Total 
cost  of  the  above  auxiliary  materials,  £10  weekly.  Therefore 
the  constant  portion  of  the  value  of  the  week's  product  is  £378. 
Wages  amount  to  £52  a  week.  The  price  of  the  yarn  is  12;|d. 
per  lb.,  which  gives  for  the  value  of  10,000  lbs.  the  sum  of 
£510.  The  surplus  value  is  therefore  in  this  case  £510 — 
£430 ^£80.  We  put  the  constant  part  of  the  value  of  the 
product=0,  as  it  plays  no  part  in  the  creation  of  value.  There 
remains  £132  as  the  weekly  value  created,  which=£52  var.4- 
£80  surpl.  The  rate  of  surplus-value  is  therefore  f  j  = 
153y|-%.     In  a  working  day  of  iJ  hours  with  average  labour 

the  result  is:  necessary  labour =3f|-hours  and  surplus-labour 

a  2    1 

— o^^- 

One  more  example.  Jacob  gives  the  following  calculation 
for  the  year  1815.  Owing  to  the  previous  adjustment  of  sev- 
eral items  it  is  very  imperfect ;  nevertheless  for  our  purpose  it 
is  sufficient.  In  it  he  assumes  the  price  of  wheat  to  be  8s.  a 
quarter,  and  the  average  yield  per  acre  to  be  22  bushels. 

*  The  above  data,  which  may  be  relied  upon,  were  given  me  by  a  Manchester  spin- 
ner. In  England  the  horse-power  of  an  engine  was  formerly  calculated  from  the 
diameter  of  its  cylinder,  now  the  actual  horse-oower  shown  by  the  indicator  is  taken. 


244  Capitalist  Production. 


Value  Produced  Per  Acre. 


Seed,    £1     9     0 

:MaTiiire,     2   10     0 

V/ages,    3  10     0 


Total,    . .   £7     9     0 


Tithes,  Rates,  and 

Taxes,    £1     1     0 

Pient    1     8     0 

Farmer's    Profit    and 

Interest,     1     2     0 


Total,    .  .    £3   11     0 


Assuming  that  the  price  of  the  product  is  the  same  as  its 
value,  we  here  find  the  surplus-value  distributed  under  the 
various  heads  of  profit,  interest,  rent,  &c.  We  have  nothing 
to  do  with  these  in  detail ;  we  simply  add  them  together,  and 
the  sum  is  a  surplus-value  of  £3  lis.  Od.  The  sum  of  £3 
19.S.  Od.,  paid  for  seed  and  manure,  is  constant  capital,  and  wo 
put  it  equal  to  zero.  There  is  left  the  sura  of  £3  10s.  Od., 
which  is  the  variable  capital  advanced:  and  we  see  that  a  new 
value  of  £3  10s.  0d.+£3  lis.  Od.  has  been  produced  in  its 
place.  Therefore  i  =  f 3  Hi'  If  ,  giving  a  rate  of  surplus- 
value  of  more  than  100%.  The  labourer  employs  more  than 
one  half  of  his  working  day  in  producing  the  surplus-value, 
which  different  persons,  under  different  pretexts,  share 
amongst  themselves.^ 

SECTION  2. — the  representation  of  the  components  of 

THE  value  of  the  PRODUCT  BY  CORRESPONDING  PRO- 
PORTIONAL PARTS  OF  THE  PRODUCT  ITSELF. 

Let  us  now  return  to  the  example  by  which  we  were  shown 
how  the  capitalist  converts  money  into  capital. 

The  product  of  a  working  day  of  12  hours  is  20  lbs.  of 
yam,  having  a  value  of  30s.  Xo  less  than-j^ths  of  this  value, 
or  2-ls.,  is  due  to  mere  re-appearance  in  it,  of  the  value  of  the 

•  The  calcuhtions  given  in  the  text  are  intended  merely  as  illustrations.  We  have 
in  fact  assumed  that  price^=values.  We  shall,  however,  see,  in  volume  III.,  tliat 
even  in  the  case  of  average  prices  the  assumption  cannot  be  made  in  this  very  sim- 
ple manner. 


The  Rate  of  Surplus-value.  245 

means  of  production  (20  lbs.  of  cotton,  value  20s.,  and  spindle 
worn  away,  4s.)  :  it  is  therefore  constant  capital.  The  re- 
maining y^^  ths  or  6s.  is  the  new  value  created  during  the  spin- 
ning process :  of  this  one  half  replaces  the  value  of  the  day's 
labour-power,  or  the  variable  capital,  the  remaining  half  con- 
stitutes a  surplus-value  of  3s.  The  total  value  then  of  the  20 
lbs.  of  yam  is  made  up  as  follows : 

30s.  value  of  yarn =24  const. -f- 3s.  var.-l-3s.  surpl. 

Since  the  whole  of  the  value  is  contained  in  the  20  lbs.  of 
yarn  produced,  it  follows  that  the  various  component  parts  of 
this  value,  can  be  represented  as  being  contained  respectively 
in  corresponding  parts  of  the  product. 

If  the  value  of  30s.  is  contained  in  20  lbs.  of  yarn,  then 
^ths  of  this  value,  or  the  24s.  that  form  its  constant  part,  is 
contained  in  ^^ths  of  the  product  or  in  16  lbs.  of  yam.  Of 
the  latter  13^  lbs.  represent  the  value  of  the  raw  material,  the 
20s.  worth  of  cotton  spun,  and  2f  lbs.  represent  the  4s.  worth 
of  spindle,  &c,,  worn  away  in  the  process. 

Hence  the  whole  of  the  cotton  used  up  in  spinning  the  20 
lbs.  of  yarn,  is  represented  by  13^  lbs.  of  yarn.  This  latter 
weight  of  yarn  contains,  it  is  true,  by  weight,  no  more  than  13^ 
lbs.  of  cotton,  worth  13-J  shillings;  but  the  6f  shillings  ad- 
ditional value  contained  in  it,  are  the  equivalent  for  the  cotton 
consumed  in  spinning  the  remaining  6f  lbs.  of  yarn.  The 
effect  is  the  same  as  if  these  6f  lbs.  of  yam  contained  no  cot- 
ton at  all,  and  the  whole  20  lbs.  of  cotton  were  concentrated  in 
the  13  J  lbs.  of  yarn.  The  latter  weight,  on  the  other  hand, 
does  not  contain  an  atom  either  of  the  value  of  the  auxiliary 
materials  and  implements,  or  of  the  value  newly  created  in  the 
process. 

In  the  same  way,  the  2f  lbs.  of  yam,  in  which  the  4s.,  the 
remainder  of  the  constant  capital,  is  embodied,  represents 
nothing  but  the  value  of  the  auxiliary  materials  and  instru- 
ments of  labour  consumed  in  producing  the  20  lbs.  of  yarn. 

We  have,  therefore,  arrived  at  this  result:  although  eight- 
tenths  of  the  product,  or  16  lbs.  of  yarn,  is,  in  its  character  of 
an  article  of  utility,  just  as  much  the  fabric  of  the  spinner's 
hibour,  as  the  remainder  of  the  same  product,  yet  when  viewed 


246  Capitalist  Production. 

in  this  connexion,  it  does  not  contain,  and  has  not  absorbed  any 
labour  expended  during  the  process  of  spinning.  It  is  just  as 
if  the  cotton  had  converted  itself  into  yarn,  without  help ;  as 
if  the  shape  it  had  assumed  was  mere  trickery  and  deceit: 
for  80  soon  as  our  capitalist  sells  it  for  24s.,  and  with  the  money 
replaces  his  means  of  production,  it  becomes  evident  that  this 
16  lbs.  of  yarn  is  nothing  more  than  so  much  cotton  and  spindle- 
waste  in  disguise. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  remaining  ^ths  of  the  product,  or  4 
lbs.  of-yarn,  represent  nothing  but  the  new  value  of  6s.,  created 
during  the  12  hours'  spinning  process.  All  the  value  trans- 
ferred to  those  4  lbs.,  from  the  raw  material  and  instruments 
of  labour  consumed,  was,  so  to  say,  intercepted  in  order  to  bo 
incorporated  in  the  16  lbs.  first  spun.  In  this  case,  it  is  as  if 
the  spinner  had  spun  4  lbs.  of  yarn  out  of  air,  or,  as  if  he  had 
spun  them  with  the  aid  of  cotton  and  spindles,  that,  being  the 
spontaneous  gift  of  Nature,  transferred  no  value  to  the  product. 

Of  this  4  lbs.  of  yam,  in  which  the  whole  of  the  value  newly 
created  during  the  process,  is  condensed,  one  half  represents 
the  equivalent  for  the  value  of  the  labour  consumed,  or  the  3s. 
variable  capital,  the  other  half  represents  the  3s.  surplus-value. 

Since  12  working  hours  of  the  spinner  are  embodied  in  68., 
it  follows  that  in  yam  of  the  value  of  30s.,  there  must  be  em- 
bodied 60  working  hours.  And  this  quantity  of  labour-time 
does  in  fact  exist  in  the  20  lbs.  of  yam ;  for  in  o^ths  or  16  lbs. 
there  are  materialised  the  48  hours  of  labour  expended,  before 
the  commencement  of  the  spinning  process,  on  the  means  of 
production ;  and  in  the  remaining  y\ths  or  4  lbs.  there  are 
materialised  the  12  hours'  work  done  during  the  process  itself. 

On  a  former  page  we  saw  that  the  value  of  the  yarn  is  equal 
to  the  sum  of  the  new  value  created  during  the  production  of 
that  yam  plus  the  value  previously  existing  in  the  means  of 
production. 

It  has  now  been  shown  how  the  various  component  parts  of 
the  value  of  the  product,  parts  that  differ  functionally  from 
each  other,  may  be  represented  by  corresponding  proportional 
parts  of  the  product  itself. 

To  split  up  in  this  manner  the  product  into  different  parts, 


The  Rate  of  Surplus-value.  247 

of  which  one  represents  only  the  labour  previously  spent  on 
the  means  of  production,  or  the  constant  capital,  another,  only 
the  necessary  labour  spent  during  the  process  of  production,  or 
the  variable  capital,  and  another  and  last  part,  only  the  surplus- 
labour  expended  during  the  same  process,  or  the  surplus-value ; 
to  do  this,  is,  as  will  be  seen  later  on  from  its  application  to 
complicated  and  hitherto  unsolved  problems,  no  less  important 
than  it  is  simple. 

In  the  preceding  investigation  we  have  treated  the  total 
product  as  the  final  result,  ready  for  use,  of  a  working  day  of 
12  hours.  We  can  however  follow  this  total  product  through 
all  the  stages  of  its  production;  and  in  this  way  we  shall 
arrive  at  the  same  result  as  before,  if  we  represent  the  partial 
products,  given  off  at  the  different  stages,  as  functionally 
different  parts  of  the  final  or  total  product. 

The  spinner  produces  in  12  hours  20  lbs.  of  yarn,  or  in  1 
hour  If  lbs. ;  consequently  he  produces  in  8  hours  13^  lbs.,  or 
a  partial  product  equal  in  value  to  all  the  cotton  that  is  spun 
in  a  whole  day.  In  like  manner  the  partial  product  of  the 
next  period  of  1  hour  and  36  minutes,  is  2f  lbs.  of  yarn :  this 
represents  the  value  of  the  instruments  of  labour  that  are  con- 
sumed in  12  hours.  In  the  following  hour  and  12  minutes, 
the  spinner  produces  2  lbs.  of  yarn  worth  3  shillings,  a  value 
equal  to  the  whole  value  he  creates  in  his  6  hours  necessary 
labour.  Finally,  in  the  last  hour  and  12  minutes  he  produces 
another  2  lbs.  of  yarn,  whose  value  is  equal  to  the  surplus- 
value,  created  by  his  surplus-labour  during  half  a  day.  This 
method  of  calculation  serves  the  English  manufacturer  for 
everyday  use ;  it  shows,  he  will  say,  that  in  the  first  8  hours, 
or  f  of  the  working  day,  he  gets  back  the  value  of  his  cotton ; 
and  so  on  for  the  remaining  hours.  It  is  also  a  perfectly 
correct  method :  being  in  fact  the  first  method  given  above 
with  this  difference,  that  instead  of  being  applied  to  space,  in 
which  the  different  parts  of  the  completed  product  lie  side  by 
side,  it  deals  with  time,  in  which  those  parts  are  successively 
produced.  But  it  can  also  be  accompanied  by  very  barbarian 
notions,  more  especially  in  the  heads  of  those  who  are  as  much 
interested,  practically,  in  the  process  of  making  value  beget 


248  Capitalist  Production. 

value,  as  they  are  in  misunderstanding  that  process  theoreti- 
cally. Such  people  may  get  the  notion  into  their  heads,  that 
one  spinner,  for  example,  produces  or  replaces  in  the  first  8 
hours  of  his  working  day  the  value  of  the  cotton ;  in  the 
following  hour  and  36  minutes  the  value  of  the  instruments  of 
labour  worn  away ;  in  the  next  hour  and  12  minutes  the  value 
of  the  wages ;  and  that  he  devotes  to  the  production  of  surplus- 
value  for  the  manufacturer,  only  that  well  known  "last  hour." 
In  this  way  the  poor  spinner  is  made  to  perform  the  two-fold 
miracle  not  only  of  producing  cotton,  spindles,  steam-engine, 
coal,  oil,  &c.,  at  the  same  time  that  he  spins  with  them,  but 
also  of  turning  one  working  day  into  five ;  for  in,  the  example 
we  are  considering,  the  production  of  the  raw  material  and  in- 
struments of  labour  demands  four  working  days  of  twelve 
hours  each,  and  their  conversion  into  yarn  requires  another 
such  day.  That  the  love  of  lucre  induces  an  easy  belief  in 
such  miracles,  and  that  sycophant  doctrinaires  are  never 
wanting  to  prove  them,  is  vouched  for  by  the  following  inci- 
dent of  historical  celebrity. 

SECTION  3. — senior's  "last  houb." 

One  fine  morning,  in  the  year  1836,  Nassau  W.  Senior,  who 
may  be  called  the  bel-esprit  of  English  economists,  well  known, 
alike  for  his  economical  "science,"  and  for  his  beautiful  style, 
was  summoned  from  Oxford  to  Manchester,  to  learn  in  the 
latter  place  the  political  economy  that  he  taught  in  the  former. 
The  manufacturers  elected  him  as  their  champion,  not  only 
against  the  newly  passed  Factory  Act,  but  against  the  still 
more  menacing  Ten-hours'  agitation.  With  their  usual  prac- 
tical acuteness,  they  had  found  out  that  the  learned  Professor 
"wanted  a  good  deal  of  finishing;"  it  was  this  discovery  that 
caused  them  to  write  for  him.  On  his  side  the  Professor  has 
embodied  the  lecture  he  received  from  the  Manchester  manu- 
facturers, in  a  pamphlet,  entitled:  "Letters  on  the  Factory 
Act,  as  it  affects  the  cotton  manufacture."  London,  1837. 
Here  we  find,  amongst  others,  the  following  edifying  passage: 
"Under  the  present  law,  no  mill  in  which  persons  under  18 
years  of  age   are  employed, can   be  worked 


The  Rate  of  Surplus-value.  249 

more  than  11^  hours  a  day,  that  is  12  hours  for  5  days  in  the 
week,  and  nine  on  Saturday. 

"]^ow  the  following  analysis  (  !)  will  show  that  in  a  mill  so 
worked,  the  whole  net  profit  is  derived  from  the  last  hour.  I 
will  suppose  a  manufacturer  to  invest  £100,000 : — £80,000  in 
his  mill  and  machinery,  and  £20,000  in  raw  material  and 
wages.  The  annual  return  of  that  mill,  supposing  the  capital 
to  be  turned  once  a  year,  and  gross  profits  to  be  15  per  cent., 

ought  to  be  goods  worth  £115,000 Of  this 

£115,000,  each  of  the  twenty-three  half -hours  of  work  pro- 
duces 5-115ths  or  one  twenty-third.  Of  these  23-23rds  (con- 
stituting the  whole  £115,000)  twenty,  that  is  to  say  £100,000 
out  of  the  £115,000,  simply  replace  the  capital; — one  twenty- 
third  (or  £5000  out  of  the  £115,000)  makes  up  for  the  de- 
terioration of  the  mill  and  machinery.  The  remaining 
2-23rds,  that  is,  the  last  two  of  the  twenty- three  half -hours  of 
every  day,  produce  the  net  profit  of  10  per  cent.  If,  there- ^ 
fore  (prices  remaining  the  same),  the  factory  could  be  kept  at 
work  thirteen  hours  instead  of  eleven  and  a  half,  with  an 
addition  of  about  £2600  to  the  circulating  capital,  the  net 
profit  would  be  more  than  doubled.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the 
hours  of  working  were  reduced  by  one  hour  per  day  (prices 
remaining  the  same),  the  net  profit  would  be  destroyed — if 
they  were  reduced  by  one  hour  and  a  half,  even  the  gross  profit 
would  be  destroyed."^ 

*  Senior,  1.  c,  p.  12,  13.  We  let  pass  such  extraordinary  notions  as  are  of  no  im- 
portance for  our  purpose;  for  instance,  the  assertion,  that  manufacturers  reckon  as 
part  of  their  profit,  gross  or  net,  the  amount  required  to  make  good  wear  and  tear  of 
machinery,  or  in  other  words,  to  replace  a  part  of  the  capital.  So,  too,  we  pass  over 
any  question  as  to  the  accuracy  of  his  figures.  Leonard  Horner  has  shown  in  "A 
Letter  to  Mr.  Senior,"  &c.,  London,  1837,  that  they  are  worth  no  more  than  the  so- 
called  "Analysis."  Leonard  Horner  was  one  of  the  Factory  Inquiry  Commissioners 
in  1833,  and  Inspector,  or  rather  Censor  of  Factories  till  1859.  He  rendered  undy- 
ing service  to  the  English  working  class.  He  carried  on  a  life-long  contest,  not 
only  with  the  embittered  manufacturers,  but  also  with  the  Cabinet,  to  whom  the 
number  of  votes  g[iven  by  the  masters  in  the  Lower  House,  was  a  matter  of  far 
greater  importance  than  the  number  of  hours  worked  by  the  "hands"  in  the  mills. 

Apart  from  errors  in  principle,  Senior's  statement  is  confused.  What  he  really 
intended  to  say  was  this:  The  manufacturer  employs  the  workman  for  IIJ/2  hours 
or  for  23  half-hours  daily.  As  the  working  day,  so,  too,  the  working  year,  may  be 
conceived  to  consist  of  11 5^2  hours  or  23  half-hours,  but  each  multiplied  by  the 
number  of  working  days  in  the  year.  On  this  supposition,  the  23  half-hours  yield 
an  annual  product  of  £115,000;  one  half-hour  yields ^^g.  X  £115,000;  20  half-hours 
yield  1^  X  £115,000;    =£100,000,    i.e.,    they    replace    no    more    than   the   capital    ad- 


250  Capitalist  Production. 

And  the  professor  calls  this  an  "analysis!"  If,  giving 
credence  to  the  out-cries  of  the  manufacturers,  he  believed  that 
the  workmen  spend  the  best  part  of  the  day  in  the  production, 
i.  e.,  the  reproduction  or  replacement  of  the  value  of  the  build- 
ings, machinery,  cotton,  coal,  &c.,  then  his  analysis  was  super- 
fluous. His  answer  would  simply  have  been : — Gentlemen ! 
if  you  work  your  mills  for  10  hours  instead  of  11^,  then,  other 
things  being  equal,  the  daily  consumption  of  cotton,  machinery, 
&c.,  will  decrease  in  proportion.  You  gain  just  as  much  as 
you  lose.  Your  work-people  will  in  future  spend  one  hour 
and  a  half  less  time  in  producing  or  replacing  the  capital 
that  has  been  advanced. — If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  did  not 
believe  them  without  further  inquiry,  but,  as  being  an  expert 
in  such  matters,  deemed  an  analysis  necessary,  then  he  ought, 
in  a  question  that  is  concerned  exclusively  with  the  relations 
of  net  profit  to  the  length  of  the  working  day,  before  all  things 
to  have  asked  the  manufacturers,  to  be  careful  not  to  lump 
together  machinery,  workshops,  raw  material,  and  labour,  but 
to  be  good  enough  to  place  the  constant  capital,  invested  in 
buildings,  machinery,  raw  material,  &c.,  on  one  side  of  the 
account,  and  the  capital  advanced  in  wages  on  the  other  side. 
If  the  professor  then  found,  that  in  accordance  with  the  calcu- 
lation of  the  manufacturers,  the  workman  reproduced  or  re- 
placed his  wages  in  2  half -hours,  in  that  case,  he  should  have 
continued  his  analysis  thus : 

According  to  your  figures,  the  workman  in  the  last  hour  but 
one  produces  his  wages,  and  in  the  last  hour  your  surplus- 
value  or  net  profit.  Now,  since  in  equal  periods  he  produces 
equal  values,  the  produce  of  the  last  hour  but  one,  must  have 
the  same  value  as  that  of  the  last  hour.  Further,  it  is  only 
while  he  labours  that  he  produces  any  value  at  all,  and  the 
amount  of  his  labour  is  measured  by  his  labour-time.  This 
you  say,  amounts  to  11^  hours  a  day.  He  employs  one  portion 
of  these  11^  hours,  in  producing  or  replacing  his  wages,  and 

vanced.  There  remain  3  half-hours,  which  yield  X  X  £115,000=  £16,000  or  the 
gross  profit.  Of  these  3  half-hours,  one  yields  ^X  £115,000=  £5000;  i.  e.,  it 
makes  up  for  the  wear  and  tear  of  the  machinery;  the  remaining  2  half-hours,  i.e., 
the  last  hour,  yield  A  X  £116,000=  £10,000  or  the  net  profit  In  the  text  Senior 
converts  theVlast  JL  of  the  prodtict  into  portions  of  the  working  day  itself. 


The  Rate  of  Surplus-value,  251 

the  remaining  portion  in  producing  your  net  profit.     Beyond 
this  he  does  absolutely  nothing.     But  since,  on  your  assump- 
tion, his  wages,  and  the  surplus-value  he  yields,  are  of  equal 
value,  it  is  clear  that  he  produces  his  wages  in  5f  hours,  and 
your  net  profit  in  the  other  5|  hours.     Again,  since  the  value 
of  the  yarn  produced  in  2  hours,  is  equal  to  the  sum  of  the 
values  of  his  wages  and  of  your  net  profit,  the  measure  of  the 
value  of  this  yarn  must  be  11|-  working  hours,  of  which  5f 
hours  measure  the  value  of  the  yarn  produced  in  the  last  hour 
but  one,  and  5f,  the  value  of  the  yarn  produced  in  the  last 
hour.     We  now  come  to  a  ticklish  point ;  therefore,  attention  ! 
The  last  working  hour  but  one  is,  like  the  first,  an  ordinary 
working  hour,    neither   more   nor  less.     How   then   can   the 
spinner  produce  in  one  hour,  in  the  shape  of  yam,  a  value  that 
embodies  5f  hours  labour  ?     The  truth  is  that  he  performs  no 
such  miracle.     The  use-value  produced  by  him  in  one  hour,  is 
a  definite  quantity  of  yarn.     The  value  of  this  yarn  is  meas- 
ured by  5f  working  hours,  of  which  4f  were,  without  any 
assistance  from  him,  previously  embodied  in  the  means  of 
production,  in  the  cotton,  the  machinery,  and  so  on;  the  re- 
maining one  hour  is  added  by  him.     Therefore  since  his  wages 
are  produced  in  5f  hours,  and  the  yam  produced  in  one  hour 
also  contains  5f  hours'  work,  there  is  no  witchcraft  in  the  re- 
sult, that  the  value  created  by  his  5f  hours'  spinning,  is  equal 
to  the  value  of  the  product  spun  in  one  hour.     You  are  alto- 
gether on  the  wrong  track,,  if  you  think  that  he  loses  a  single 
moment  of  his  working  day,  in  reproducing  or  replacing  the 
values  of  the  cotton,  the  machinery,  and  so  on.     On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  because  his  labour  converts  the  cotton  and  spindles 
into  yam,  because  he  spins,  that  the  values  of  the  cotton  and 
spindles  go  over  to  the  yarn  of  their  own  accord.     This  result 
is  owing  to  the  quality  of  his  labour,  not  to  its  quantity.     It  is 
true,  he  will  in  one  hour  tranfer  to  the  yam  more  value,  in  the 
shape  of  cotton,  than  he  will  in  half  an  hour ;  but  that  is  only 
because  in  one  hour  he  spins  up  more  cotton  than  in  half  an 
hour.     You  see  then,  your  assertion,  that  the  workman  pro- 
duces, in  the  last  hour  but  one,  the  value  of  his  wages,  and  in 
the  last  hour  your  net  profit,  amounts  to  no  more  than  this, 


252  Capitalist  Production. 

that  in  the  yarn  produced  by  him  in  2  working  honrs,  whether 
they  are  the  2  first  or  the  2  last  hours  of  the  working  day,  in 
that  yarn,  there  are  incorporated  11^  working  hours,  or  just  a 
whole  day's  work,  i.  e.,  two  hours  of  his  own  work  and  9|  hours 
of  other  people's.  And  my  assertion  that,  in  the  first  5|  hours, 
he  produces  his  wages,  and  in  the  last  5f  hours  your  net  profit, 
amounts  only  to  this,  that  you  pay  him  for  the  former,  but  not 
for  the  latter.  In  speaking  of  payment  of  labour,  instead  of 
payment  of  labour-power,  I  only  talk  your  own  slang.  Now, 
gentlemen,  if  you  compare  the  working  time  you  pay  for,  with 
that  which  you  do  not  pay  for,  you  will  find  that  they  are  to 
one  another,  as  half  a  day  is  to  half  a  day ;  this  gives  a  rate  of 
100%,  and  a  very  pretty  percentage  it  is.  Further,  there  is 
not  the  least  doubt,  that  if  you  make  your  "hands"  toil  for  13 
hours  instead  of  11^,  and,  as  may  be  expected  from  you,  treat 
the  work  done  in  that  extra  one  hour  and  a  half,  as  pure 
surplus-labour,  then  the  latter  will  be  increased  from  5f  hours' 
labour  to  Y^  hours'  labour,  and  the  rate  of  surplus-value  from 
100%,  to  126-^%.  So  that  you  are  altogether  too  sanguine, 
in  expecting  that  by  such  an  addition  of  1^  hours  to  the  work- 
ing day,  the  rate  will  rise  from  100%  to  200%  and  more,  in 
other  words  that  it  will  be  "more  than  doubled."  On  the  other 
hand — man's  heart  is  a  wonderful  thing,  especially  when  car- 
ried in  the  purse — you  take  too  pessimistic  a  view,  when  you 
fear,  that  with  a  reduction  of  the  hours  of  labour  from  11^  to 
10,  the  whole  of  your  net  profit  will  go  to  the  dogs.  Not  at 
all.  All  other  conditions  remaining  the  same,  the  surplus- 
labour  will  fall  from  5f  hours  to  4|  hours,  a  period  that  still 
gives  a  very  profitable  rate  of  surplus-value,  namely  82|4%' 
But  this  dreadful  "last  hour,"  about  which  you  have  invented 
more  stories  than  have  the  millenarians  about  the  day  of 
judgment,  is  "all  bosh."  If  it  goes,  it  will  cost  neither  you, 
your  net  profit,  nor  the  boys  and  girls  whom  you  employ,  their 
"purity  of  mind."*     Whenever  your  "last  hour"  strikes  in 

'  If,  on  the  one  band,  Senior  proved  that  the  net  profit  of  the  manufacturer, 
the  existence  of  the  English  cotton  industry,  and  England's  command  of  the  markets 
of  the  world,  depend  on  "the  last  working  hour,"  on  th^  other  hand.  Dr.  Andrew 
Ure  showed,  that  if  children  and  young  persons  under  18  years  of  age,  instead  of  be- 
ing kept  the  full  12  hours  in  the  warm  and  pure  moral  atmosphere  of  the  factory, 


The  Rate  of  Surplus-value.  253 

earnest,  think  on  the  Oxford  Professor.  And  now,  gentleman, 
"farewell,  and  may  we  meet  again  in  yonder  better  world,  but 
not  before." 

Senior  invented  the  battle  cry  of  the  "last  hour"  in  183G.^ 

are  turned  out  an  hour  sooner  into  the  heartless  and  frivolous  outer  world,  they  will 
be  deprived,  by  idleness  and  vice,  of  all  hope  of  salvation  for  their  souls.  Since 
1848,  the  factory  inspectors  have  never  tired  of  twitting  the  masters  with  this  "last,"' 
this  "fatal  hour."  Thus  Mr.  Howell  in  his  report  of  the  31st  May,  1855:  "Had 
the  following  ingenious  calculation  (he  quotes  Senior)  been  correct,  every  cotton 
factory  in  the  United  Kingdom  would  have  been  working  at  a  loss  since  the  year 
1850."  (Reports  of  the  Insp.  of  Fact,  for  the  half-year,  ending  30th  April,  1855, 
pp.  19,  20.)  In  the  year  1848,  after  the  passing  of  the  10  hour's  bill,  the  masters 
of  some  flax  spinning  mills,  scattered,  few  and  far  between,  over  the  country  on  the 
borders  of  Dorset  and  Somerset,  foisted  a  petition  against  the  bill  on  to  the  shoul- 
ders of  a  few  of  their  work  people.  One  of  the  clauses  of  this  petition  is  as  fol- 
lows: "Your  petitioners,  as  parents,  conceive  that  an  additional  hour  of  leisure  will 
tend  more  to  demoralise  the  children  than  otherwise,  believing  that  idleness  is  the 
parent  of  vice."  On  this  the  factory  report  of  31st  Oct.,  1848,  says:  The  atmos- 
phere of  the  flax  mills,  in  which  the  children  of  these  virtuous  and  tender  parents 
work,  is  so  loaded  with  dust  and  fibre  from  the  raw  material,  that  it  is  exception- 
ally unpleasant  to  stand  even  10  minutes  in  the  spinning  rooms:  for  you  arc  unable 
to  do  so  without  the  most  painful  sensation,  owing  to  the  eyes,  the  ears,  the  nostrils, 
and  mouth,  being  immediately  filled  by  the  clouds  of  flax  dust  from  which  there  is 
no  escape.  The  labour  itself,  owing  to  the  feverish  haste  of  the  machinery,  demands 
unceasing  application  of  skill  and  movement,  under  the  control  of  a  watchfulness 
that  never  tires,  and  it  seems  somewhat  hard,  to  let  parents  apply  the  term  "idling" 
to  their  own  children,  who,  after  allowing  for  meal  times,  are  fettered  for  10  whole 
hours  to  such  an  occupation,  in  such  an  atmosphere.      .      .      .     These  children  work 

longer  than  the  labourers  in  the  neighbouring  villages Such  cruel 

talk  about  "idleness  and  vice"  ought  to  be  branded  as  the  purest  cant,  and  the  most 

shameless    hypocrisy That    portion    of    the    public,    who,    about    12 

years  ago,  were  struck  by  the  assurance  with  which,  under  the  sanction  of  high 
authority,  it  was  publicly  and  most  earnestly  proclaimed,  that  the  whole  net  profit 
of  the  manufacturer  flows  from  the  labour  of  the  last  hour,  and  that,  therefore, 
the  reduction  of  the  working  day  by  one  hour,  would  destroy  his  net  profit;  that 
I)ortion  of  the  public,  we  say,  will  hardly  believe  its  own  eyes,  when  it  now  finds, 
that  the  original  discovery  of  the  virtues  of  "the  last  hour"  has  since  been  so  far 
improved,  as  to  include  morals  as  well  as  profit;  so  that,  if  the  duration  of  tha 
labour  of  children,  is  reduced  to  a  full  10  hours,  their  morals,  together  with  the  net 
profits  of  their  employers,  will  vanish,  both  being  dependent  on  this  last,  this  fatal 
hour.  (See  Repts.,  Insp.  of  Fact.,  for  31st  Oct.,  1848,  p.  101.)  The  same  report 
then  gives  some  examples  of  the  morality  and  virtue  of  these  same  pure-minded 
manufacturers,  of  the  tricks,  the  artifices,  the  cajoling,  the  threats,  and  the  falsifica- 
tions, they  made  use  of,  in  order,  first,  to  compel  a  few  defenceless  workmen  to  sign 
petitions  of  such  a  kind,  and  then  to  impose  them  upon  Parliament  as  the  petitions 
of  a  whole  branch  of  industry,  or  a  whole  country.  It  is  highly  characteristic  of  the 
present  status  of  so  called  economical  science,  that  neither  Senior  himself,  who,  at 
a  later  period,  to  his  honour  be  it  said,  energetically  supported  the  factory  legisla- 
tion, nor  his  opponents,  from  first  to  last,  have  ever  been  able  to  explain  the  false 
conclusions  of  the  "original  discovery."  They  appeal  to  actual  experience,  but  the 
why  and  wherefore  remains  a  mystery. 

*  Nevertheless,  the  learned  professor  was  not  without  some  benefit  from  his  jour- 
ney to  Manchester.  In  the  "Letters  on  the  Factory  Act,"  he  makes  the  whole  net 
gains  including  "profit"   and   "interest,"  and  even  "something  more,"   depend   upon 


254  Capitalist  Production. 

In  the  London  Economist  of  the  15th  April,  1848,  the  same  cry- 
was  again  raised  by  James  Wilson,  an  economical  mandarin  of 
high  standing :  this  time  in  opposition  to  the  10  hours'  bill. 

SECTION  4. SURPLUS  PEODUCB. 

The  portion  of  the  product  that  represents  the  surplus-value, 
(one-tenth  of  the  20  lbs.,  or  2  lbs.  of  yam,  in  the  example  given 
in  Sec.  2,)  we  call  "surplus-produce."  Just  as  the  rate  of 
surplus-value  is  determined  by  its  relation,  not  to  the  sum  total 
of  the  capital,  but  to  its  variable  part;  in  like  manner,  the  re- 
lative quantity  of  surplus-produce  is  determined  by  the  ratio 
that  this  produce  bears,  not  to  the  remaining  part  of  the  total 
product,  but  to  that  part  of  it  in  which  is  incorporated  the 
necessary  labour.  Since  the  production  of  surplus-value  is  the 
chief  end  and  aim  of  capitalist  production,  it  is  clear,  that  the 
greatness  of  a  man's  or  a  nation's  wealth  should  be  measured, 
not  by  the  absolute  quantity  produced,  but  bv  the  relative 
magnitude  of  the  surplus-produce.^ 

The  sum  of  the  necessary  labour  and  the  surplus-labour,  i.e., 
of  the  periods  of  time  during  which  the  workman  replaces  the 

a  single  unpaid  hour's  work  of  the  labourer.  One  year  previously,  in  his  "Outlines 
of  Political  Economy,"  written  for  the  instruction  of  Oxford  students  and  cultivated 
Philistines,  he  had  also  "discovered,  in  opposition  to  Ricardo's  determination  of 
value  by  labour,  that  profit  is  derived  from  the  labour  of  the  capitalist,  and  interest 
from  his  asceticism, '  in  other  words,  from  his  "abstinence."  The  dodge  was  an  old 
one,  but  the  word  "abstinence"  was  new.  Herr  Roscher  translates  it  rightly  by 
"Enthaltung."  Some  of  his  countrymen,  the  Browns,  Jones,  and  Robinsons,  of 
Germany,  not  so  well  versed  in  Latin  as  he,  have,  monk-like,  rendered  it  by 
"Entsagung"  (renunciation). 

»  "To  an  individual  with  a  capital  of  £20,000,  whose  profits  were  £2,000  per  an- 
num, it  would  be  a  mattter  quite  indifferent  whether  his  capital  would  employ  a 
100  or  1,000  men,  whether  the  commodity  produced  sold  for  £10,000  or  £20,000, 
provided,  in  all  cases,  his  profit  were  not  diminished  below  £2,000.  Is  not  the 
real  interest  of  the  nation  similar?  Provided  its  net  real  income,  its  rent  and 
profits,  be  the  same,  it  is  of  no  importance  whether  the  nation  consists  of  10  or  of 
12  millions  of  inhabitants."  (Ric.  1.  c,  p.  416.)  Long  before  Ricardo,  Arthur 
Young,  a  fanatical  upholder  of  surplus  produce,  for  the  rest,  a  rambling  uncritical 
writer,  whose  reputation  is  in  the  inverse  ratio  of  his  merit,  says,  "Of  what  use,  in 
a  modern  kingdom,  would  be  a  whole  province  thus  divided,  [in  the  old  Roman  man- 
ner, by  small  independent  peasants],  however  well  cultivated,  except  for  the  mere 
purpose  of  breeding  men,  which  taken  singly  is  a  most  useless  purpose?"  (Arthur 
Young:   Political   Arithmetic,  &c.     London,   1774,   p.   47.) 

Very  curious  is  "the  strong  inclination  ...  to  represent  net  wealth  as  bene- 
ficial to  the  labouring  class  ....  though  it  is  evidently  not  on  account  of 
being  net."     (Th.    Hopkins,   On   Rent  of  Land,  &c.     London,   1823,   p.   126.) 


The  Working  Day.  255 

value  of  his  labour-power,  and  produces  tlie  surplus-value,  this 
sum  constitutes  the  actual  time  during  which  he  works,  i.e.,  the 
working  day. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  WORKING  DAY. 
SECTION    1 THE  LIMITS   OF   THE  WORKING  DAT. 

We  started  with  the  supposition  that  labour-power  is  bought 
and  sold  at  its  value.  Its  value,  like  that  of  all  other  commo- 
dities, is  determined  Tay  the  working  time  necessary  to  its 
production.  If  the  production  of  the  average  daily  means  of 
subsistence  of  the  labourer  takes  up  6  hours,  he  must  work,  on 
the  average,  6  hours  every  day,  to  produce  his  daily  labour- 
power,  or  to  reproduce  the  value  received  as  the  result  of  its 
sale.  The  necessary  part  of  his  working  day  amounts  to  6 
hours,  and  is,  therefore,  cceteris  paribus,  a  given  quantity. 
But  with  thisj  the  extent  of  the  working  day  itself  is  not  yet 
given. 

Let  us  assume  that  the  line  A  B  represents  the  length  of  the 
necessary  working  time,  say  6  hours.  If  the  labour  be  pro- 
longed 1,  3,  or  6  hours  beyond  A  B,  we  have  3  other  lines: 
Working  day  I.  Working  day  II.  Working  day  III. 

A B— C.       A B C.       A B C. 

representing  3  different  working  days  of  7,  9,  and  12  hours. 
The  extension  B  C  of  the  line  A  B  represents  the  length  of 
the  surplus  labour.  As  the  working  day  is  A  B  -f  B  C  or 
A  C,  it  varies  with  the  variable  quantity  B  C.  Since  A  B 
is  constant,  the  ratio  of  B  C  to  A  B  can  always  be  calculated. 
In  working  day  I.  it  is  ^,  in  working  day  II,  f  in  working  day 

III,  f  of  A  B.  Since,  further  the  ratio  n'ecesirr7wo'^rk"ing'tTme  de- 
termines the  rate  of  the  surplus-value,  the  latter  is  given  by 
the  ratio  of  B  C  to  A  B.  It  amounts  to  3  different  working 
days  respectively  to  16f,  50  and  100  per  cent.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  rate  of  surplus-value  alone  would  not  give  us  the 


256  Capitalist  Production. 

extent  of  the  working  day.  If  this  rate  e.g.,  were  100  per 
cent.,  the  working  day  might  be  of  8,  10,  12,  or  more  hours. 
It  would  indicate  that  the  2  constituent  parts  of  the  working 
day,  necessary-labour  and  surplus-labour  time,  were  equal  in 
extent,  but  not  how  long  each  of  these  two  constituent  parts 
was. 

The  working  day  is  thus  not  a  constant,  but  a  variable 
quantity.  One  of  its  parts,  certainly,  is  determined  by  the 
working  time  required  for  the  reproduction  of  the  labour- 
power  of  the  labourer  himself.  But  its  total  amount  varies 
with  the  duration  of  the  surplus-labour.  The  working  day  is, 
therefore,  determinable,  but  is,  per  se,  indeterminate.^ 

Although  the  working  day  is  not  a  fixed,  but  a  fluent 
quantity,  it  can,  on  the  other  hand,  only  vary  within  certain 
limits.  The  minimum  limit  is,  however,  not  determinable; 
of  course,  if  we  make  the  extension  line  BC  or  the  surplus- 
labour^O,  we  have  a  minimum  limit,  i.e.,  the  part  of  the  day 
which  the  labourer  must  necessarily  work  for  his  own  main- 
tenance. On  the  basis  of  capitalist  production,  however,  this 
necessary  labour  can  form  a  part  only  of  the  working  day ;  the 
working  day  itself  can  never  be  reduced  to  this  minimum.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  working  day  has  a  maximum  limit.  It 
cannot  be  prolonged  beyond  a  certain  point.  This  maximum 
limit  is  conditioned  by  two  things.  First,  by  the  physical 
bounds  of  labour-power.  Within  the  24  hours  of  the  natural 
day  a  man  can  expend  only  a  definite  quantity  of  his  vital  force, 
A  horse,  in  like  manner,  can  only  work  from  day  to  day,  8 
hours.  During  part  of  the  day  this  force  must  rest,  sleep; 
during  another  part  the  man  has  to  satisfy  other  physical  needs, 
to  feed,  wash,  and  clothe  himself.  Besides  these  purely  physi- 
cal limitations,  the  extension  of  the  working  day  encounters 
moral  ones.  The  labourer  needs  time  for  satisfying  his  intel- 
lectual and  social  wants,  the  extent  and  number  of  which  are 
conditioned  by  the  general  state  of  social  advancement.  The 
variation  of  the  working  day  fluctuates,  therefore,  within 
physical  and  social  bounds.     But  both  these  limiting  condi- 

*  "A  day's  labour  is  vague,  it  may  be  long  or  short."  ("An  Essay  on  Trade  and 
Commerce,   containing  observations   on   taxes,"   &c.     London,   1770,   p.    73.) 


The  Working  Day.  257. 

tions  are  of  a  very  elastic  nature,  and  allow  the  greatest  lati- 
tude. So  we  find  working  days  of  8,  10,  12,  14,  16,  18  hours, 
i.e.,  of  the  most  different  lengths. 

The  capitalist  has  bought  the  labour-power  at  its  day-rate. 
To  him  its  use-value  belongs  during  one  working  day.  lie 
has  thus  acquired  the  right  to  make  the  labour  work  for  him 
during  one  day.     But  what  is  a  working  day  ?  ^ 

At  all  events,  less  than  a  natural  day.  By  how  much  ? 
The  capitalist  has  his  own  views  of  this  ultima  Thule,  the 
necessary  limit  of  the  working  day.  As  capitalist,  he  is  only 
capital  personified.  His  soul  is  the  soul  of  capital.  But 
capital  has  one  single  life  impulse,  the  tendency  to  create 
value  and  surplus-value,  to  make  its  constant  factor,  the  means 
of  production,  absorb  the  greatest  possible  amount  of  surplus- 
labour.^ 

Capital  is  dead  labour,  that  vampire-like,  only  lives  by 
sucking  living  labour,  and  lives  the  more,  the  more  labour  it 
sucks.  The  time  during  which  the  labourer  works,  is  the  time 
during  which  the  capitalist  consumes  the  labour-power  he  has 
purchased  of  him.^ 

If  the  labourer  consumes  his  disposable  time  for  himself,  he 
robs  the  capitalist.* 

The  capitalist  then  takes  his  stand  on  the  law  of  the  ex- 
change of  commodities.  He,  like  all  other  buyers,  seeks  to  get 
the  greatest  possible  benefit  out  of  the  use-value  of  his  commo- 
dity.    Suddenly  the  voice  of  the  labourer,  which  had  been 

*  This  question  is  far  more  important  than  the  celebrated  question  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel  to  the  Birmingham  Chamber  of  Commerce:  What  is  a  pound?  A  question 
that  could  only  have  been  proposed,  because  Peel  was  as  much  in  the  dark  as  to  the 
nature   of   money   as   the    "little    shilling  men"   of    Birmingham. 

*  It  is  the  aim  of  the  capitalist  to  obtain  with  his  expended  capital  the  greatest 
possible  quantity  of  labour  (d'obetnir  du  capital  depense  la  plus  forte  somme  de 
travail  possible).  J.  G.  Courcelle-Seneuil  .  .  Traite  th^orique  et  pratique  des  entre- 
prises  industrielles.     2nd  ed.     Paris,  1857,  p.  63. 

'  "An  hour's  labour  lost  in  a  day  is  a  prodigious  injury  to  a  commercial  State. 
.  .  .  There  is  a  very  great  consumption  of  luxuries  among  the  labouring  poor  of 
this  kingdom:  particularly  among  the  manufacturing  populace,  by  which  they  also 
consume  their  time,  the  most  fatal  of  consumptions."  An  Essay  on  Trade  and 
Commerce,    &c.,    p.    47    and    153. 

*  "Si  le  manouvrier  libre  prend  un  instant  de  repos,  I'economie  sordide  qui  le  suit 
de?  yeux  avec  inquietude  pretend  qu'il  la  vole."  N.  Linguet.  "Theorie  des  loix 
civiles,  &c.     London,   1767,"   t.  II.,  p.   466. 

Q 


258  Capitalist  Production. 

stifled  in  the  storm  and  stress  of  the  process  of  production, 
rises : 

The  commodity  that  I  have  sold  to  you  differs  from  the 
crowd  of  other  commodities,  in  that  its  use  creates  value,  and 
a  value  greater  than  its  own.  That  is  why  you  bought  it. 
That  which  on  your  side  appears  a  spontaneous  expansion  of 
capital,  is  on  mine  extra  expenditure  of  labour-power.  You 
and  I  know  on  the  market  only  one  law,  that  of  the  exchange 
of  commodities.  And  the  consumption  of  the  commodity 
belongs  not  to  the  seller  who  parts  with  it,  but  to  the  buyer, 
who  acquires  it.  To  you,  therefore,  belongs  the  use  of  my 
daily  labour-power.  But  by  means  of  the  price  that  you  pay 
for  it  each  day,  I  must  be  able  to  reproduce  it  daily,  and  to 
sell  it  again.  Apart  from  natural  exhaustion  through  age,  &c., 
I  must  be  able  on  the  morrow  to  work  with  the  same  normal 
amount  of  force,  health  and  freshness  as  to-day.  You  preach 
to  me  constantly  the  gospel  of  "saving"  and  "abstinence." 
Good !  I  will,  like  a  sensible  saving  owner,  husband  my  sole 
wealth,  labour-power,  and  abstain  from  all  foolish  waste  of  it 
I  will  each  day  spend,  set  in  motion,  put  into  action  only  as 
much  of  it  as  is  compatible  with  its  normal  duration,  and 
healthy  development.  By  an  unlimited  extension  of  the 
working  day,  you  may  in  one  day  use  up  a  quantity  of  labour- 
power  greater  than  I  can  restore  in  three.  What  you  gain  in 
labour  I  lose  in  substance.  The  use  of  my  labour-power  and 
the  spoliation  of  it  are  quite  different  things.  If  the  average 
time  that  (doing  a  reasonable  amount  of  work)  an  average 
labourer  can  live,  is  30  years,  the  value  of  my  labour-power, 
which  you  pay  me  from  day  to  day  is  365x30  °^  rdjJ)^^  its 
total  value.  But  if  you  consume  it  in  ten  years,  you  pay  me 
daily  YO-grir  instead  of  ^3-^  of  its  total  value,  i.e.,  only  ^  of  its 
daily  value,  and  you  rob  me,  therefore,  every  day  of  f  of  the 
value  of  my  commodity.  You  pay  me  for  one  day's  labour- 
power,  whilst  you  use  that  of  3  days.  That  is  against  our 
contract  and  the  law  of  exchanges.  I  demand,  therefor,  a 
working  day  of  normal  length,  and  I  demand  it  without  any 
appeal  to  your  heart,  for  in  money  matters  sentiment  is  out 
of  place.     You  may  be  a  model  citizen,  perhaps  a  member 


The  Working  Day.  259 

of  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals,  and 
in  the  odour  of  sanctity  to  boot;  but  the  thing  that  you  rep- 
resent face  to  face  with  me  has  no  heart  in  its  breast.  That 
which  seems  to  throb  there  is  my  own  heart-beating.  I  de- 
mand the  normal  working  day  because  I,  like  every  other 
seller,  demand  the  value  of  my  commodity.^ 

We  see  then,  that,  apart 'from  extremely  elastic  bounds,  the 
nature  of  the  exchange  of  commodities  itself  imposes  no  limit 
to  the  working  day,  no  limit  to  surplus-labour.  The  capitalist 
maintains  his  rights  as  a  purchaser  when  he  tries  to  make  the 
working  day  as  long  as  possible,  and  to  make,  whenever  possi- 
ble, two  working  days  out  of  one.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
peculiar  nature  of  the  commodity  sold  implies  a  limit  to  its 
consumption  by  the  purchaser,  and  the  labourer  maintains  his 
right  as  seller  when  he  wishes  to  reduce  the  working  day  to  one 
of  definite  normal  duration.  There  is  here,  therefore,  an  anti- 
nomy, right  against  right,  both  equally  bearing  the  seal  of  the 
law  of  exchanges.  Between  equal  rights  force  decides. 
Hence  is  it  that  in  the  history  of  capitalist  production,  the  de- 
termination of  what  is  a  working  day,  presents  itself  as  the  re- 
sult of  a  struggle,  a  struggle  between  collective  capital,  i.e.,  the 
class  of  capitalists,  and  collective  labour,  ^.e.^the  working  class. 

SECTION  2.-r-THE  GREED  FOR  SURPLUS  LABOR.       MANUFAC- 
TURER AND  BO  YARD. 

Capital  has  not  invented  surplus-labour.  Wherever  a  part 
of  society  possesses  the  monopoly  of  the  means  of  production, 
the  labourer  free  or  not  free,  must  add  to  the  working  time 
necessary  for  his  own  maintenance  an  extra  working  time  in 
order  to  produce  the  means  of  subsistence  for  the  owners  of  the 
means  of  production,^  whether  this  proprietor  be  the  Athenian 

*  During  the  great  strike  of  the  London  builders,  1860-61,  for  the  reduction  of 
the  working  day  to  9  hours,  their  Committee  published  a  manifesto  that  contained,  to 
some  extent,  the  plea  of  our  workers.  The  manifesto  alludes,  not  without  irony,  to 
the  fact,  that  the  greatest  profit-monger  amongst  the  building  masters,  a  certain 
Sir  M.  Peto,  was  in  the  odour  of  sanctity.  (This  same  Peto,  after  1867,  came  to  an 
end  a  la  Strousberg.) 

*  "Those  who  labour  ....  in  reality  feed  both  the  pensioners  .  .  . 
[called  the  rich]  and  themselves."     (Edmund  Burke,  1.  c,  p.  2.) 


266  Capitalist  Production. 

KoXos  Kdya^o9,  Etniscan  theocrat,  civis  Romanus,  !N^orman 
baron,  American  slave  owner,  Wallachian  Boyard,  modern 
landlord  or  capitalist.^  It  is,  however,  clear  that  in  any 
given  economic  formation  of  society,  where  not  the  exchange 
value  but  the  use-value  of  the  product  predominates,  surplus- 
labour  will  be  limited  by  a  given  set  of  wants  which  may  be 
greater  or  less,  and  that  here  no  boundless  thirst  for  surplus- 
labour  arises  from  the  nature  of  the  production  itself.  Hence 
in  antiquity  overwork  becomes  horrible  only  when  the  object  is 
to  obtain  exchange  value  in  its  specific  independent  money- 
form  ;  in  the  production  of  gold  and  silver.  Compulsory  work- 
ing to  death  is  here  the  recognized  form  of  over-work.  Only 
read  Diodorus  Siculus.^  Still  these  are  exceptions  in  antiq- 
uity. But  as  soon  as  people,  •  whose  production  still  moves 
within  the  lower  forms  of  slave-labour,  corvee-labour,  &g., 
are  drawn  into  the  whirlpool  of  an  international  mar- 
ket dominated  by  the  capitalistic  mode  of  production,  the 
sale  of  their  products  for  export  becoming  their  principal 
interest,  the  civilized  horrors  of  over-work  are  grafted 
on  the  barbaric  horrors  of  slavery,  serfdom,  &c.  Hence  the 
negro  labour  in  the  Southern  States  of  the  American 
Union  preserved  something  of  a  patriarchal  character,  so  long 
as  production  was  chiefly  directed  to  immediate  local  consump- 
tion. But  in  proportion,  as  the  export  of  cotton  became  of 
vital  interest  to  these  states,  the  over-working  of  tTie  negro  and 
sometimes  the  using  up  of  his  life  in  7  years'  of  labour  became 
a  factor  in  a  calculated  and  calculating  system.  It  was  no 
longer  a  question  of  obtaining  from  him  a  certain  quantity  of 
useful  products.  It  was  now  a  question  of  production  of  sur- 
plus-labour itself.  So  was  it  also  with  the  corvee,  e.g.j  in  the 
Danubian  Principalities  (now  Eoumania). 

*  Niebuhr  in  his  "Roman  History"  says  very  naively:  "It  is  evident  that  works 
like  the  Etruscan,  which,  in  their  ruins  astound  us,  presuppose  in  little  (!)  states 
lords  and  vassals."  Sismondi  says  far  more  to  the  purpose  that  "Brussels  lace" 
presupposes  wage-lords  and  wage-slaves. 

*  "One  cannot  see  these  unfortunates  (in  the  gold  mines  between  Egypt,  Ethiopia, 
and  Arabia)  who  cannot  even  have  their  bodies  clean,  or  their  nakedness  clothed, 
without  pitying  their  miserable  lot.  There  is  no  indulgence,  no  forbearance  for  the 
sick,  the  feeble,  the  aged,  for  woman's  weakness.  All  must,  forced  by  blows,  work 
on  until  death  puts  an  end  to  their  sufferings  and  their  distress."  ("Diod.  Sic.  Bibl. 
Hist."   lib.   3.   c.   13.) 


The  Working  Day.  261 

The  comparison  of  the  greed  for  surplus-labour  in  the 
Danubian  Principalities  with  the  same  greed  in  English  fac- 
tories has  special  interest,  because  surplus-labour,  in  the  corvee 
has  an  independent  and  palpable  form. 

Suppose  the  working  day  consists  of  6  hours  of  necessary 
labour,  and  6  hours  of  surplus-labour.  Then  the  free  labourer 
gives  the  capitalist  every  week  6  X  6  or  36  hours  of  surplus- 
labour.  It  is  the  same  as  if  he  worked  3  days  in  the  week  for 
himself,  and  3  days  in  the  week  gratis  for  the  capitalist.  But 
this  is  not  evident  on  the  surface.  Surplus-labour  and  neces- 
sary labour  glide  one  into  the  other.  I  can,  therefore,  express 
the  same  relationship  by  saying,  e.g.,  that  the  labourer  in  every 
minute  works  30  seconds  for  himself,  and  30  for  the  capitalist, 
etc.  It  is  otherwise  with  the  corvee.  The  necessary  labour 
which  the  Wallachian  peasant  does  for  his  own  maintenance  is 
distinctly  marked  off  from  his  surplus-labour  on  behalf  of  the 
Boyard.  The  one  he  does  on  his  own  field,  the  other  on  the 
seignorial  estate.  Both  parts  of  the  labour-time  exist,  there- 
fore, independently,  side  by  side  one  with  the  other.  In  the 
corvee  the  surplus-labour  is  accurately  marked  off  from  the 
necessary  labour.  This,  however,  can  make  no  difference  with 
regard  to  the  quantitative  relation  of  surplus-labour  to  neces- 
sary labour.  Three  days'  surplus-labour  in  the  week  remain 
three  days  that  yield  no  equivalent  to  the  labourer  himself, 
whether  it  be  called  corvee  or  wage-labour.  But  in  the  capi- 
talist the  greed  for  surplus-labour  appears  in  the  straining 
after  an  unlimited  extension  of  the  working  day,  in  the  Boyard 
more  simply  in  a  direct  hunting  after  days  of  corvee.-^ 

In  the  Danubian  Principalities  the  corvee  was  mixed  up 
with  rents  in  kind  and  other  appurtenances  of  bondage,  but  it 
formed  the  most  important  tribute  paid  to  the  ruling  class. 
Where  this  was  the  case,  the  corvee  rarely  arose  from  serfdom ; 
serfdom  much  more  frequently  on  the  other  hand  took  origin 
from  the  corvee.^     This  is  what  took  place  in  the  Roumanian 

*  That  which  follows  refers  to  the  situation  in  the  Roumanian  provinces  before  th« 
change  effected   since   the   Crimean  war. 

*  This  holds  likewise  for  Germany,  and  especially  for  Prussia  east  of  the  Elbe. 
In  the  15th  century  the  German  peasant  was  nearly  everywhere  a  man,  who,  whilst 
subject  to  certain  rents  paid  in  produce  and  labour  was  otherwise  at  least  practically 


262  Capitalist  Production. 

Provinces.  Their  original  mode  of  production  was  based  on 
community  of  the  soil,  but  not  in  the  Slavonic  or  Indian  form. 
Part  of  the  land  was  cultivated  in  severalty  as  freehold  by  the 
members  of  the  community,  another  part — ager  pvJjliciis — was 
cultivated  by  them  in  common.  The  products  of  this  common 
labour  served  partly  as  a  reserve  fund  against  bad  harvests  and 
other  accidents,  partly  as  a  public  store  for  providing  the  costs 
of  war,  religion,  and  other  common  expenses.  In  course  of 
time  military  and  clerical  dignitaries  usurped,  along  with  the 
common  land,  the  labour  spent  upon  it.  The  labour  of  the  free 
peasants  on  their  common  land  was  transformed  into  corvee  for 
the  thieves  of  the  common  land.  This  corvee  soon  developed 
into  a  servile  relationship  existing  in  point  of  fact,  not  in  point 
of  law,  until  Russia,  the  liberator  of  the  world,  made  it  legal 
under  pretence  of  abolishing  serfdom.  The  code  of  the  corvee, 
which  the  Russian  General  Kisseleff  proclaimed  in  1831,  was 
of  course  dictated  by  the  Boyards  themselves.  Thus  Russia 
conquered  with  one  blow  the  magnates  of  the  Danubian  prov- 
inces, and  the  applause  of  liberal  cretins  throughout  Europe. 

According  to  the  "Reglement  organique,"  as  this  code  of  the 
corvee  is  called,  every  Wallachian  peasant  owes  to  the  so-called 
landlord,  besides  a  mass  of  detailed  payments  in  kind:  (1),  12 
days  of  general  labour;  (2),  one  day  of  field  labour;  (3),  one 
day  of  wood  carrying.  In  all,  14  days  in  the  year.  With 
deep  insight  into  political  economy,  however,  the  working  day 
is  not  taken  in  its  ordinary  sense,  but  as  the  working  day  neces- 
sary to  the  production  of  an  average  daily  product;  and  that 
average  daily  product  is  determined  in  so  crafty  a  way  that  no 
Cyclops  would  be  done  with  it  in  24  hours.  In  dry  words,  the 
Reglement  itself  declares  with  true  Russian  irony  that  by  12 
working  days  one  must  understand  the  product  of  the  manual 
labour  of  36  days,  by  1  day  of  field  labour  3  days,  and  by  1  day 

free.  The  German  colonists  in  Brandenburg,  Pomerania,  Silesia,  and  Eastern  Prus- 
sia, were  even  legally  acknowledged  as  free  men.  The  victory  of  the  nobility  in  the 
peasants'  war  put  an  end  to  that.  Not  only  were  the  conquered  South  German 
peasants  again  enslaved.  From  the  middle  of  the  16th  century  the  peasants  of 
Eastern  Prussia,  Brandenburg,  Pomerania,  and  Silesia,  and  soon  after  the  free  peas- 
ants of  Schleswig-Holstein  were  degraded  to  the  condition  of  serfs.  (Maurer, 
Fronhofe  iv.  vol., — Meitzen,  der  Boden  des  preussischen  Staats. — Hansen,  Leibeigen- 
schaft  in  Schleswig-Holstein. — Ed.) 


The  Working  Day.  263 

of  wood  carrying  in  like  manner  three  times  as  mncli.  In  all, 
42  corvee  days.  To  this  had  to  be  added  the  so-called  jobagie, 
service  due  to  the  lord  for  extraordinary  occasions.  In  propor- 
tion to  the  size  of  its  population,  every  village  has  to  furnish 
annually  a  definite  contingent  to  the  jobagie.  This  additional 
corvee  is  estimated  at  14  days  for  each  Wallachian  peasant 
Thus  the  prescribed  corvee  amounts  to  56  working  days  yearly. 
But  the  agricultural  year  in  Wallachia  numbers  in  consequence 
of  the  severe  climate  only  210  days,  of  which  40  for  Sundays 
and  holidays,  30  on  an  average  for  bad  weather,  together  70 
days,  do  not  count.  140  working  days  remain.  The  ratio  of 
the  corvee  to  the  necessary  labour  |f  or  66§%  gives  a  much 
smaller  rate  of  surplus-value  than  that  which  regulates  the 
labour  of  the  English  agricultural  of  factory  labourer.  This 
is,  however,  only  the  legally  prescribed  corvee.  And  in  a 
spirit  yet  more  "liberal"  than  the  English  Factory  Acts,  the 
"Reglement  organique"  has  known  how  to  facilitate  its  own 
evasion.  After  it  has  made  56  days  out  of  12,  the  nominal 
days  work  of  each  of  the  56  corvee  days  is  again  so  arranged 
that  a  portion  of  it  must  fall  on  the  ensuing  day.  In  one  day, 
e.g.,  must  be  weeded  an  extent  of  land,  which,  for  this  work, 
especially  in  maize  plantations,  needs  twice  as  much  time. 
The  legal  day's  work  for  some  kinds  of  agricultural  labour  is 
interpretable  in  such  a  way  that  the  day  begins  in  May  and 
ends  in  October.  In  Moldavia  conditions  are  still  harder. 
"The  corvee  days  of  the  'Eeglement  organique,'  "  cried  a  Boy- 
ard,  drunk  with  victory,  "amount  to  365  days  in  the  year."  ^ 
If  the  Reglement  organique  of  the  Danubian  provinces  was 
a  positive  expression  of  the  greed  for  surplus-labour  which 
every  paragraph  legalised,  the  English  Factory  Acts  are  the 
negative  expression  of  the  same  greed.  These  acts  curb  the 
passion  of  capital  for  a  limitless  draining  of  labour-power,  by 
forcibly  limiting  the  working  day  by  state  regulations,  made 
by  a  state  that  is  ruled  by  capitalist  and  landlord.  Apart  from 
the  working-class  movement  that  daily  grew  more  threatening, 
the  limiting  of  factory  labour  was  dictated  by  the  same  neces- 

'  Further  details  are  to  be  found  in  E.  Regnault's  "Histoire  politique  ct  sociale  des 
Principautes  Danubiennes."     Paris,  1855. 


264  Capitalist  Production. 

sity  which  spread  guano  over  the  English  fields.  The  same 
blind  eagerness  for  plunder  that  in  the  one  case  exhausted  the 
soil,  had,  in  the  other,  torn  up  by  the  roots  the  living  force  of 
the  nation.  Periodical  epidemics  speak  on  this  point  as 
clearly  as  the  diminishing  military  standard  in  Germany  and 
France.^ 

The  Factory  Act  of  1850  now  in  force  (1867)  allows  for  the 
average  working-day  10  hours,  i.e.,  for  the  first  5  days  12 
hours  from  6  a.m.  to  6  p.m.,  including  ^  an  hour  for  breakfast, 
and  an  hour  for  dinner,  and  thus  leaving  10-J  working  hours, 
and  8  hours  for  Saturday,  from  6  a.m.  to  2  p.m.,  of  which  ^ 
an  hour  is  subtracted  for  breakfast.  60  working  hours  are 
left,  10^  for  each  of  the  first  5  days,  Y|  for  the  last.^  Certain 
guardians  of  these  laws  are  appointed.  Factory  Inspectors,  di- 
rectly under  the  Home  Secretary,  whose  reports  are  published 
half-yearly  by  order  of  Parliament.  They  give  regular  and 
official  statistics  of  the  capitalistic  greed  for  surplus-labour. 

Let  us  listen,  for  a  moment,  to  the  Factory  Inspectors.^ 

*  "In  general  and  within  certain  limits,  exceeding  the  medium  size  of  their  kind, 
is  evidence  of  the  prosperity  of  organic  beings.  As  to  man,  his  bodily  height  lessens 
if  his  due  growth  is  interfered  with,  either  by  physical  or  social  conditions.  In  all 
European  countries  in  which  the  conscription  holds,  since  its  introduction,  the 
medium  height  of  adult  men,  and  generally  their  fitness  for  military  service,  has 
diminished.  Before  the  revolution  (1789),  the  minimum  for  the  infantry  in  France 
was  165  centimetres;  in  1818  (law  of  March  10th),  157;  by  the  law  of  1852,  15S 
c.  m. ;  on  the  average  in  France  more  than  half  are  rejected  on  account  of  deficient 
height  or  bodily  weakness.  The  military  standard  in  Saxony  was  in  1780,  178  c.  m. 
It  is  now  155.  In  Prussia  it  is  157.  According  to  the  statement  of  Dr.  Meyer  in 
the  Bavarian  Gazette,  May  9th,  1862,  the  result  of  an  average  of  9  years  is,  that  in 
Prussia  out  of  1000  conscripts  716  were  unfit  for  military  service,  317  because  of 
deficiency  in  height,  and  399  because  of  bodily  defects.  .  .  .  Berlin  in  1858, 
could  not  provide  its  contingent  of  recruits;  it  was  156  men  short."  J.  von  Liebig: 
"Die  Chemie  in  inrer  Anwendung  auf  Agrikultur  und  Physiologic,  1863,"  7th  Ed., 
vol  1.,  pp.  117,  118. 

*  The  history  of  the  Factory  Act  of  1850  will  be  found  in  the  course  of  this 
chapter. 

'  I  only  touch  here  and  there  on  the  period  from  the  beginning  of  modem  in- 
dustry in  England  to  1845.  For  this  period  I  refer  the  reader  to  "Die  Lage  der 
arbeitcnden  Klasse  in  England,  von  Friedrich  Engels,  Leipzig,  1845."  How  com- 
pletely Engels  understood  the  nature  of  the  capitalist'  mode  of  production  is  shown 
by  the  Factory  Reports,  Reports  on  Mines,  &c.,  that  have  appeared  since  1845,  and 
how  wonderfully  he  painted  the  circumstances  in  detail  is  seen  on  the  most  super- 
ficial comparison  of  his  work  with  the  official  reports  of  the  Children's  Employment 
Commission,  published  18.  to  20  years  later  (1863-1867).  These  deal  especially  with 
the  branches  of  industry  in  which  the  Factory  Acts  had  not,  up  to  1862,  been  intro- 
duced, in  fact  are  not  yet  introduced.  Here,  then,  little  or  no  alteration  had  been 
enforced,  by  authority,  in  the  conditions  painted  by  Engels;     I  borrow  my  examples 


The  Working  Day.  265 

"The  fraudulent  millowner  begins  work  at  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
(sometimes  more,  sometimes  less)  before  6  a.m.,  and  leaves  off 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  (sometimes  more,  sometimes  less)  after 
6  p.m.  He  takes  5  minutes  from  the  beginning  and  from  the 
end  of  the  half  hour  nominally  allowed  for  breakfast,  and  10 
minutes  at  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  hour  nominally  al- 
lowed for  dinner.  He  works  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  (some- 
times more,  sometimes  less  after  2  p.m.  on  Saturday.  Thus 
his  gain  is 

Before  6  a.  m. . .  —  .... . . . . . . .....  15  minutes. 

After  6  p.  m 15         " 

At   breakfast   time .  10         " 

At  dinner  time.  .;. . . ... ... . . . ...  .  20         " 

60         " 
Five  days — 300  minutes. 

On  Saturday  before  6  a.  m 15  minutes. 

At  breakfast  time. 10         " 

After  2  p.  m 15         " 

40  minutes. 
Total  weekly , 340  minutes. 

Or  5  hours  and  40  minutes  weekly,  which  multiplied  by  50 
working  weeks  in  the  year  (allowing  two  for  holidays  and 
occasional  stoppages)  is  equal  to  2Y  working  days."  * 

"Five  minutes  a  day's  increased  work,  multiplied  by  50 
weeks,  are  equal  to  two  and  a  half  days  of  produce  in  the 
year."  ^ 

"An  additional  hour  a  day  gained  by  small  instalments  be- 
fore 6  a.m.,  after  6  p.m.,  and  at  the  beginning  and  end  of  the 

chiefly  from  the  free  trade  period  after  1848,  that  age  of  paradise,  of  which  the 
commercial  travellers  for  the  great  firm  of  free  trade,  blatant  as  ignorant,  tell  such 
fabulous  tales.  For  the  rest  England  figures  here  in  the  forground  because  she  is 
the  classic  representative  of  capitalist  production,  and  she  alone  has  a  continuous 
set  of  official  statistics  of  the  things  we  are  considering. 

'  Suggestions,  &c.  by  Mr.  L.  Horner,  Inspector  of  Factories  in :  Factory  Regula- 
■  ons  .Act.  Ordered  by  the  House  of  Commons  to  be  printed,  9th  August,  1859, 
■'.   -1.  5. 

-  Reports  of  the  Inspector  of  Factories  for  the  half  year,  October,  1856,  p.  36. 


266  Capitalist  Production. 

times  nominally  fixed  for  meals,  is  nearly  equivalent  to  work- 
ing 13  months  in  the  year."^ 

Crises  during  which  production  is  interrupted  and  the  fac- 
tories work  "short  time,"  i.e.j  for  only  a  part  of  the  week, 
naturally  do  not  affect  the  tendency  to  extend  the  working 
day.  The  less  business  there  is,  the  more  profit  has  to  be  made 
on  the  business  done.  The  less  time  spent  in  work,  the  more 
of  that  time  has  to  be  turned  into  surplus  labour-time. 

Thus  the  Factory  Inspector's  report  on  the  period  of  the 
crisis  from  1857  to  1858 : 

"It  may  seem  inconsistent  that  there  should  be  any  over- 
working at  a  time  when  trade  is  so  bad ;  but  that  very  bad- 
ness leads  to  the  transgression  by  unscrupulous  men,  they  get 

the  extra  profit  of  it In  the  last  half  year,  says  Leonard 

Homer,  122  mills  in  my  district  have  been  given  up ;  143  were 
found  standing,"  yet,  overwork  is  continued  beyond  the  legal 
hours.^ 

"For  a  great  part  of  the  time,"  says  Mr.  Howell,  "owing  to 
the  depression  of  trade,  many  factories  were  altogether  closed, 
and  a  still  greater  number  were  working  short  time.  I  continue, 
however,  to  receive  about  the  usual  number  of  complaints  that 
half,  or  three-quarters  of  an  hour  in  the  day,  are  snatched  from 
the  workers  by  encroaching  upon  the  times  professedly  allowed 
for  rest  and  refreshment."  ^  The  same  phenomenon  was  repro- 
duced on  a  smaller  scale  during  the  frightful  cotton-crisis  from 
1861  to  1865.*  "It  is  sometimes  advanced  by  way  of  excuse, 
when  persons  are  found  at  work  in  a  factory,  either  at  a  meal 
hour,  or  at  some  illegal  time,  that  they  will  not  leave  the  mill  at 
the  appointed  hour,  and  that  compulsion  is  necessary  to  force 
them  to  cease  work  [cleaning  their  machinery,  &c,],  especially 
.  on  Saturday  afternoons.  But,  if  the  hands  remain  in  a  factory- 
after  the  machinery  has  ceased  to  revolve  .  .  .  they  would  not 
have  been  so  employed  if  sufficient  time  had  been  set  apart 

» Reports,  &c.,  80th  April,  1868,  p.  9. 

*  Reports,  &c.,  1.  c,  p.  43. 
•Reports,  &c.,  1.  c,  p.  25. 

*  Reports,  &c.,  for  the  half  year  ending  30th  April,  1861.  See  Appendix  No.  2; 
Reports,  &c.,  31st  October,  1862,  p.  7,  52,  53.  The  violations  of  the  Acts  became 
more  numerous  during  the  last  half  year  1863.  Cf.  Reports,  &c.,  ending  31st 
October,  X863,  p.  7. 


The  Working  Day.  267 

specially  for  cleaning,  &c.,  either  before  6  a.m.  [s^c/]  or  before 
2  p.  m.  on  Saturday  afternoons."^ 

"The  profit  to  be  gained  by  it  (over-working  in  violation  of 
the  Act)  appears  to  be,  to  many,  a  greater  temptation  than  they 
can  resist ;  they  calculate  upon  the  chance  of  not  being  found 
out ;  and  when  they  see  the  small  amount  of  penalty  and  costs, 
which  those  who  have  been  convicted  have  had  to  pay,  they 
find  that  if  they  should  be  detected  there  will  still  be  a  con- 
siderable balance  of  gain.  .  .  .^  In  cases  where  the  additional 
time  is  gained  by  a  multiplication  of  small  thefts  in  the  course 
of  the  day,  there  are  insuperable  difficulties  to  the  inspectors 
making  out  a  case."^ 

These  "small  thefts"  of  capital  from  the  labourer's  meal  and 
recreation  time,  the  factory  inspectors  also  designate  as  "petty 
pilfering  of  minutes,"^  "snatching  a  few  minutes,"'*  or,  aa 
the  labourers  technically  called  them,  "nibbling  and  cribbling 
at  meal  times."^ 

It  is  evident  that  in  this  atmosphere  the  formation  of  sur- 
plus-value by  surplus-labour,  is  not  secret.  "If  you  allow  me," 
said  a  highly  respectable  master  to  me,  "to  work  only  ten  min- 
utes in  the  day  over-time,  you  put  one  thousand  a  year  in  my 
pocket."^     "Moments  are  the  elements  of  profit."^ 

*  Reports,  &c.,  October  31st,  1860,  p.  23.  With  what  fanaticism,  according  to  the 
evidence  of  manufacturers  given  in  courts  of  l^w,  their  hands  set  themselves  against 
every  interruption  in  factory  labour,  the  following  curious  circumstance  shows.  In 
the  beginning  of  June,  1836,  information  reached  the  magistrates  of  Dewsbury 
(Yorkshire)  that  the  owners  of  8  large  mills  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Batley  had 
violated  the  Factory  Acts.  Some  of  these  gentlemen  were  accused  of  having  kept 
at  work  5  boys  between  12  and  15  years  of  age,  from  6  a.m.  on  Friday  to  4  p.m.  on 
the  following  Saturday,  not  allowing  them  any  respite  except  for  meals  and  one 
hour  for  sleep  at  midnight.  And  these  children  had  to  do  this  ceaseless  labour  of 
30  hours  in  the  "shoddy-hole,"  as  the  hole  is  called,  in  which  the  woolen  rags  are 
pulled  in  pieces,  and  where  a  dense  atmosphere  of  dust,  shreds,  &c.,  forces  even  the 
adult  workman  to  cover  his  mouth  continually  with  handkerchiefs  for  the  protec- 
tion of  his  lungs!  The  accused  gentlemen  affirm  in  lieu  of  taking  an  oath — as 
Quakers  they  were  too  scrupulously  religious  to  take  an  oath — that  they  had,  in  their 
great  compassion  for  the  unhappy  children,  allowed  them  four  hours  for  sleep,  but 
the  obstinate  children  absolutely  would  not  go  to  bed.  The  quaker  gentlemen 
were  mulcted  in    £20.     Dryden  anticipated  these  gentry: 

"Fox  full  fraught  in  seeming  sanctity, 
That  feared  an  oath,  but  like  the  devil  would  lie. 
That  look'd  like  Lent,   and  had  the  holy  leer. 
And  durst  not  sin!   before  he  said  his  prayer!" 

»Rep.,  31st  Oct.,   1856,  p.   34.       «  1.  c.  p.,  p.   48.  •  1.   c,   p.  48. 

'1.   c,    p.   35.  ■>!.   c.   p.    48.  M.  c,   p.   48. 

*  Report  of  the  Insp.,  &c.,  30th  April,  1860,  p.  56. 


268  Capitalist  Production. 

Xotbing  is  from  this  point  of  view  more  characteristic  than 
the  designation  of  the  workers  who  work  full  time  as  *'full- 
timers,"  and  the  children  under  13  who  are  only  allowed  to 
work  6  hours  as  "half-timers."  The  worker  is  here  nothing 
more  than  personified  labour-time.  All  individual  distinctions 
are  merged  in  those  of  "full-timers"  and  "half-timers."^ 

SECTION  3. BRANCHES  OF  ENGLISH  INDUSTRY  WITHOUT  LEGAL 

LIMITS  TO  EXPLOITATION. 

We  have  hitherto  considered  the  tendency  to  the  extension  of 
the  working  day,  the  were-wolf's  hunger  for  surplus-labour  in 
a  department  where  the  monstrous  exactions,  not  surpassed, 
says  an  English  bourgeois  economist,  by  the  cruelties  of  the 
Spaniards  to  the  American  red-skins,^  caused  capital  at  last  to 
be  bound  by  the  chains  of  legal  regulations.  Now,  let  us  cast 
a  glance  at  certain  branches  of  production  in  which  the  exploi- 
tation of  labour  is  either  free  from  fetters  to  this  day,  or  was 
so  yesterday. 

Mr.  Broughton  Charlton,  county  magistrate,  declared  as 
chairman  of  a  meeting  held  at  the  Assembly  Rooms,  Notting- 
ham, on  the  14th  of  January,  1860,  "that  there  was  an  amount 
of  privation  and  suffering  among  that  portion  of  the  popula- 
tion connected  with  the  lace  trade,  unknown  in  other  parts  of 
the  kingdom,  indeed,  in  the  civilized  world  .  .  .  Children  of 
nine  or  ten  years  are  dragged  from  their  squalid  beds  at  two, 
three,  or  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  compelled  to  work  for 
a  bare  subsistence  until  ten,  eleven,  or  twelve  at  night,  their 
limbs  wearing  away,  their  frames  dwindling,  their  faces 
whitening,  and  their  humanity  absolutely  sinking  into  a  stone- 
like torpor,  utterly  horrible  to  contemplate We  are  not 

surprised  that  Mr.  Mallett,  or  any  other  manufacturer,  should 
stand  forward  and  protest  against  discussion The 

*  This   is   the   official  expression   both  in  the   factories  and  in   the   reports. 

*  "The  cupidity  of  mill-owners  whose  cruelties  in  the  pursuit  of  gain  have  hardly 
been  exceeded  by  those  perpetrated  by  the  Spaniards  in  the  conquest  of  America  in 
the  pursuit  of  gold."  John  Wade,  History  of  the  Middle  and  Working  Classes,  3rd 
Ed.  London,  1835,  p.  114.  The  theoretical  part  of  this  book,  a  kind  of  hand-book  of 
Political  Economy,  is,  considering  the  time  of  its  publication,  original  in  some  parts, 
e.g.,  on  commercial  crises.  The  historical  part  is,  to  a  great  extent,  a  shameless 
plagiarism  of  Sir  F.  M.  Eden's  "History  of  the  Poor,"  London,  1799. 


The  Working  Day.  269 

system,  as  the  Rev.  Montagu  Valpy  describes  it,  is  one  of 
unmitigated  slavery,  socially,  physically,  morally,  and  spirit- 
ually  What  can  be  thought  of  a  town  which  holds  a  public 

meeting  to  petition  that  the  period  of  labour  for  men  shall  be 

diminished  to  eighteen  hours  a  day*? We  declaim 

against  the  Virginian  and  Carolina  cotton-planters.  Is  their 
black-market,  their  lash,  and  tlieir  barter  of  human  flesh  more 
detestable  than  this  slow  sacrifice  of  humanity  which  takes 
place  in  order  that  veils  and  collars  may  be  fabricated  for  the 
benefit  of  capitalists  ?"^ 

The  potteries  of  Staffordshire  have,  during  the  last  22  years, 
been  the  subject  of  three  parliamentary  inquiries.  The  result 
is  embodied  in  Mr.  Scriven's  Eeport  of  18  il  to  the  "Children's 
Employment  Commissioners,"  in  the  report  of  Dr.  Greenhow 
of  1860  published  by  order  of  the  medical  officer  of  the  Privy 
Council  (Public  Health,  3rd  Eeport,  112-113),  lastly,  in  the 
report  of  Mr.  Longe  of  1862  in  the  "First  Eeport  of  the 
Children's  Employment  Commission,  of  the  13th  June,  1863." 
For  my  purpose  it  is  enough  to  take,  from  the  reports  of  1860 
and  1863,  some  depositions  of  the  exploited  children  them- 
selves. From  the  children  we  may  form  an  opinion  as  to  the 
adults,  especially  the  girls  and  women,  and  that  in  a  branch  of 
industry  by  the  side  of  which  cotton-spinning  appears  an  agree- 
able and  healthful  occupation.* 

William  Wood,  9  years  old,  was  7  years  and  10  months  when 
he  began  to  work.  He  "ran  moulds"  (carried  ready-moulded 
articles  into  the  drying  room,  afterwards  bringing  back  the 
empty  mould)  from  the  beginning.  He  came  to  work  every 
day  in  the  week  at  6  a.m.,  and  left  off  about  9  p.m.  "I  work 
till  9  o'clock  at  night  six  days  in  the  week.  I  have  done  so 
seven  or  eight  weeks."  Fifteen  hours  of  labour  for  a  child  of 
1  years  old  !  J.  Murray,  12  years  of  age,  says :  "I  turn  jigger, 
and  run  moulds.  I  come  at  6.  Sometimes  I  come  at  4.  I 
worked  all  last  night,  till  6  o'clock  this  morning.  I  have  not 
been  in  bed  since  the  night  before  last.  There  were  eight  or 
nine  other  boys  working  last  night.    All  but  one  have  come  this 

*  "Daily  Telegraph,"  17th  January,  1860. 
»Cf.  F.  Engels'  Lage,  etc.,  p.  249-51. 


2/0  Capitalist  Production. 

morning.  I  get  3  shillings  and  sixpence.  I  do  not  get  any 
more  for  working  at  night.  I  worked  two  nights  last  week." 
Ferny  hough,  a  boy  of  ten :  "I  have  not  always  an  hour  (for 
dinner).  I  have  only  half  an  hour  sometimes;  on  Thursday, 
Friday,  and  Saturday."^* 

Dr.  Greenhow  states  that  the  average  duration  of  life  in  the 
pottery  districts  of  Stoke-on-Trent,  and  Wolstanton  is  ex- 
traordinarily short.  Although  in  the  district  of  Stoke,  only 
36.6%  and  in  Wolstanton  only  30.4%  of  the  adult  male 
population  above  20  are  employed  in  the  potteries,  among  the 
men  of  that  age  in  the  first  district  more  than  half,  in  the 
second,  nearly  f  of  the  whole  deaths  are  the  result  of  pul- 
monary diseases  among  the  potters.  Dr.  Boothroyd,  a  medical 
practitioner  at  Hanley,  says:  "Each  successive  generation  of 
potters  is  more  dwarfed  and  less  robust  than  the  preceding 
one."  In  like  manner  another  doctor,  Mr.  M'Bean :  "Since  he 
began  to  practise  among  the  potters  25  years  ago,  he  has  ob- 
served a  marked  degeneration  especially  shown  in  diminution 
of  stature  and  breadth."  These  statements  are  taken  from  the 
report  of  Dr.  Greenhow  in  1860.^ 

From  the  report  of  the  Commissioners  in  1863,  the  follow- 
ing: Dr.  J.  T.  Arledge,  senior  physician  of  the  North  Staf- 
fordshire Infirmary,  says:  "The  potters  as  a  class,  both  men 
and  women,  represent  a  degenerated  population,  both  phys- 
ically and  morally.  They  are,  as  a  rule,  stunted  in  growth, 
ill-shaped,  and  frequently  ill-formed  in  the  chest ;  they  become 
prematurely  old,  and  are  certainly  short-lived ;  they  are 
phlegmatic  and  bloodless,  and  exhibit  their  debility  of  consti- 
tution by  obstinate  attacks  of  dyspepsia,  and  disorders  of  the 
liver  and  kidneys,  and  by  rheumatism.  But  of  all  diseases 
they  are  especially  prone  to  chest-disease,  to  pneumonia, 
phthisis,  bronchitis,  and  asthma.  One  form  would  appear  pe- 
culiar to  them,  and  is  known  as  potter's  asthma,  or  potter's 
consumption.  Scrofula  attacking  the  glands,  or  bones,  or  other 
parts  of  the  body,  is  a  disease  of  two-thirds  or  more  of  the 

'  Children's   Employment  Commission.     First   report,   etc.,   186S.     Evidence,  p.   16, 
19,  18. 
'Public   Health,  3rd  report,  etc,  p.   102.   104,   106. 


The  Working  Day.  271 

potters That  the  'degenerescence'  of  the  population  of 

this  district  is  not  even  greater  than  it  is,  is  due  to  the  constant 
recruiting  from  the  adjacent  country,  and  intermarriages  with 
more  healthy  races." ^ 

Mr.  Charles  Parsons,  late  house  surgeon  of  the  same  institu- 
tion, writes  in  a  letter  to  Commissioner  Longe,  amongst  other 
things :  "I  can  only  speak  from  personal  observation  and  not 
from  statistical  data(  but  I  do  not  hesitate  to  assert  that  my 
indignation  has  been  aroused  again  and  again  at  the  sight  of 
poor  children  whose  health  has  been  sacrificed  to  gratify  the 
avarice  of  either  parents  or  employers."  He  enumerates  the 
causes  of  the  diseases  of  the  potters,  and  sums  them  up  in  the 
phrase,  "long  hours."  The  report  of  the  Commission  trusts 
that  "a  manufacture  which  has  assumed  so  prominent  a  place 
in  the  whole  world,  will  not  long  be  subject  to  the  remark  that 
its  great  success  is  accompanied  with  the  physical  deterioration, 
wide-spread  bodily  suffering,  and  early  death  of  the  work- 
people .  .  by  whose  labour  and  skill  such  great  results  have 
been  achieved."^  And  all  that  holds  of  the  potteries  in  Eng- 
land is  true  of  those  in  Scotland.^ 

The  manufacture  of  lucifer  matches  dates  from  1833,  fromi 
the  discovery  of  the  method  of  applying  phosphorus  to  the 
match  itself.  Since  1845  this  manufacture  has  rapidly  devel- 
oped in  England,  and  has  extended  especially  amongst  the 
thickly  populated  parts  of  London  as  well  as  in  Manchester, 
Birmingham,  Liverpool,  Bristol,  Norwich,  Newcastle  and  Glas- 
gow. With  it  has  spread  the  form  of  lockjaw,  which  a  Vienna 
physician  in  1845  discovered  to  be  a  disease  peculiar  to  lucifer- 
matchmakers.  Half  the  workers  are  children  under  thirteen, 
and  young  persons  under  eighteen.  The  manufacture  is  on 
account  of  its  unhealthiness  and  unpleasantness  in  such  bad 
odour  that  only  the  most  miserable  part  of  the  labouring  class, 
half-starved  widows  and  so  forth,  deliver  up  their  children 
to  it,  "the  ragged,  half-starved,  untaught  children."* 

Of    the    witnesses    that    Commissioner    White    examined 

1  Child.    Empl.   Comm.   I.    Report,   p.   24. 

*  Children's   Employment  Commission,  p.  22,  and  xi. 

*  1.   c.  p.   xlvii. 

*  1.  c.  p.  liv. 


272  Capitalist  Production. 

(1863),  270  were  under  18,  50  under  10,  10  only  8,  and  5 
only  6  years  old.  A  range  of  the  working  day  from  12  to  14 
or  15  hours,  night-labour,  irregular  meal  times,  meals  for  the 
most  part  taken  in  the  very  workrooms  that  are  pestilent  with 
phosphorus.  Dante  would  have  found  the  worst  horrors  of  his 
Inferno  surpassed  in  this  manufacture. 

In  tlie  manufacture  of  paper-hangings  the  coarser  sorts  are 
printed  by  machine;  the  finer  by  hand  (block-printing).  The 
most  active  business  months  are  from  the  beginning  of  October 
to  the  end  of  April.  During  this  time  the  work  goes  on  fast 
and  furious  without  intermission  from  6  a.m.  to  10  p.m.  or 
further  into  the  night. 

J.  Leach  deposes:  "Last  winter  six  out  of  nineteen  girls 
were  away  from  ill-health  at  one  time  from  over-work.  I  have 
to  bawl  at  them  to  keep  them  awake."  W.  Duffy:  "I  have 
seen  when  the  children  could  none  of  them  keep  their  eyes 
open  for  the  work ;  indeed,  none  of  us  could."  J.  Lightbourne : 
"Am  13  .  .  .  We  worked  last  winter  till  9  (evening),  and  the 
winter  before  till  10.  I  used  to  cry  with  sore  feet  every  night 
last  winter."  G.  Apsden :  "That  boy  of  mine  .  .  .  when  he 
was  7  years  old  I  used  to  carry  him  on  my  back  to  and  fro 
through  the  snow,  and  he  used  to  have  16  hours  a  day  ...  I 
have  often  knelt  down  to  feed  him  as  he  stood  by  the  machine, 
for  he  could  not  leave  it  or  stop."  Smith,  the  managing 
partner  of  a  Manchester  factory :  "We  (he  means  his  "hands" 
who  work  for  "us") work  on,  with  no  stoppage  for  meals,  so 
that  the  day's  work  of  10^  hours  is  finished  by  4.30.  p.m.,  and 
all  after  that  is  overtime."^  (Does  this  Mr.  Smith  take  no 
meals  himself  during  10^  hours?)  "We  (this  same  Smith) 
seldom  leave  off  working  before  6  p.m.  (he  means  leave  off  the 
consumption  of  'our'  labour-power  machines),  so  that  we 
(iterum  Crispinus)  are  really  working  overtime  the  whole  year 
round For  all  these,  children  and  adults  alike  (152 

*  This  is  not  to  be  taken  in  the  same  sense  as  our  surplus-labour  time.  These 
gentlemen  consider  lOyi  hours  of  labour  as  the  normal  working  day,  which  includes 
of  course  the  normal  surphis-Iabour.  After  this  begins  "overtime"  which  is  paid  a 
little  better.  It  will  be  seen  later  that  the  labour  expended  during  the  so-called 
normal  day  is  paid  below  its  value,  so  that  the  overtime  is  simply  a  capitalist  trick 
in  order  to  extort  more  surplus-labor,  which  it  would  still  be,  even  if  the  labour- 
power  expended  during  the  normal  working  day  were  properly  paid. 


The  Working  Day.  273 

children  and  young  persons  and  140  adults),  the  average  work 
for  the  last  18  months  has  been  at  the  very  least  7  days,  5 
hours,  or  78^  hours  a  week.  For  the  six  weeks  ending  May 
2nd  this  year  (1862),  the  average  was  higher — 8  days  or  84 
hours  a  week."  Still  this  same  Mr.  Smith,  who  is  so  extremely 
devoted  to  the  pluralis  majestatis,  adds  with  a  smile,  "Machine 
work  is  not  great."  So  the  employers  in  the  block-printing 
say:  "Hand  labour  is  more  healthy  than  machine-work."  On 
the  whole,  manufacturers  declare  with  indignation  against  the 
proposal  "to  stop  the  machines  at  least  during  meal  times.' 
A  clause,  says  Mr.  Otley,  manager  of  a  wall-paper  factory  in 
the  Borough,  "which  allowed  work  between,  say  6  a.m.  and  9 
p.m.  .  .  ,  would  suit  us  (  !)  very  well,  but  the  factory  hours,  6 
a.m.  to  6  p.m.,  are  not  suitable.  Our  machine  is  always 
stopped  for  dinner.  (What  generosity!)  There  is  no  waste 
of  paper  and  colour  to  speak  of.  But,"  he  adds  sympatheti- 
cally, "I  can  understand  the  loss  of  time  not  being  liked.' 
The  report  of  the  Commission  opines  with  naivete  that  the 
fear  of  some  "leading  firms"  of  losing  time,  i.e.,  the  time  for 
appropriating  the  labour  of  others,  and  thence  losing  profit 
is  not  a  sufficient  reason  for  allowing  children  under  13,  and 
young  persons  under  18,  working  12  to  16  hours  per  day,  to 
lose  their  dinner,  nor  for  giving  it  to  them  as  coal  and  water 
are  supplied  to  the  steam-engine,  soap  to  wool,  oil  to  the 
wheel — as  merely  auxiliary  material  to  the  instruments  of 
labour,  during  the  process  of  production  itself.^ 

No  branch  of  industry  in  England  (we  do  not  take  into 
account  the  making  of  bread  by  machinery  recently  intro- 
duced) has  preserved  up  to  the  present  day  a  method  of  pro- 
duction so  archaic,  so — 'as  we  see  from  the  poets  of  the  Roman 
Empire — pre-christian,  as  baking.  But  "iapital,  as  was  said 
earlier,  is  at  first  indifferent  as  to  the  technical  character  of  the 
labour-process ;  it  begins  by  taking  it  jus»t  as  it  finds  it. 

The  incredible  adulteration  of  bread^  especially  in  London, 
was  first  revealed  by  the  House  of  Co%mons  Committee  "on 
the   adulteration   of   articles   of  food'*    (1855-56),   and   Dr. 

11.  c.     Evidence,  p.  123,  124,  125,  140,  and  64. 

R 


274  Capitalist  Production. 

Hassall's  work,  "Adulterations  detected."^  The  consequence 
of  these  revelations  was  the  Act  of  August  6th,  1860,  "for 
preventing  the  adulteration  of  articles  of  food  and  drink,"  an 
inoperative  law,  as  it  naturally  shows  the  tenderest  consider- 
ation for  every  free-trader  who  determines  by  the  buying  or 
selling  of  adulterated  commodities  "to  turn  an  honest  penny."^ 
The  Committee  itself  formulated  more  or  less  naively  its  con- 
viction that  free-trade  meant  essentially  trade  with  adulter- 
ated, or  as  the  English  ingeniously  put  it,  "sophisticated" 
goods.  In  fact  this  kind  of  sophistry  knows  better  than  Prota- 
goras how  to  make  white  black,  and  black  white,  and  better 
than  the  Eleatics  how  to  demonstrate  ad  oculos  that  everything 
is  only  appearance.^ 

At  all  events  the  committee  had  directed  the  attention  of 
the  public  to  its  "daily  bread,"  and  therefore  to  the  baking 
trade.  At  the  same  time  in  public  meetings  and  in  petitions 
to  Parliament  rose  the  cry  of  the  London  journeymen  bakers 
against  their  over-work,  &c.  The  cry  was  so  urgent  that  Mr. 
H.  S.  Tremenheere,  also  a  member  of  the  Commission  of  1863 
several  times  mentioned,  was  appointed  Royal  Commissioner 
of  Inquiry.  His  report,*  together  with  the  evidence  given, 
roused  not  the  heart  of  the  public  but  its  stomach.  English- 
men, always  well  up  in  the  Bible,  knew  well  enough  that  man, 
unless  by  elective  grace  a  capitalist,  or  landlord,  or  sinecurist, 

*Alum  finely  powdered,  or  mixed  with  salt,  is  a  normal  article  of  commerce  bear- 
ing the  significant  name  of  "bakers'  stuff." 

*  Soot  is  a  well-known  and  very  energetic  form  of  carbon,  and  forms  a  manure 
that  capitalistic  chimney-sweeps  sell  to  English  farmers.  Now  in  1862  the  British 
juryman  had  in  a  law-suit  to  decide  whether  soot,  with  which,  unknown  to  the 
buyer  90%  of  dust  and  sand  are  mixed,  is  genuine  soot  in  the  commercial  sense  or 
adulterated  soot  in  the  legal  sense.  The  "amis  du  commerce"  decided  it  to  be 
genuine  commercial  soot,  and  non-suited  the  plaintiff  farmer,  who  had  in  addition 
to  pay  the  costs  of  the  suit. 

*  The  French  chemist,  Chevallier,  in  his  treatise  on  the  "sophistications"  of 
commodities,  enumerates  for  many  of  the  600  or  more  articles  which  he  passes  in 
review,  10,  20,  30  different  methods  of  adulteration.  He  adds  that  he  does  not  know 
all  the  methods,  and  does  not  mention  all  that  he  knows.  He  gives  6  kinds  of 
adulteration  of  sugar,  9  of  olive  oil,  10  of  butter,  12  of  salt,  19  of  milk,  20  of 
bread,  23  of  brandy,  24  bf  meal,  28  of  chocolate,  30  of  wine,  32  of  coffee,  etc. 
Even  God  Almighty  does  not  escape  this  fate.  See  Ronard  de  Card,  on  the  falsifi- 
cations of  the  materials  of  the  Sacrament.  (De  la  falsification  des  substances  sacra- 
mentelles,  Paris,  1856.) 

*  "Report,  &c.,  relating  to  the  grievances  complained  of  by  the  journeymen  bakers, 
&c,  London,  1862,"  and  "Second  Report  &c.,  London,  1868." 


The  Working  Day.  275 

is  commanded  to  eat  his  bread  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  but 
thej  did  not  know  that  he  had  to  eat  daily  in  his  bread  a  certain 
quantity  of  human  perspiration  mixed  with  the  discharge  of 
*  abcesses,  cobwebs,  dead  black-beetles,  and  putrid  German  yeast, 
without  counting  alum,  sand,  and  other  agreeable  mineral  in- 
gredients. Without  any  regard  to  his  holiness,  Freetrade,  the 
free  baking-trade  was  therefore  placed  under  the  supervision 
of  the  State  inspectors  (Close  of  the  Parliamentary  session  of 
1863),  and  by  the  same  Act  of  Parliament,  work  from  9  in  the 
evening  to  5  in  the  morning  was  forbidden  for  journeymen 
bakers  under  18.  The  last  clause  speaks  volumes  as  to  the 
over-work  in  this  old-fashioned,  homely  line  of  business. 

"The  work  of  a  London  journeyman  baker  begins,  as  a  rule, 
at  about  eleven  at  night.  At  that  hour  he  'makes  the  dough,' 
— a  laborious  process,  which  lasts  from  half-an-hour  to  three 
quarters  of  an  hour,  according  to  the  size  of  the  batch  or  the 
labour  bestowed  upon  it.  He  then  lies  down  upon  the  knead- 
ing-board,  which  is  also  the  covering  of  the  trough  in  which 
the  dough  is  'made ;'  and  with  a  sack  under  him,  and  another 
rolled  up  as  a  pillow,  he  sleeps  for  about  a  couple  of  hours. 
He  is  then  engaged  in  a  rapid  and  continuous  labour  for  about 
five  hours — throwing  out  the  dough,  'scaling  it  off,'  moulding 
it,  putting  it  into  the  oven,  preparing  and  baking  rolls  and 
fancy  bread,  taking  the  batch  bread  out  of  the  oven,  and  up 
into  the  shop,  &c.,  &c.  The  temperature  of  a  bakehouse  ranges 
from  about  75  to  upwards  of  90  degrees,  and  in  the  smaller 
bakehouses  approximates  usually  to  the  higher  rather  than  to 
the  lower  degree  of  heat.  When  the  business  of  making  the 
bread,  rolls,  &c.,  is  over,  that  of  its  distribution  begins,  and  a 
considerable  proportion  of  the  journeymen  in  the  trade,  after 
working  hard  in  the  manner  described  during  the  night,  are 
upon  their  legs  for  many  hours  during  the  day,  carrying  bas- 
kets, or  wheeling  hand-carts,  and  sometimes  again  in  the  bake- 
house, leaving  off  work  at  various  hours  between  1  and  6  p.m. 
according  to  the  season  of  the  year,  or  the  amount  and  nature 
of  their  master's  business ;  while  others  are  again  engaged  in 
the  bakehouse  in  'bringing  out'  more  batches  until  late  in  the 


2/6  Capitalist  Production. 

afternoon.*  .  .  .  During  what  is  called  'the  London  season,'  the 
operatives  belonging  to  the  'full-priced'  bakers  at  the  West 
End  of  the  town,  generally  begin  work  at  11  p.m.,  and  are  en- 
gaged in  making  the  bread,  with  one  or  two  short  (sometimes 
very  short)  intervals  of  rest,  up  to  8  o'clock  the  next  morning. 
They  are'  then  engaged  all  day  long,  up  to  4,  5,  6,  and  as  late 
as  7  o'clock  in  the  evening  carrying  out  bread,  or  sometimes  in 
the  afternoon  in  the  bakehouse  again,  assisting  in  the  biscuit- 
baking.  They  may  have,  after  they  have  done  their  work, 
sometimes  five  or  six,  sometimes  only  four  or  five  hours'  sleep 
before  they  begin  again.  On  Fridays  they  always  begin 
sooner,  some  about  ten  o'clock,  and  continue  in  some  cases,  at 
work,  either  in  making  or  delivering  the  bread  up  to  8  p.m.  on 
Saturday  night,  but  more  generally  up  to  4  or  5  o'clock, 
Sunday  morning.  On  Sundays  the  men  must  attend  twice  or 
three  times  during  the  day  for  an  hour  or  two  to  make  prepa- 
rations for  the  next  day's  bread The  men  employed 

by  the  underselling  masters  (who  sell  their  bread  under  the 
'full  price,'  and  who,  as  already  pointed  out,  comprise  three- 
fourths  of  the  London  bakers)  have  not  only  to  work  on  the 
average  longer  hours,  but  their  work  is  almost  entirely  confined 
to  the  bakehouse.  The  underselling  masters  generally  sell  their 
bread  ....  in  the  shop.  If  they  send  it  out,  which  is  not  com- 
mon, except  as  supplying  chandlers'  shops,  they  usually  employ 
other  hands  for  that  purpose.    It  is  not  their  practice  to  deliver 

bread  from  house  to  house.    Towards  the  end  of  the  week 

the  men  begin  on  Thursday  night  at  10  o'clock,  and  continue  on 
with  only  slight  intermission  until  late  on  Saturday  evening."^ 
Even  the  bourgeois  intellect  understands  the  position  of  the 
"underselling"  masters.  "The  unpaid  labour  of  the  men  was 
made  the  source  whereby  the  competition  was  carried  on."* 
And  the  "full-priced"  baker  denounces  his  underselling  com- 
petitors to  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  as  thieves  of  foreign 
labour  and  adulterators.  "They  only  exist  now  by  first  de- 
frauding the  public,  and  next  getting  18  hours  work  out  of 
their  men  for  12  hours'  wages."* 

*1.  c.  First  Report,  &c.,  p.  vi. 

'  1.  c.  p.  Ixxi.  '  George  Read,  The  History  of  Baking,   London,  1848,  p.  16. 

*  Report   (First)   &c.     Evidence  of  the  "full-priced"   baker  Cheeseman,  p.   108. 


The  Working  Day.  277 

The  adulteration  of  bread  and  the  formation  of  a  class  of 
bakers  that  sells  the  bread  below  the  full  price,  date  from  the 
beginning  of  the  18th  century,  from  the  time  when  the 
corporate  character  of  the  trade  was  lost,  and  the  capitalist  in 
the  form  of  the  miller  or  flour-factor,  rises  behind  the  nominal 
master  baker.  ^  Thus  was  laid  the  foundation  of  capitalistic 
production  in  this  trade,  of  the  unlimited  extension  of  the 
working  day  and  of  night  labour,  although  the  latter  only 
since  1824  gained  a  serious  footing,  even  in  London.^ 

After  what  has  just  been  said,  it  will  be  understood  that  the 
Report  of  the  Commission  classes  journeymen  bakers  among 
the  short-lived  labourers,  who,  having  by  good  luck  escaped  the 
normal  decimation  of  the  children  of  the  working-class,  rarely 
reach  the  age  of  42.  l^evertheless,  the  baking  trade  is  always 
overwhelmed  with  applicants.  The  sources  of  the  supply  of 
these  labour-powers  to  London  are  Scotland,  the  western  agri- 
cultural districts  of  England,  and  Germany. 

In  the  years  1858-60,  the  journeymen  bakers  in  Ireland 
organized  at  their  own  expense  great  meetings  to  agitate 
against  night  and  Sunday  work.  The  public — e.g.,  at  the 
Dublin  meeting  in  May,  1860 — ^took  their  part  with  Irish 
warmth.  As  a  result  of  this  movement,  day  labor  alone  was 
successfully  established  in  Wexford,  Kilkenny,  Clonmel,  Water- 
ford,  &c.  "In  Limerick,  where  the  grievances  of  the  journey- 
men are  demonstrated  to  be  excessive,  the  movement  has  been 
defeated  by  the  opposition  of  the  master  bakers,  the  miller 
bakers  being  the  greatest  opponents.  The  example  of  Limerick . 
led  to  a  retrogression  in  Ennis  and  Tipperary.  In  Cork,  where 
the  strongest  possible  demonstration  of  feeling  took  place,  the 
masters,  by  exercising  their  power  of  turning  the  men  out  of 
employment,  have  defeated  the  movement.  In  Dublin,  the 
master  bakers  have  offered  the  most  determined  opposition  to 

*  George  Read,  1.  c.  At  the  end  of  the  17th  and  the  beginning  of  the  18th  cen- 
turies the  factors  (agents)  that  crowded  into  every  possible  trade  were  still  de- 
nounced as  "public  nuisances."  Thus  the  Grand  Jury  at  the  quarter  session  of  the 
Justices  of  the  Peace  for  the  County  of  Somerset,  addressed  a  presentment  to  the 
Lower  House  which,  among  other  things,  states,  "that  these  factors  of  Blackwell  Hall 
are  a  Public  Nuisance  and  Prejudice  to  the  Clothing  Trade,  and  ought  to  be  put 
down  as  a  Nuisance."     The  case  of  our  English  Wool,  &c.,  London,  1685,  p.  6,  7. 

^  First  Report,  &c. 


278  Capitalist  Production. 

the  movement,  and  by  discountenancing  as  much  as  possible 
the  journeymen  promoting  it,  have  succeeded  in  leading  the 
men  into  acquiescence  in  Sunday  work  and  night  work,  con- 
trary to  the  convictions  of  the  men."^ 

The  Committee  of  the  English  Government,  which  Govern- 
ment, in  Ireland,  is  armed  to  the  teeth,  and  generally  knows 
how  to  show  it,  remonstrates  in  mild,  though  funereal,  tones 
with  the  implacable  master  bakers  of  Dublin,  Limerick,  Cork, 
&c. :  "The  Committee  believe  that  the  hours  of  labour  are 
limited  by  natural  laws,  which  cannot  be  violated  with  im- 
punity. That  for  master  bakers  to  induce  their  workmen,  by 
the  fear  of  losing  employment,  to  violate  their  religious  con- 
victions and  their  better  feelings,  to  disobey  the  laws  of  the 
land,  and  to  disregard  public  opinion  (this  all  refers  to  Sunday 
labour),  is  calculated  to  provoke  ill-feeling  between  workmen 
and  masters,  .  .  .  and  affords  an  example  dangerous  to  religion, 
morality,  and  social  order.  .  .  .  The  Committee  believe  that 
any  constant  work  beyond  12  hours  a-day  encroaches  on  the 
domestic  and  private  life  of  the  working  man,  and  so  leads  to 
disastrous  moral  results,  interfering  with  each  man's  home,  and 
the  discharge  of  his  family  duties  as  a  son,  a  brother,  a  hus- 
band, a  father.  That  work  beyond  12  hours  has  a  tendency  to 
undermine  the  health  of  the  working  man,  and  so  leads  to 
premature  old  age  and  death,  to  the  great  injury  of  families  of 
working  men,  thus  deprived  of  the  care  and  support  of  the 
head  of  the  family  when  most  required."^ 

So  far,  we  have  dealt  with  Ireland.  On  the  other  side  of 
the  channel,  in  Scotland,  the  agricultural  labourer,  the  plough- 
man, protests  against  his  13-14  hours'  work  in  the  most  in- 
clement climate,  with  4  hours'  additional  work  on  Sunday  (in 
this  land  of  Sabbatarians!),*  whilst,  at  the  same  time,  three 
railway  men  are  standing  before  a  London  coroner's  jury — a 
guard,  an  engine-driver,  a  signalman.  A  tremendous  railway 
accident  has  hurried  hundreds  of  passengers  into  another 
world.     The  negligence  of  the  employes  is  the  cause  of  the 

*  Report  of  Committee  on  the  Baking  Trade  in   Ireland  for  1861. 

*  1.  c. 

*  Public  meeting  of  agricultural   labourers  at  Lasswade,   near  Edinburgh,  January 
5th,    1866.      (See    "Workman's    Advocate,"    January    13th,    1866.)     The    formation 


The  Working  Day.  279 

misfortune.  They  declare  with  one  voice  before  the  jury  that 
ten  or  twelve  years  before,  their  labour  only  lasted  eight  hours 
a-day.  During  the  last  five  or  six  years  it  had  been  screwed 
up  to  14,  18,  and  20  hours,  and  under  a  specially  severe  pres- 
sure of  holiday-makers,  at  times  of  excursion  trains,  it  often 
lasted  for  40  or  50  hours  without  a  break.  They  were  ordinary 
men,  not  Cyclops.  At  a  certain  point  their  labour-power 
failed.  Torpor  seized  them.  Their  brain  ceased  to  think,  their 
eyes  to  see.  The  thoroughly  "respectable"  British  jurymen 
answered  by  a  verdict  that  sent  them  to  the  next  assizes  on  a 
charge  of  manslaughter,  and,  in  a  gentle  "rider"  to  their  ver- 
dict, expressed  the  pious  hope  that  the  capitalistic  magnates  of 
the  railways  would,  in  future,  be  more  extravagant  in  the 
purchase  of  a  sufficient  quantity  of  labour-power,  and  more 
"abstemious,"  more  "self-denying,"  more  "thrifty,"  in  the 
draining  of  paid  labour-power.^ 

From  the  motley  crowd  of  labourers  of  all  callings,  ages, 

since  the  close  of  1865  of  a  Trades'  Union  among  the  agricultural  labourers  at  first 
in  Scotland  is  a  historic  event.  In  one  of  the  most  oppressed  agricultural  districts 
of  England,  Buckinghamshire,  the  labourers,  in  March,  1SC7,  made  a  great  strike  for 
the  raising  of  their  weekly  wage  from  9-10  shillings  to  12  shillings.  (It  will  be  seen 
from  the  preceding  passage  that  the  movement  of  the  English  agricultural  proletariat, 
entirely  crushed  since  the  suppression  of  its  violent  manifestations  after  1330,  and 
especially  since  the  introduction  of  the  new  Poor  Laws,  begins  again  in  the  sixties, 
until  it  becomes  finally  epoch-making  in  1872.  I  return  to  this  in  the  2nd  volume, 
as  well  as  to  the  blue  books  that  have  appeared  since  1807  on  the  position  of  the  Eng- 
lish land  labourers.     Addendum  to  the  3rd  ed.) 

*  "Reynolds'  Newspaper,"  January,  1866. — Every  week  this  same  paper  has, 
under  the  sensational  headings,  "Fearful  and  fatal  accidents,"  "Appalling  tragedies," 
&c.,  a  whole  list  of  fresh  railway  catastrophes.  On  these  an  employe  on  the  North 
Staffordshire  line  comments:  "Everyone  knows  the  consequences  that  may  occur  if 
the  driver  and  fireman  of  a  locomotive  engine  are  not  continually  on  the  look-out. 
How  can  that  be  expected  from  a  man  who  has  been  at  such  work  for  29  or  30 
hours,  exposed  to  the  weather,  and  without  rest.  The  following  is  an  example  which 
is  of  very  frequent  occurrence: — One  fireman  commenced  work  on  the  Monday  morn- 
ing at  a  very  early  hour.  When  he  had  finished  what  is  called  a  day's  work,  he  had 
been  on  duty  14  hours  50  minutes.  Before  he  had  time  to  get  his  tea,  he  was 
again  called  on  for  duty.  .  .  .  The  next  time  he  finished  he  had  been  on  duty  14 
hours  25  minutes,  making  a  total  of  29  hours  15  minutes  without  intermission. 
The  rest  of  the  week's  work  was  made  up  as  follows: — Wednesday,  15  hours;  Thurs- 
day, 15  hours  35  minutes;  Friday,  14^  hours;  Saturday,  14  hours  10  minutes,  making 
a  total  for  the  week  of  88  hours  40  minutes.  Now,  sir,  fancy  his  astonishment  on 
being  paid  6J4  days  for  the  whole.  Thinking  it  was  a  mistake,  he  applied  to  the  time- 
keeper, .  .  .  and  inquired  what  they  considered  a  day's  work,  and  was  told  13 
hours  for  a  good  man  {i.e.,  78  hours.  .  .  .  He  then  asked  for  what  he  had  made 
over  and  above  the  78  hours  per  week,  but  was  refused.  However,  he  was  at  last 
lold  they  would  give  him  another  quarter,  i.e.,  lOd."     1.  c,  4th  February,  1866. 


28o  Capitalist  Production. 

sexes,  that  press  on  us  more  busily  than  the  souls  of  the  slain 
on  Ulysses,  on  -whom — ^without  referring  to  the  blue  books 
under  their  arms — we  see  at  a  glance  the  mark  of  over-work, 
let  us  take  two  more  figures  whose  striking  contrast  proves" 
that  before  capital  all  men  are  alike — a  milliner  and  a  black- 
smith. 

In  the  last  week  of  June,  1863,  all  the  London  daily  papers 
published  a  paragraph  with  the  "sensational"  heading  "Death 
from  simple  over-work."  It  dealt  with  the  death  of  the 
milliner,  Mary  Anne  Walkley,  20  years  of  age,  employed  in  a 
highly-respectable  dressmaking  establishment,  exploited  by  a 
lady  with  the  pleasant  name  of  Elise.  The  old,  often-told 
story,*  was  once  more  recounted.  This  girl  worked,  on  an 
average,  16^  hours,  during  the  season  often  30  hours,  without  a 
break,  whilst  her  failing  labour-powerwas  revived  by  occasional 
supplies  of  sherry,  port,  or  coffee.  It  was  just  now  the  height 
of  the  season.  It  was  necessary  to  conjure  up  in  the  twinkling 
of  an  eye  the  gorgeous  dresses  for  the  noble  ladies  bidden  to 
the  ball  in  honour  of  the  newly-imported  Princess  of  Wales. 
Mary  Anne  Walkley  had  worked  without  intermission  for  26^ 
hours,  with  60  other  girls,  30  in  one  room,  that  only  afforded  ^ 
of  the  cubic  feet  of  air  required  for  them.  At  night,  they  slept 
in  pairs  in  one  of  the  stifling  holes  into  which  the  bedroom  was 
divided  by  partitions  of  board.^     And  this  was  one  of  the  best 

»Cf.     F.  Engels.     1.  c,  pp.  253,  154. 

*  Dr.  Letheby,  Consulting  Physician  of  the  Board  of  Health,  declared:  "The  mini- 
mum of  air  for  each  adult  ought  to  be  in  a  sleeping  room  300,  and  in  a  dwelling 
room  600  cubic  feet."  Dr.  Richardson,  Senior  Physician  to  one  of  the  London 
Hospitals:  "With  needlewomen  of  all  kinds,  including  milliners,  dressmakers,  and 
ordinary  sempstresses,  there  are  three  miseries — over-work,  deficient  air,  and  either 
deficient  food  or  deficient  digestion.  .  .  .  Needlework,  in  the  main,  ...  is 
infinitely  better  adapted  to  women  than  to  men.  But  the  mischiefs  of  the  trade, 
in  the  metropolis  especially,  are  that  it  is  monopolised  by  some  twenty-six  capitalists, 
who,  under  the  advantages  that  spring  from  capital,  can  bring  in  capital  to  force 
economy  out  of  labour.  This  power  tells  throughout  the  whole  class.  If  a  dress- 
maker can  get  a  little  circle  of  customers,  such  is  the  competition  that,  in  her 
home,  she  must  work  to  the  death  to  hold  together,  and  this  same  over-work  she 
must  of  necessity  inflict  on  any  who  may  assist  her.  If  she  fail,  or  do  not  try 
independently,  she  must  join  an  establishment,  where  her  labour  is  not  less,  but 
where  her  money  is  safe.  Placed  thus,  she  becomes  a  mere  slave,  tossed  about  with 
the  variations  of  society.  Now  at  home,  in  one  room,  starving,  or  near  to  it,  then 
engaged  15,  16,  aye,  even  18  hours  out  of  the  24,  in  an  air  that  is  scarcely  tolerable, 
and  on  food  which,  even  if  it  be  good,  cannot  be  digested  in  the  absence  of  pure 


The  Working  Day.  281 

millinery  establishments  in  London.  Mary  Anne  Walkley  fell 
ill  on  the  Friday,  died  on  Sunday,  without,  to  the  astonish- 
ment of  Madame  Elise,  having  previously  completed  the  work 
in  hand.  The  doctor,  Mr.  Keys,  called  too  late  to  the  death- 
bed, duly  bore  witness  before  the  coroner's  jury  that  "Mary 
Anne  Walkley  had  died  from  long  hours  of  work  in  an  over- 
crowded workroom,  and  a  too  small  and  badly-ventilated  bed- 
room." In  order  to  give  the  doctor  a  lesson  in  good  manners, 
the  coroner's  jury  thereupon  brought  in  a  verdict  that  "the 
deceased  had  died  of  apoplexy,  but  there  was  reason  to  fear 
that  her  death  had  been  accelerated  by  over-work  in  an  over- 
crowded workroom,  &c."  "Our  white  slaves,"  cried  the  "Morn- 
ing Star,"  the  organ  of  the  free-traders,  Cobden  and  Bright, 
"our  white  slaves,  who  are  toiled  into  the  grave,  for  the  most 
part  silently  pine  and  die."^ 

"It  is  not  in  dressmakers'  rooms  that  working  to  death  is 
the  order  of  the  day,  but  in  a  thousand  other  places ;  in  every 
place  I  had  almost  said,  where  'a  thriving  business'  has  to  be 
done.  .  .  .  We  will  take  the  blacksmith  as  a  type.  If 
the  poets  were  true,  there  is  no  man  so  hearty,  so  merry,  as 
the  blacksmith;  he  rises  early  and  strikes  his  sparks  before 
the  sun;  he  eats  and  drinks  and  sleeps  as  no  other  man. 
Working  in  moderation,  he  is,  in  fact,  in  one  of  the  best  of 

air.  On  these  victims,  consumption,  which  is  purely  a  disease  of  bad  air,  feeds." 
Dr.  Richardson:  "Work  and  Overwork,"  in  "Social  Science  Review,"  18th  July, 
1863. 

^  "Morning  Star,"  23rd  June,  1863. — The  "Times"  made  use  of  the  circumstance 
to  defend  the  American  slave  owners  against  Bright,  &c.  "Very  many  of  us  think," 
says  a  leader  of  July  2nd,  1868,  "that,  while  we  work  our  own  young  women  to 
death,  using  the  scourge  of  starvation,  instead  of  the  crack  of  the  whip,  as  the 
instrument  of  compulsion,  we  have  scarcely  a  right  to  hound  on  fire  and  slaughter 
against  families  who  were  born  slave  owners,  and  who,  at  least,  feed  their  slaves 
well,  and  work  them  lightly."  In  the  same  manner,  the  "Standard,"  a  Tory  organ, 
fell  foul  of  the  Rev.  Newman  Hall:  "He  excommunicated  the  slave  owners,  but 
prays  with  the  fine  folk  who,  without  remorse,  make  the  omnibus  drivers  and  con- 
ductors of  London,  &c.,  work  16  hours  a-day  for  the  wages  of  a  dog."  Finally, 
spake  the  oracle,  Thomas  Carlyle,  of  whom  I  wrote,  in  1850,  "Zum  Teufel  ist  der 
Genius,  der  Kultus  ist  geblieben."  In  a  short  parable,  he  reduces  the  one  great 
event  of  contemporary  history,  the  American  civil  war,  to  this  level,  that  the  Peter 
of  the  North  wants  to  break  the  head  of  the  Paul  of  the  South  with  all  his  might, 
because  the  Peter  of  the  North  hires  his  labour  by  the  day,  and  the  Paul  of  the 
South  hires  his  by  the  life.  ("Macmillan's  Magazine."  Uias  Americana  in  nuce. 
August,  1863.)  Thus,  the  bubble  of  Tory  sympathy  for  the  urban  workers — by  no 
means  for  the  rural — has  burst  at  last.     The  sum  of  all  is — slavery! 


282  Capitalist  Production. 

human  positions,  physically  speaking.  But  we  follow  him  into 
the  city  or  town,  and  we  see  the  stress  of  work  on  that  strong 
man,  and  what  then  is  his  position  in  the  death-rate  of  his 
country.  In  Marylebone,  blacksmiths  die  at  the  rate  of  31  per 
thousand  per  annum,  or  11  above  the  mean  of  the  male  adults 
of  the  country  in  its  entirety.  The  occupation,  instinctive 
almost  as  a  portion  of  human  art,  imobjectionable  as  a  branch 
of  human  industry,  is  made  by  mere  excess  of  work,  the  de- 
stroyer of  the  man.  He  can  strike  so  many  blows  per  day, 
walk  80  many  steps,  breathe  so  many  breaths,  produce  so  much 
work,  and  live  an  average,  say  of  fifty  years;  he  is  made  to 
strike  so  many  more  blows,  to  walk  so  many  more  steps,  to 
breathe  so  many  more  breaths  per  day,  and  to  increase  alto- 
gether a  fourth  of  his  life.  He  meets  the  effort ;  the  result  is, 
that  producing  for  a  limited  time  a  fourth  more  work,  he  dies 
at  37  for  50."* 

SECTION  4. ^DAY  AND  NIGHT  WORK.       THE  RELAY  SYSTEM. 

Constant  capital,  the  means  of  production,  considered  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  creation  of  surplus-value,  only  exist  to 
absorb  labour,  and  with  every  drop  of  labour  a  proportional 
quantity  of  surplus-labour.  While  they  fail  to  do  this,  their 
mere  existence  causes  a  relative  loss  to  the  capitalist,  for  they 
represent  during  the  time  they  lie  fallow,  a  useless  advance  of 
capital.  And  this  loss  becomes  positive  and  absolute  as  soon 
as  the  intermission  of  their  employment  necessitates  additional 
outlay  at  the  recommencement  of  work.  The  prolongation  of 
the  working  day  beyond  the  limits  of  the  natural  day,  into 
the  night,  only  acts  as  a  palliative.  It  quenches  only  in  a  slight 
degree  the  vampire  thirst  for  the  living  blood  of  labour.  To 
appropriate  labour  during  all  the  24  hours  of  the  day  is,  there- 
fore, the  inherent  tendency  of  capitalist  production.  But  as  it 
is  physically  impossible  to  exploit  the  same  individual  labour- 
power  constantly  during  the  night  as  well  as  the  day,  to  over- 
come this  physical  hindrance,  an  alternation  becomes  necessary 
between  the  workpeople  whose  powers  are  exhausted  by  day, 

*  Dr.  Richardson,  1.  c. 


The  Working  Day.  283 

and  those  who  are  used  up  by  night.  This  alternation  may  be 
effected  in  various  ways ;  e.g.,  it  may  be  so  arranged  that  part 
of  the  workers  are  one  week  employed  on  day  work,  the  next 
week  on  night  work.  It  is  well-known  that  this  relay  system, 
this  alternation  of  two  sets  of  workers,  held  full  sway  in  the 
full-blooded  youth-time  of  the  English  cotton  manufacture,  and 
that  at  the  present  time  it  still  flourishes,  among  others,  in  the 
cotton  spinning  of  the  Moscow  district.  This  24  hours'  process 
of  production  exists  to-day  as  a  system  in  many  of  the  branches 
of  industry  of  Great  Britain  that  are  still  "free,"  in  the 
blast-fumaces,  forges,  plate-rolling  mills,  and  other  metal- 
lurgical establishments  in  England,  Wales,  and  Scotland.  The 
working  time  here  includes,  besides  the  24  hours  of  the  6 
working  days,  a  great  part  also  of  the  24  hours  of  Sunday. 
The  workers  consist  of  men  and  women,  adults  and  children 
of  both  sexes.  The  ages  of  the  children  and  young  persons  run 
through  all  intermediate  grades,  from  8  (in  some  cases  from  6) 
to  18.1 

In  some  branches  of  industry,  the  girls  and  women  work 
through  the  night  together  with  the  males.  ^ 

Placing  on  one  side  the  generally  injurious  influence  of 
night-labour,^  the  duration  of  the  process  of  production,  un- 

*  Children's  Employment  Commission.     Third  Report.     London,  1864,  p.  iv.,  v.,  vi. 

*  "Both  in  Staffordshire  and  in  South  Wales  young  prls  and  women  are  employed 
on  the  pit  banks  and  on  the  coke  heaps,  not  only  by  day  but  also  by  night.  This 
practice  has  been  often  noticed  in  Reports  presented  to  Parliament,  as  being  attended 
with  great  and  notorious  evils.  These  females  employed  with  the  men,  hardly  dis- 
tinguished from  them  in  their  dress,  and  begrimed  with  dirt  and  smoke,  are  exposed 
to  the  deterioration  of  character,  arising  from  the  loss  of  self-respect,  which  can 
hardly  fail  to  follow  from  their  unfeminine  occupation."  (1.  c.  194.,  p.  xxvi.  Cf. 
Fourth    Report   (1865),   61,   p.   xiii.)     It  is   the   same  in   glass-works. 

*A  steel  manufacturer  who  employs  children  in  night  labour  remarked:  "It 
seems  but  natural  that  boys  who  work  at  night  cannot  sleep  and  get  proper  rest  by 
day,  hut  will  be  running  about."  (1.  c.  Fourth  Report,  63,  p.  xiii.)  On  the  im- 
portance of  sunlight  for  the  maintenance  and  growth  of  the  body,  a  physician 
writes:  "Light  also  acts  upon  the  tissues  of  the  body  directly  in  hardening  them 
and  supporting  their  elasticity.  The  muscles  of  animals,  when  they  are  deprived 
of  a  proper  amount  of  light,  become  soft  and  inelastic,  the  nervous  power  loses  its 
tone  from  defective  stimulation,  and  the  elaboration  of  all  growth  seems  to  be 
perverted.  ...  In  the  case  of  children,  constant  access  to  plenty  of  light  during 
the  day,  and  to  the  direct  rays  of  the  sun  for  a  part  of  it,  is  most  essential  to 
health.  Light  assists  in  the  elaboration  of  good  plastic  blood,  and  hardens  the 
fibre  after  it  has  been  laid  down.  It  also  act?  as  a  stimulus  upon  the  organs  of 
sight,  and  by  this  means  brings  about  more  activity  in  the  various  cerebral  func- 
tions."    Dr.  W.   Strange,  Senior  Physician  of  the  Worcester  General  Hospital,  from 


284  Capitalist  Production. 

broken  during  the  24  hours,  offers  very  welcome  opportunities 
of  exceeding  the  limits  of  the  normal  working  day,  e.g.,  in  the 
branches  of  industry  already  mentioned,  which  are  of  an 
exceedingly  fatiguing  nature;  the  official  working  day  means 
for  each  worker  usually  12  hours  by  night  or  day.  But  the 
over-work  beyond  this  amount  is  in  many  cases,  to  use  the 
words  of  the  English  official  report,  "truly  fearful."^ 

"It  is  impossible,"  the  report  continues,  "for  any  mind  to 
realise  the  amount  of  work  described  in  the  following  passages 
as  being  performed  by  boys  of  from  9  to  12  years  of  age  .... 
without  coming  irresistibly  to  the  conclusion  that  such  abuses 
of  the  power  of  parents  and  of  employers  can  no  longer  be 
allowed  to  exist."^ 

"The  practice  of  boys  working  at  all  by  day  and  night 
turns  either  in  the  usual  course  of  things,  or  at  pressing  times, 
seems  inevitably  to  open  the  door  to  their  not  unfrequently 
working  unduly  long  hours.  These  hours  are,  indeed,  in  some 
cases,  not  only  cruelly  but  even  incredibly  long  for  children. 
Amongst  a  number  of  boys  it  will,  of  course,  not  unfrequently 
happen  that  one  or  more  are  from  some  cause  absent.  When 
this  happens,  their  place  is  made  up  by  one  or  more  boys, 
who  work  in  the  other  turn.  That  this  is  a  well  understood 
system  is  plain  .  .  .  from  the  answer  of  the  manager  of 
some  large  rolling-mills,  who,  when  I  asked  him  how  the 
place  of  the  boys  absent  from  their  turn  was  made  up,  'I 
daresay,  sir,  you  know  that  as  well  .as  I  do,'  and  admitted,  the 
fact."* 

"At  a  rolling-mill  where  the  proper  hours  were  from  6  a.m. 
to  5|  p.m.,  a  boy  worked  about  four  nights  every  week  till 
8|  p.m.  at  least  .  .  .  and  this  for  six  months.  Another,  at  9 
years  old,  sometimes  made  three  12-hour  shifts  running,  and, 

whoM  work  on  "Health"  (1864)  this  passage  is  taken,  writes  in  a  letter  to  Mr. 
White,  one  of  the  commissioners:  "I  have  had  opportunities  formerly,  when  in 
Lancashire,  of  observing  the  effects  of  night-work  upon  children,  and  I  have  no 
hesitation  in  saying,  contrary  to  what  some  employers  were  fond  of  asserting,  those 
children  who  were  subjected  to  it  soon  suffered  in  their  health."  (1.  c.  284,  p.  55.) 
That  such  a  question  should  furnish  the  material  of  serious  controversy,  shows 
plainly  how  capitalist  production  acts  on  the  brain-functions  of  capitalists  and  their 
retainers. 

»L   c.    57,    p.   xii.  »1.    c.     Fourth    Report    (1865),    58,   p.    xii.  *  1.   C. 


The  Working  Day.  285 

when  10,  has  made  two  days  and  two  nights  running."  A 
third,  "now  10  .  .  .  worked  from  6  a.m.  till  12  p.m.  three 
nights,  and  till  9  p.m.  the  other  nights."  "Another,  now  13, 
.  .  .  worked  from  6  p.m.  till  12  noon  next  day,  for  a  week 
together,  and  sometimes  for  three  shifts  together,  e.g.,  from 
Monday  morning  till  Tuesday  night."  "Another,  now  12,  has 
worked  in  an  iron  foundry  at  Stavely  from  6  a.m.  till  12  p.m. 
for  a  fortnight  on  end;  could  not  do  it  any  more."  "George 
AUinsworth,  age  9,  came  here  as  cellar-boy  last  Friday;  next 
morning  we  had  to  begin  at  3,  so  I  stopped  here  all  night. 
Live  five  miles  off.  Slept  on  the  floor  of  the  furnace,  over 
head,  with  an  apron  under  me,  and  a  bit  of  a  jacket  over  me. 
The  two  other  days  I  have  been  here  at  6  a.m.  Aye !  it  is  hot 
in  here.  Before  I  came  here  I  was  nearly  a  year  at  the  same 
work  at  some  works  in  the  country.  Began  there,  too,  at  3  on 
Saturday  morning — always  did,  but  was  very  gain  [near] 
home,  and  could  sleep  at  home.  Other  days  I  began  at  6  in  the 
morning,  and  gi'en  over  at  6  or  7  in  the  evening,"  &c.^ 

*  1.  c,  p.  xiii.  The  degree  of  culture  of  these  "labour-powers"  must  naturally  be 
such  as  appears  in  the  following  dialogues  with  one  of  the  commissioners:  Jere- 
miah Haynes,  age  12 — "Four  times  four  is  8;  4  fours  are  16.  A  king  is  him  that 
has  all  I'.'.a  money  and  r.  ild.  We  have  a  King  (told  it  is  a  Queen),  they  call  her 
the  Princess  Alexandria.  Told  that  she  married  the  Queen's  son.  The  Queen's 
son  is  the  Princess  Alexandria.  A  Princess  is  a  man."  William  Turner,  age  12 — 
"Don't  live  in  England.  Think  it  is  a  country,  but  didn't  know  before."  John 
Morris,  age  14 — "Have  heard  say  that  God  made  the  world,  and  that  all  the  people 
was  drownded  but  one;  heard  say  that  one  was  a  little  bird."  William  Smith,  age 
15 — ("God  made  man,  man  made  woman."  Edward  Taylor,  age  15 — "Do  not  know 
of  London."  Henry  Matthewman,  age  17 — "Had  been  to  chapel,  but  missed  a  good 
many  times  lately.  One  name  that  they  preached  about  was  Jesus  Christ,  but  I 
cannot  say  any  otliTS,  and  I  cannot  tell  anything  about  him.  He  was  not  killed, 
but  died  like  other  people.  He  was  not  the  same  as  other  people  in  some  ways, 
because  he  was  religious  in  some  ways,  and  others  isn't."  (1.  c.  p.  xv.)  "The 
devil  is  a  good  person.  I  don't  know  where  he  lives."  "Christ  was  a  wicked 
man."  "This  girl  spelt  God  as  dog,  and  did  not  know  the  name  of  the  queen." 
('•Ch.  Employment  Comm.  V.  Report,  1866,"  p.  55,  n.  278.)  The  same  system 
obtains  in  the  glass  and  paper  works  as  in  the  metallurgical,  already  cited.  In  the 
paper  factories,  where  the  paper  is  made  by  machinery,  night-work  is  the  rule  for 
all  processes,  except  rag-sorting.  In  some  cases  night-work,  by  relays,  is  carried 
on  incessantly  through  the  whole  week,  usually  from  Sunday  night  until  midnight 
of  the  following  Saturday.  Those  who  are  on  day-work  work  5  days  of  12,  and  1 
day  of  18  hours;  those  on  night-work  5  nights  of  12,  and  1  of  6  hours  in  each 
week.  In  other  cases  each  set  works  24  hours  consecutively  on  alternate  days,  one 
set  working  6  hours  on  Monday,  and  18  on  Saturday  to  make  up  the  24  hours.  In 
other  cases  an  intermediate  system  prevails,  by  which  all  employed  on  the  paper- 
making  machinery  work  15  or  16  hours  every  day  in  the  week.  This  system,  says 
Commissioner  Lord,  "seems  to  combine  all  the  evils  of  both  the  12  hours'  and  the  24 


286  Capitalist  Production. 

Let  us  now  hear  how  capital  itself  regards  this  24  hours' 
system.  The  extreme  forms  of  the  system,  its  abuse  in  the 
"cruel  and  incredible"  extension  of  the  working  day  are  natur- 
ally passed  over  in  silence.  Capital  only  speaks  of  the  system 
in  its  "normal"  form. 

Messrs.  Naylor  &  Vickers,  steel  manufacturers,  who  employ 
between  600  and  700  persons,  among  whom  only  10  per  cent, 
are  under  18,  and  of  those,  only  20  boys  under  18  work  in 
night  sets  thus  express  themselves:  "The  boys  do  not  suffer 
from  the  heat.  The  temperature  is  probably  from  86°  to  90°. 
....  At  the  forges  and  in  the  rolling-mills  the  hands 
work  night  and  day,  in  relays,  but  all  the  other  parts  of  the 
work  are  day  work,  i.e.,  from  6  a.m.  to  6  p.m.  In  the  forge 
the  hours  are  from  12  to  12.  Some  of  the  hands  always  work 
in  the  night,  without  any  alternation  of  day  and  night  work. 

We  do  not  find  any  difference  in  the  health  of  those 

who  work  regularly  by  night  and  those  who  work  by  day,  and 
probably  people  can  sleep  better  if  they  have  the  same  period 

of  rest  than  if  it  is  changed About  20  of  the  boys 

under  the  age  of  18  work  in  the  night  sets We 

could  not  well  do  without  lads  under  18  working  by  night. 
The  objection  would  be  in  the  increase  in  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion  Skilled  hands  and  the  heads  in  every  department 

are  difficult  to  get,  but  of  the  lads  we  could  get  any  number. 

But  from  the  small  proportion  of  boys  that  we  employ 

the  subject  (i.e.,  of  restrictions  on  night  work)  is  of  little  im- 
portance or  interest  to  us."^ 

Mr.  J.  Ellis,  one  of  the  firm  of  Messrs.  John  Brown  &  Co., 
steel  and  iron  works,  employing  about  3000  men  and  boys,  part 

hours'  relays."  Children  under  13,  young  persons  under  18,  and  women,  work 
under  this  night  system.  Sometimes  under  the  12  hours'  system  they  are  obliged,  on 
account  of  the  non-appearance  of  those  that  ought  to  relieve  them,  to  work  a  double 
turn  of  24  hours.  The  evidence  proves  that  boys  and  girls  very  often  work  over- 
time, which,  not  unfrequently,  extends  to  24  or  even  36  hours  of  uninterrupted 
toil.  In  the  continuous  and  unvarying  process  of  glazing  are  found  girls  of  12 
who  work  the  whole  month  14  hours  a  day,  "without  any  regular  relief  or  cessation 
beyond  2  or,  at  most,  3  breaks  of  half-an-hour  each  for  meals."  In  some  mills, 
where  regular  night-work  has  been  entirely  given  up,  over-work  goes  on  to  a  terri- 
ble extent,  "and  that  often  in  the  dirtiest,  and  in  the  hottest,  and  in  the  most 
monotonous  of  the  various  processes."  ("Ch.  Employment  Comm.  Report  IV., 
1865,"    p.    xxxviii.    and    xxxix.)  »  Fourth    Report,   &c.,    1865,    79,    p.    xvi. 


The  Working  Day.  287 

of  whose  operations,  namely,  iron  and  heavier  steel  work,  goes 
on  night  and  day  by  relays  states  "that  in  the  heavier  steel 
work  one  or  two  boys  are  employed  to  a  score  or  two  men." 
Their  concern  employs  upwards  of  500  boys  under  18  of  whom 
about  ;^  or  170  are  under  the  age  of  13.  With  reference  to  the 
proposed  alteration  of  the  law,  Mr.  Ellis  says :  "I  do  not  think 
it  would  be  very  objectionable  to  require  that  no  person  under 
the  age  of  18  should  work  more  than  12  hours  in  the  24.  But 
we  do  not  think  that  any  line  could  be  drawn  over  the  age  of 
12,  at  which  boys  could  be  dispensed  with  for  night  work.  But 
we  would  sooner  be  prevented  from  employing  boys  under  the 
age  of  13,  or  even  so  high  as  14,  at  all,  than  not  be  allowed  to 
employ  boys  that  we  do  have  at  night.  Those  boys  who 
work  in  the  day  sets  must  take  their  turn  in  the  night  sets  also, 
because  the  men  could  not  work  in  the  night  sets  only;  it 

would  ruin  their  health We  think,  however,  that 

night  work  in  alternate  weeks  is  no  harm.  (Messrs.  l^aylor  & 
Vickers,  on  the  other  hand,  in  conformity  with  the  interest  of 
their  business,  considered  that  periodically  changed  night- 
labour  might  possibly  do  more  harm  than  continual  night- 
labour.)    We  find  the  men  who  do  it,  as  well  as  the  others  who 

do  other  work  only  by  day Our  objections  to  not 

allowing  boys  under  18  to  work  at  night,  would  be  on  account 
of  the  increase  of  expense,  but  this  is  the  only  reason.  (What 
cynical  naivete!)  We  think  that  the  increase  would  be  more 
than  the  trade,  with  due  regard  to  its  being  successfully  carried 
out,  could  fairly  bear.  (What  mealy-mouthed  phraseology!) 
Labour  is  scarce  here,  and  might  fall  short  if  there  were  such 
a  regulation."  {i.e.,  Ellis  Brown  &  Co.  might  fall  into  the  fatal 
perplexity  of  being  obliged  to  pay  labour-power  its  full  value.)* 
The  "Cyclops  Steel  and  Iron  Works,"  of  Messrs.  Cammel  & 
Co.,  are  conducted  on  the  same  large  scale  as  those  of  the  above 
mentioned  John  Brown  &  Co.  The  managing  director  had! 
handed  in  his  evidence  to  the  Government  Commissioner,  Mr. 
White,  in  writing.  Later  he  found  it  convenient  to  suppress 
the  MS.  when  it  had  been  returned  to  him  for  revision.  Mr. 
White,  however,  has  a  good  memory.     He  remembered  quite 

*1.   c.    80,    p.   xvi. 


288  Capitalist  Production. 

clearly  tliat  for  the  Messrs.  Cyclops  the  forbidding  of  the 
night-labour  of  children  and  young  persons  "would  be  im- 
possible, it  would  be  tantamount  to  stopping  their  works,"  and 
yet  their  business  employs  little  more  than  6%  of  boys  under 
18,  and  less  than  1%  under  13.* 

On  the  same  subject  Mr.  E.  F.  Sanderson,  of  the  firm  of 
Sanderson,  Bros.,  &  Co.,  steel  rolling-mills  and  forges,  Atter- 
cliffe,  says:  "Great  difficulty  would  be  caused  by  preventing 
boys  under  18  from  working  at  night.  The  chief  would  be  the 
increase  of  cost  from  employing  men  instead  of  boys.  I  can- 
not say  what  this  would  be,  but  probably  it  would  not  be 
enough  to  enable  the  manufacturers  to  raise  the  price  of  steel, 
and  consequently  it  would  fall  on  them,  as  of  course  the  men 
(what  queer-headed  folk !)  would  refuse  to  pay  it."  Mr.  San- 
derson does  not  know  how  much  he  pays  the  children,  but 
"perhaps  the  younger  boys  get  from  4«.  to  5s.  a  week.  .  .  . 
The  boys'  work  is  of  a  kind  for  which  the  strength  of  the  boys 
is  generally  ('generally,'  of  course  not  always)  quite  sufficient, 
and  consequently  there  would  be  no  gain  in  the  greater  strength 
of  the  men  to  counterbalance  the  loss,  or  it  would  be  only  in 
the  few  cases  in  which  the  metal  is  heavy.  The  men  would 
not  like  so  well  not  to  have  boys  under  them,  as  men  would  be 
less  obedient.  Besides,  boys  must  begin  young  to  learn  the 
trade.  Leaving  day  work  alone  open  to  boys  would  not  answer 
this  purpose."  And  why  not?  Why  could  not  boys  learn 
their  handicraft  in  the  day-time  ?  Your  reason  ?  "Owing  to 
the  men  working  days  and  nights  in  alternate  weeks,  the  men 
would  be  separated  half  the  time  from  their  boys,  and  would 
lose  half  the  profit  which  they  make  from  them.  The  training 
which  they  give  to  an  apprentice  is  considered  as  part  of  the 
return  for  the  boys'  labour,  and  thus  enables  the  men  to  get  it 
at  a  cheaper  rate.  Each  man  would  want  half  of  this  profit." 
In  other  words,  Messrs.  Sanderson  would  have  to  pay  part  of 
the  wages  of  the  adult  men  out  of  their  own  pockets  instead  of 
by  the  night  work  of  the  boys.  Messrs.  Sanderson's  profit 
would  thus  fall  to  some  extent,  and  this  is  the  good  Sanderson- 

*1.  c   82,  p.  xviL 


The  Working  Day.  289 

.ian  reason  why  boys  cannot  learn  their  handicraft  in  the  day.-^ 
In  addition  to  this,  it  would  throw  night  labour  on  those  who 
worked  instead  of  the  boys,  which  they  would  not  be  able  to 
stand.  The  difficulties  in  fact  would  be  so  great  that  they 
would  very  likely  lead  to  the  giving  up  of  night  work  al- 
together, and  "as  far  as  the  work  itself  is  concerned,"  says 
E.  F.  Sanderson,  "this  would  suit  as  well,  but — "  But  Messrs. 
Sanderson  have  something  else  to  make  besides  steel.  Steel- 
making  is  simply  a  pretext  for  surplus-value  making.  The 
smelting  furnaces,  rolling-mills,  &c.,  the  buildings,  machinery, 
iron,  coal,  &c.  have  something  more  to  do  than  transform  them- 
selves into  steel.  They  are  there  to  absorb  surplus-labour,  and 
naturally  absorb  more  in  24  hours  than  in  12.  In  fact  they 
give,  by  grace  of  God  and  law,  the  Sandersons  a  cheque  on  the 
working  time  of  a  certain  number  of  hands  for  all  the  24  hours 
of  the  day,  and  they  lose  their  character  as  capital,  are  there- 
fore a  pure  loss  for  the  Sandersons,  as  soon  as  their  function  of 
absorbing  labour  is  interrupted.  "But  then  there  would  be 
the  loss  from  so  much  expensive  machinery,  lying  idle  half  the 
time,  and  to  get  through  the  amount  of  work  which  we  are  able 
to  do  on  the  present  system,  we  should  have  to  double  our 
premises  and  plant,  which  would  double  the  outlay."  But  why 
should  these  Sandersons  pretend  to  a  privilege  not  enjoyed  by 
the  other  capitalists  who  only  work  during  the  day,  and  whose 
buildings,  machinery,  raw  material,  therefore  lie  "idle"  during 
tlie  night  ?  E.  F.  Sanderson  answers  in  the  name  of  all  the 
Sandersons :  "It  is  true  tliat  there  is  this  loss  from  machinery 
lying  idle  in  those  manufactories  in  which  work  only  goes  on 
by  day.  But  the  use  of  furnaces  would  involve  a  further  loss 
in  our  case.  If  they  were  kept  up  there  would  be  a  waste  of 
fuel  (instead  of,  as  now^  a  waste  of  the  living  substance  of  the 
workers),  and  if  they  were  not,  there  would  be  loss  of  time  in 
laying  the  fires  and  getting  the  heat  up  (whilst  the  loss  of 
sleeping  time,  even  to  children  of  8,  is  a  gain  of  working 
time  for  the  Sanderson  tribe),  and  the  furnaces  themselves 

^  In  our  reflecting  and  reasoning  age  a  man  is  not  worth  much  who  cannot  give  a 
good  reason  for  everything,  no  matter  how  bad  or  how  crazy.  Everything  in  the 
world  that  has  been  done  wrong  has  been  done  wrong  for  the  very  bent  of  reasons. 
(Hegel,   1.   c,   p.   249.) 

s 


290  Capitalist  Production. 

would  suffer  from  the  changes  of  temperature."  (Whilst  those 
same  furnaces  suffer  nothing  from  the  day  and  night  changes  of 
labour.)* 

SECTION    5. THE    STBUGGLE    FOB    A    NORMAL    WORKING    DAY. 

COMPULSORY  LAWS  FOB  THE  EXTENSION  OF  THE  WORKING 
DAY  FROM  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  14tH  TO  THE  END  OF  THE 
17th  CENTURY. 

"What  is  a  working  day?  What  is  the  length  of  time 
during  which  capital  may  consume  the  labour-power  whose 
daily  value  it  buys?  How  far  may  the  working  day  be  ex- 
tended beyond  the  working  time  necessary  for  the  reproduction 
of  labour-power  itself  ?"  It  has  been  seen  that  to  these  ques- 
tions  capital  replies:  the  working  day  contains  the  full  24 
hours,  with  the  deduction  of  the  few  hours  of  repose  without 
which    labour-power    absolutely    refuses    its    services    again. 

*  1.  c.  85,  p.  xvii.  To  similar  tender  scruples  of  the  glass  manufacturers  that 
regnilar  meal  times  for  the  children  are  impossible  because  as  a  consequence  a  cer- 
tain quantity  of  heat,  radiated  by  the  furnaces,  wou'd  be  "a  pure  loss"  or  "wasted," 
Commissionei-  White  makes  answer.  His  answer  is  unlike  that  of  Urc,  Senior,  &c., 
and  their  puny  German  plagiarists  a  la  Roscher  who  are  touched  by  the  "abstinence," 
"self-denial,"  "saving,"  of  the  capitalists  in  the  expenditure  of  their  gold,  and  by 
their  Timur-Tamerlanish  prodigality  of  human  life!  "A  certain  amount  of  heat 
beyond  what  is  usual  at  present  might  also  be  going  to  waste,  if  meal  times  were 
secured  in  these  cases,  but  it  seems  likely  not  equal  in  money-value  to  the  waste 
of  animal  power  n6w  going  on  in  glass-houses  throughout  the  kingdom  from  growing 
boys  not  having  enough  quiet  time  to  eat  their  meals  at  ease,  with  a  little  rest 
afterwards  for  digestion."  (1.  c,  p.  xlv.)  And  this  in  the  year  of  progress  1S65! 
Without  considering  the  expenditure  of  strength  in  lifting  and  carrying,  such  a 
child,  in  the  sheds  where  bottle  and  flint  glass  are  made,  walks  during  the  perform- 
ance of  his  work  15—20  miles  in  every  6  hours!  And  the  work  often  lasts  14  or  15 
hours!  In  many  of  these  glass  works,  as  in  the  Moscow  spinning  mills,  the  system 
of  6  hours'  relays  is  in  force.  "During  the  working  part  of  the  week  six  hours 
is  the  utmost  unbroken  period  ever  attained  at  any  one  time  for  rest,  and  out  of 
this  has  to  come  the  time  spent  in  coming  and  going  to  and  from  work,  washing, 
dressing,  and  meals,  leaving  a  very  short  period  indeed  for  rest,  and  none  for  fresh 
air  and  play,  unless  at  the  expense  of  the  sleep  necessary  for  young  boys,  especially 
at  such  hot  and  fatiguing  work.  .  .  .  Even  the  short  sleep  is  obviously  liable 
to  be  broken  by  a  boy  having  to  wake  himself  if  it  is  night,  or  by  the  noise,  if 
it  is  day."  Mr.  White  gives  cases  where  a  boy  worked  30  consecutive  hours; 
others  where  boys  of  12  drudged  on  until  2  in  the  morning,  and  then  slept  in  the 
works  till  6  a.m.  (3  hours!)  only  to  resume  their  work.  "The  amount  of  work," 
say  Tremcnheere  and  Tufnell,  who  drafted  the  general  report,  "done  by  boys, 
youths,  girls,  and  women,  in  the  course  of  their  daily  or  nightly  spell  of  labour,  is 
certainly  extraordinary."  (1.  c,  xliii.  and  xliv.)  Meanwhile,  late  by  night  per- 
haps, self-denying  Mr.  Glass-Capital,  primed  with  port-wine,  reels  out  of.  his  club 
homeward  droning  out  idiotically,   "Britons  never,  never   shall  be  slaves!" 


The  Working  Day.  291 

Hence  it  is  self-evident  that  the  labourer  is  nothing  else,  his 
whole  life  tlirongh,  than  labour-power,  that  therefore  all  his 
disposable  time  is  by  nature  and  law  labour-time,  to  be  devoted 
to  the  self-expansion  of  capital.  Time  for  education,  for 
intellectual  development,  for  the  fulfilling  of  social  functions 
and  for  social  intercourse,  for  the  free-play  of  his  bodily  and 
mental  activity,  even  the  rest  time  of  Sunday  (and  that  in  a 
country  of  Sabbatarians  !)* — moonshine !  But  in  its  blind  un- 
restrainable  passion,  its  were-wolf  hunger  for  surplus-labour, 
capital  oversteps  not  only  the  moral,  but  even  the  merely 
physical  maximum  bounds  of  the  working  day.  It  usurps  the 
time  for  growth,  development,  and  healthy  maintenance  of 
the  body.  It  steals  the  time  required  for  the  consumption  of 
fresh  air  and  sunlight.  It  higgles  over  a  meal-time,  incorpor- 
ating it  where  possible  with  the  process  of  production  itself,  sO 
that  food  is  given  to  the  labourer  as  to  a  mere  means  of  pro- 
duction, as  coal  is  supplied  to  the  boiler,  grease  and  oil  to  the 
machinery.  It  reduces  the  sound  sleep  needed  for  the  resto- 
ration, reparation,  refreshment  of  the  bodily  powers  to  just  so 
many  hours  of  torpor  as  the  revival  of  an  organism,  absolutely 
exhausted,  renders  essential.  It  is  not  the  normal  maintenance 
of  the  labour-power  which  is  to  determine  the  limits  of  the 
working  day;  it  is  the  greatest  possible  daily  expenditure  of 
labour-power,  no  matter  how  diseased,  compulsory,  and  painful 
it  may  be,  which  is  to  determine  the  limits  of  the  labourers' 
period  of  repose.  Capital  cares  nothing  for  the  length  of  life 
of  labour-power.  All  that  concerns  it  is  simply  and  solely  the 
maximum  of  labour-power,  that  can  be  rendered  fluent  in  a 

^  In  England  even  now  occasionally  in  rural  districts  a  labourer  is  condemned  to 
imprisonment  for  desecrating  the  Sabbath,  by  working  in  his  front  garden.  The ' 
same  labourer  is  punished  for  breach  of  contract  if  he  remains  away  from  his 
metal,  paper,  or  glass  works  on  the  Sunday,  even  if  it  be  from  a  religious  whim. 
The  orthodox  Parliament  will  hear  nothing  of  Sabbath-breaking  if  it  occurs  in  the 
process  of  expanding  capital.  A  memorial  (August  1863),  in  which  the  London 
day-labourers  in  fish  and  poultry  shops  asked  for  the  abolition  of  Sunday  labour, 
states  that  their  work  lasts  for  the  first  6  days  of  the  week  on  an  average  15  hours 
a-day,  and  on  Sunday  8-10  hours.  From  this  same  memorial  we  learn  also  that 
the  delicate  gourmands  among  the  aristocratic  hypocrites  of  Exeter  Hall,  especially 
encourage  this  "Sunday  labour."  These  "holy  ones,"  so  zealous  in  cute  curanda, 
show  their  Christianity  by  the  humility  with  which  they  bear  the  over-work,  the 
privations,  and  the  hunger  of  others.  Obsequium  ventris  istis  {the  labourers')  per- 
niciosius  est. 


292  Capitalist  Production. 

working  day.  It  attains  this  end  by  shortening  the  extent  of 
the  labourer's  life,  as  a  greedy  farmer  snatches  increased  pro- 
duce from  the  soil  by  robbing  it  of  its  fertility. 

The  capitalistic  mode  of  production  (essentially  the  produc- 
tion of  surplus  value,  the  absorption  of  surplus-labour),  pro- 
duces thus,  with  the  extension  of  the  working  day,  not  only 
the  deterioration  of  human  labour-power  by  robbing  it  of  its 
normal,  moral  and  physical,  conditions  of  development  and 
function.  It  produces  also  the  premature  exhaustion  and 
death  of  this  labour-power  itself.^  It  extends  the  labourer's 
time  of  production  during  a  given  period  by  shortening  his 
actual  life-time. 

But  the  value  of  the  labour-power  includes  the  value  of  the 
commodities  necessary  for  the  reproduction  of  the  worker,  or 
for  the  keeping  up  of  the  working  class.  If  then  the  unnatural 
extension  of  the  working  day,  that  capital  necessarily  strives 
after  in  its  unmeasured  passion  for  self-expansion,  shortens 
the  length  of  life  of  the  individual  labourer,  and  therefor  the 
duration  of  his  labour-power,  the  forces  used  up  have  to  be  re- 
placed at  a  more  rapid  rate  and  the  sum  of  the  expenses  for 
the  reproduction  of  labour-power  will  be  greater  j  just  as  in  a 
machine  the  part  of  its  value  to  be  reproduced  every  day  is 
greater  the  more  rapidly  the  machine  is  worn  out.  It  would 
seem  therefore  that  the  interest  of  capital  itself  points  in  the 
direction  of  a  normal  working  day. 

The  slave-owner  buys  his  labourer  as  he  buys  his  horse.  If 
he  loses  his  slave,  he  loses  capital  that  can  only  be  restored 
by  new  outlay  in  the  slave-mart.  But  "the  rice-grounds  of 
Georgia,  or  the  swamps  of  the  !Mississippi  may  be  fatally  in- 
jurious to  the  human  constitution;  but  the  waste  of  human 
life  which  the  cultivation  of  these  districts  necessitates,  is  not 
80  great  that  it  cannot  be  repaired  from  the  teeming  preserves 
of  Virginia  and  Kentucky.  Considerations  of  economy,  more- 
over, which,  under  a  natural  system,  afford  some  security  for 
humane  treatment  by  identifying  the  master's  interest  with 

*"We  have  given  in  our  previous  reports  the  statements  of  several  experienced 
manufacturers  to  the  effect  that  over-hours.  .  .  .  certainly  tend  prematurely  to 
exhaust   the  working  power  of   the  men."     (1.   c.   64,   p.   xiii.) 


The  Working  Day.  293 

the  slave's  preservation,  when  once  trading  in  slaves  is  prac- 
tised, become  reasons  for  racking  to  the  uttermost  the  toil  of 
the  slave ;  for,  when  his  place  can  at  once  be  supplied  from  for- 
eign preserves,  the  duration  of  his  life  becomes  a  matter  of  less 
moment  than  its  productiveness  while  it  lasts.  It  is  accord- 
ingly a  maxim  of  slave  management,  in  slave-importing  coun- 
tries, that  the  most  effective  economy  is  that  which  takes  out 
of  the  human  chattel  in  the  shortest  space  of  time  the  utmost 
amount  of  exertion  it  'is  capable  of  putting  forth.  It  is  in 
tropical  culture,  where  annual  profits  often  equal  the  whole 
capital  of  plantations,  that  negro  life  is  most  recklessly  sac- 
rificed. It  is  the  agriculture  of  the  West  Indies,  which  has 
been  for  centuries  prolific  of  fabulous  wealth,  that  has  engulfed 
millions  of  the  African  race.  It  is  in  Cuba,  at  this  day,  whose 
revenues  are  reckoned  by  millions,  and  whose  planters  are 
princes,  that  we  see  in  the  servile  class,  the  coarsest  fare,  the 
most  exhausting  and  unremitting  toil,  and  even  the  absolute 
destruction  of  a  portion  of  its  numbers  every  year."^ 

Mutato  nomine  de  te  fabula  narratur.  For  slave-trade 
read  labour-market,  for  Kentucky  and  Virginia,  Ireland  and 
the  agricultural  districts  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Wales, 
for  Africa,  Germany.  We  heard  how  over-work  thinned  the 
ranks  of  the  bakers  in  London.  Nevertheless  the  London 
labour-market  is  always  over-stocked  with  German  and  other 
candidates  for  death  in  the  bakeries.  Pottery,  as  we  saw,  is 
one  of  the  shortest-lived  industries.  Is  there  any  want  there- 
fore of  potters  ?  Josiah  Wedgwood,  the  inventor  of  modern 
pottery,  himself  originally  a  common  workman,  said  in  1785 
before  the  House  of  Commons  that  the  whole  trade  employed 
from  15,000  to  20,000  people.^  In  the  year  1861  the  popula- 
tion alone  of  the  town  centres  of  this  industry  in  Great  Britain 
numbered  101,302.     "The  cotton  trade  has  existed  for  ninety 

years It  has  existed  for  three  generations  of  the  English 

race,  and  I  believe  I  may  safely  say  that  during  that  period  it 
has  destroyed  nine  generations  of  factory  operatives."^ 

'  Cairnes,    "The   Slave   Power,"   p.    110,   111. 

-John    Wai-d:     "History    of    the    Borough    of    Stoke-upon-Trent,"    London,    1843, 
p.  42. 

'  Ferrand's   Speech  in   the  House  of   Commons,   27th   April,   1863. 


294  Capitalist  Production. 

No  doubt  in  certain  epochs  of  feverish  activity  the  labour- 
market  shows  significant  gaps.  In  1834,  e.g.  But  then  the 
manufacturers  proposed  to  the  Poor  Law  Commissioners  that 
they  should  send  the  "surplus-population"  of  the  agricultural 
districts  to  tlie  north,  with  the  explanation  "that  the  manu- 
facturers would  absorb  and  use  it  up."^  "Agents  were  ap- 
pointed with  the  consent  of  the  Poor  Law  Commissioners,  .  .  . 
An  office  was  set  up  in  Manchester,  to  which  lists  were  sent  of 
those  workpeople  in  the  agricultural  districts  wanting  employ- 
ment, and  their  names  were  registered  in  books.  The  manu- 
facturers attended  at  these  offices,  and  selected  such  persons  as 
they  chose;  when  they  had  selected  such  persons  as  their 
'wants  required,'  they  gave  instructions  to  have  them  for- 
warded to  Manchester,  and  they  were  sent,  ticketed  like  bales 
of  goods,  by  canals,  or  with  carriers,  others  tramping  on  the 
road,  and  many  of  them  were  found  on  the  way  lost  and  half- 
starved.  This  system  had  grown  up  into  a  regular  trade. 
This  House  will  hardly  believe  it,  but  I  tell  them,  that  this 
traffic  in  human  flesh  was  as  well  kept  up,  they  were  in  effect 
as  regularly  sold  to  these  [Manchester]  manufacturers  as  slaves 

are  sold  to  the  cotton-grower  in  the  L^nited  States In 

1860,  'the  cotton  trade  was  at  its  zenith.'  ....  The  manu- 
facturers again  found  that  they  were  short  of  hands.  .  .  .  They 
applied  to  the  'flesh  agents,'  as  they  are  called.  Those  agents 
sent  to  the  southern  downs  of  England,  to  the  pastures  of  Dor- 
setshire, to  the  glades  of  Devonshire,  to  the  people  tending 
kine  in  Wiltshire,  but  they  sought  in  vain.  The  surplus- 
population  was  'absorbed.'  "  The  "Bury  Guardian,"  said,  on 
the  completion  of  the  French  treaty,  that  '10,000  additional 
hands  could  be  absorbed  by  Lancashire,  and  that  30,000  or 
40,000  will  be  needed."  After  the  "flesh  agents  and  sub- 
agents"  had  in  vain  sought  through  the  agricultural  districts, 
"a  deputation  came  up  to  London,  and  waited  on  the  right  hon. 
gentleman  [Mr.  Villiers,  President  of  the  Poor  Law  Board] 
with  a  view  of  obtaining  poor  children  from  certain  union 
houses  for  the  mills  of  Lancashire. "^ 

'"Those  were  the  very  words  used  by  the  cotton  manufacturers,"  1.  c. 

*1.    c.    Mr.    Villiers,    despite    the   best    of    intentions   on    his    part,    was    "legally" 


The  Working  Day.  295 

What  experience  shows  to  the  capitalist  generally  is  a  con- 
stant excess  of  population,  i.e.,  an  excess  in  relation  to  the 
momentary  requirements  of  surplus-labour-absorbing  capital, 
although  this  excess  is  made  up  of  generations  of  human  beings 
stunted,  short-lived,  swiftly  replacing  each  other,  plucked,  so 
to  say,  before  maturity.^     And,  indeed,  experience  shows  to 

obliged  to  refuse  the  requests  of  the  manufacturers.  These  gentlemen,  however, 
attained  their  end  through  the  obliging  nature  of  local  poor  law  boards.  Mr.  A. 
Redgrave,  Inspector  of  Factories,  asserts  that  this  time  the  system  under  which 
orphans  and  pauper  children  were  treated  "legally"  as  apprentices  "was  not  accom- 
panied with  the  old  abuses"  (on  these  "abuses"  see  Engels,  1.  c),  although  in  one 
case  there  certainly  was  "abuse  of  this  system  in  respect  to  a  number  of  girls  and 
young  women  brought  from  the  agricultural  districts  of  Scotland  into  Lancashire 
and  Cheshire."  Under  this  system  the  manufacturer  entered  into  a  contract  with 
the  workhouse  authorities  for  a  certain  period.  He  fed,  clothed,  and  lodged  the 
children,  and  gave  them  a  small  allowance  of  money.  A  remark  of  Mr.  Redgrave 
to  be  quoted  directly  seems  strange,  especially  if  we  consider  that  even  among  the 
years  of  prosperity  of  the  English  cotton  trade,  the  year  1860  stands  unparalleled, 
and  that,  besides,  wages  were  exceptionally  high.  For  this  extraordinary  demand 
for  work  had  to  contend  with  the  depopulation  of  Ireland,  with  unexampled  emigra- 
tion from  the  English  and  Scotch  agricultural  districts  to  Australia  and  America, 
with  an  actual  diminution  of  the  population  in  some  of  the  English  agricultural 
districts,  in  consequence  partly  of  an  actual  breakdown  of  the  vital  force  of  th« 
labourers,  partly  of  the  already  effected  dispersion  of  the  disposable  population 
through  the  dealers  in  human  flesh.  Despite  all  this  Mr.  Redgrave  says:  "This 
kind  of  labour,  however,  would  only  *be  sought  after  when  none  other  could  be 
procured,  for  it  is  a  high-priced  labour.  The  ordinary  wages  of  a  boy  of  13  would 
be  about  4s.  per  week,  but  to  lodge,  to  clothe,  to  feed,  and  to  provide  medical 
attendance  and  proper  superintendence  for  50  or  100  of  these  boys,  and  to  set 
aside  some  remuneration  for  them,  could  not  be  accomplished  for  4s.  a-head  per 
week."  (Report  of  the  Inspector  of  Factories  for  30th  April,  1860,  p.  27.)  Mr. 
Redgrave  forgets  to  tell  us  how  the  labourer  himself  can  do  all  this  for  his  chil- 
dren out  of  their  4s.  a-week  wages,  when  the  manufacturer  cannot  do  it  for  the 
50  or  100  children  lodged,  boarded,  superintended  all  together.  To  guard  against 
false  conclusions  from  the  text,  I  ought  here  to  remark  that  the  English  cotton 
industry,  since  it  was  placed  under  the  Factory  Act  of  1850  with  its  regulations  of 
labour-time,  &c.,  must  be  regarded  as  the  model  industry  of  England.  The  English 
cotton  operative  is  in  every  respect  better  off  than  his  continental  companion  in 
misery.  "The  Prussian  factory  operative  labours  at  least  ten  hours  per  week  more 
than  his  English  competitor,  and  if  employed  at  his  own  loom  in  his  own  house, 
his  labour  is  not  restricted  to  even  those  additional  hours."  ("Rep.  of  Insp.  of 
Fact.,"  Oct.  1853,  p.  103.)  Redgrave,  the  Factory  Inspector  mentioned  above,  after 
the  Industrial  Exhibition  in  1851,  travelled  on  the  Continent,  especially  in  France 
and  Germany,  for  the  purpose  of  inquiring  into  the  conditions  of  the  factories. 
Of  the  Prussian  operative  he  says:  "He  receives  a  remuneration  sufficient  to  pro- 
cure the  simple  fare,  and  to  supply  the  slender  comforts  to  which  he  has  been 
accustomed.  ...  he  lives  upon  his  coarse  fare,  and  works  hard,  wherein  his 
position  is  subordinate  to  that  of  the  English  operative."  ("Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact.," 
31st   Oct.,    1853,    p.    85.) 

^  The  overworked  "die  off  with  strange  rapidity;  but  the  places  of  those  who 
perish  are  instantly  filled,  and  a  frequent  change  of  persons  makes  no  alteration 
in  the  scene."  ("England  and  America."  London,  1833,  vol.  I,  p.  65.  By  E.  G. 
Wakefield.) 


296  Capitalist  Production. 

the  intelligent  observer  with  what  swiftness  and  grip  the 
capitalist  mode  of  production,  dating,  historically  speaking, 
only  from  yesterday,  has  seized  the  vital  power  of  the  people 
by  the  very  root — show  how  the  degeneration  of  the  industrial 
population  is  only  retarded  by  the  constant  absorption  of  prim- 
itive and  physically  uncorrupted  elements  from  the  country — 
shows  how  even  the  country  labourers,  in  spite  of  fresh  air 
and  the  principle  of  natural  selection,  that  works  so  power- 
fully amongst  them,  and  only  permits  the  survival  of  the 
strongest,  are  already  beginning  to  die  oif.^  Capital  that  has 
such  good  reasons  for  denying  the  suiferings  of  the  legions  of 
workers  that  surround  it,  is  in  practice  moved  as  much  and  as 
little  by  the  sight  of  the  coming  degradation  and  final  de- 
population of  the  human  race,  as  by  the  probable  fall  of  the 
earth  into  the  sun.  In  every  stock-jobbing  swindle  every  one 
knows  that  some  time  or  other  the  crash  must  come,  but  every 
one  hopes  that  it  may  fall  on  the  head  of  his  neighbour,  after 
he  himself  has  caught  the  shower  of  gold  and  placed  it  in 
safety.  Apres  moi  le  deluge  !  is  the  watchword  of  every  cap- 
italist and  of  every  capitalist  nation.  Hence  Capital  is  reck- 
less of  the  health  or  length  of  life  of  the  labourer,  unless  under 
compulsion  from  society.^  To  the  outcry  as  to  the  physical 
and  mental  degradation,  tlie  premature  death,  the  torture  of 
overwork,  it  answers :  Ought  these  to  trouble  us  since  they  in- 

*See  "Public  Health.  Sixth  Report  of  the  Medical  Officer  of  the  Privy  Council, 
1863."  Published  in  London  1864.  This  report  deals  especially  with  the  agricultural 
labourers.  "Sutherland  ...  is  commonly  represented  as  a  highly  improved 
county  .  ,  .  but  .  .  .  recent  inquiry  has  discovered  that  even  there,  in 
districts  once  famous  for  fine  men  and  gallant  soldiers,  the  inhabiUnts  have  de- 
generated into  a  meagre  and  stunted  race.  In  the  healthiest  situations,  on  hill 
sides  fronting  the  sea,  the  faces  of  their  famished  children  are  as  pale  as  they 
could  be  in  the  foul  atmosphere  of  a  London  alley."  (VV.  T.  Thornton.  "Over- 
population and  its  remedy."  1.  c,  p.  74,  75.)  They  resemble  in  fact  the  30,000 
"gallant  Highlanders"  whom  Glasgow  pigs  together  in  its  wynds  and  closes,  with 
prostitutes  and  thieves. 

'"But  though  the  health  of  a  population  is  so  important  a  fact  of  the  national 
capital,  we  are  afraid  it  must  be  said  that  the  class  of  employers  of  labour  have  not 
been  the  most  forward  to  guard  and  cherish  this  treasure.  .  .  .  The  consider- 
ation of  the  health  of  the  operatives  was  forced  upon  the  millowners.  ("Times," 
November  5th,  1861.)  "The  men  of  the  West  Riding  became  the  clothiers  of 
mankind  ...  the  health  of  the  workpeople  was  sacrificed,  and  the  race  in  a 
few  generations  must  have  degenerated.  But  a  reaction  set  in.  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury's Bill  limited  the  hours  of  children's  labour,"  &c.  ("Report  of  the  Registrar- 
General,"  for  October,  1861.) 


The  Working  Day.  297 

crease  our  profits  ?  But  looking  at  things  as  a  whole,  all  this 
does  not,  indeed,  depend  on  the  good  or  ill  will  of  the  in- 
dividual capitalist.  Free  competition  brings  out  the  inherent 
laws  of  capitalist  production,  in  the  shape  of  external  coercive 
laws  having  power  over  every  individual  capitalist.^ 

The  establishment  of  a  normal  working  day  is  the  result  of 
centuries  of  struggle  between  capitalist  and  labourer.  The 
history  of  this  straggle  shows  two  opposed  tendencies.  Com- 
pare, e.g.,  the  English  factory  legislation  of  our  time  with  the 
English  Labour  Statutes  from  the  14th  century  to  well  into 
the  middle  of  the  18th.^  Whilst  the  modern  Factory  Acts 
compulsorily  shortened  the  working-day,  the  earlier  statutes 
tried  to  lengthen  it  by  compulsion.  Of  course  the  pretensions 
of  capital  in  embryo — when,  beginning  to  grow,  it  secures  the 
right  of  absorbing  a  quantum  sufficit  of  surplus-labour,  not 
merely  by  the  force  of  economic  relations,  but  by  the  help  of 
the  State — appear  very  modest  when  put  face  to  face  with  the 
concessions  that,  growling  and  struggling,  it  has  to  make  in  its 
adult  condition.  It  takes  centuries  ere  the  "free"  labourer, 
thanks  to  the  development  of  capitalistic  production,  agrees, 
i.e.,  is  compelled  by  social  conditions,  to  sell  the  whole  of  his 
active  life,  his  very  capacity  for  work,  for  the  price  of  the 
necessaries  of  life,  his  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage.  Hence 
it  is  natural  that  the  lengthening  of  the  working  day,  which 

^  We,  therefore,  find,  e.g.,  that  in  the  beginning  of  1863,  26  firms  owning  ex- 
tensive potteries  in  Staffordshire,  amongst  others,  Josiah  Wedgwood,  &  Sons'  peti- 
tion in  a  memorial  for  "some  legislative  enactment."  Competition  with  other 
capitalists  permits  them  no  voluntary  limitation  of  working-time  for  children,  &c. 
"  Much  as  we  deplore  the  evils  before  mentioned,  it  would  not  be  possible  to  pre- 
vent them  by  any  scheme  of  agreement  between  the  manufacturers.  .  .  .  Taking 
all  these  points  into  consideration,  we  have  come  to  the  conviction  that  some  legis- 
lative enactment  is  wanted."  ("Children's  Employment  Comm."  Rep.  1.,  1863,  p. 
322.)  Most  recently  a  much  more  striking  example  offers.  The  rise  in  the  price 
of  cotton  during  a  period  of  feverish  activity,  had  induced  the  manufacturers  in 
Blackburn  to  shorten,  by  mutual  consent,  the  working-time  in  their  mills  during  a 
certain  fixed  period.  This  period  terminated  about  the  end  of  November,  1871. 
Meanwhile,  the  wealthier  manufacturers,  who  combined  spinning  with  weaving,  used 
the  diminution  of  production  resulting  from  this  agreement,  to  extend  their  own 
business  and  thus  to  make  great  profits  at  the  expense  of  the  small  employers.  The 
latter  thereupon  turned  in  their  extremity  to  the  operatives,  urged  them  earnestly 
to  agitate  for  the  9  hours'  system,  and  promised  contributions  in  money  to  this  end. 

^  The  Labour  Statutes,  the  like  of  which  were  enacted  at  the  same  time  in  France, 
the  Netherlands,  and  elsewhere,  were  first  formally  repealed  in  England  in  1813, 
long  after  the  changes  in  methods  of  production  had  rendered  them  obsolete. 


298  Capitalist  Production. 

capital,  from  the  middle  of  the  14th  to  the  end  of  the  17th 
century,  tries  to  impose  by  State-measures  on  adult  labourers, 
approximately  coincides  with  the  shortening  of  the  working 
day  which,  in  the  second  half  of  the  19th  century,  has  here  and 
there  been  effected  by  the  State  to  prevent  the  coining  of 
children's  blood  into  capital.  That  which  to-day,  e.g.,  in  the 
State  of  Massachusetts,  until  recently  the  freest  State  of  the 
North- American  Eepublic,  has  been  proclaimed  as  the  statutory 
limit  of  the  labour  of  children  under  12,  was  in  England,  even 
in  the  middle  of  the  17th  century,  the  normal  working-day  of 
able-bodied  artizans,  robust  labourers,  athletic  blacksmiths,^ 

The  first  "Statute  of  Labourers"  (23  Edward  III.,  1349) 
found  its  immediate  pretext  (not  its  cause,  for  legislation  of 
this  kind  lasts  centuries  after  the  pretext  for  it  has  disxip- 
peared)  in  the  great  plague  that  decimated  the  people,  so  that, 
as  a  Tory  writer  says,  "The  difficulty  of  getting  men  to  work 
on  reasonable  terms  {i.e.,  at  a  price  that  left  their  employers 
a  reasonable  quantity  of  surplus-labour)  grew  to  such  a  height 
as  to  be  quite  intolerable."^  Eeasonable  wages  were,  there- 
fore, fixed  by  law  as  well  as  the  limits  of  the  working  day. 
The  latter  point,  the  only  one  that  here  interests  us,  is  repeated 
in  the  Statute  of  1496  (Henry  VIII.).  The  working  day  for 
all  artificers  and  field  labourers  from  March  to  September 
ought,  according  to  this  statute  (which,  however,  could  not  be 
enforced),  to  last  from  5  in  the  morning  to  between  7  and  8 

^  "No  child  under  12  years  of  age  shall  be  employed  in  any  manufacturing  estab- 
lishment more  than  10  hours  in  one  day."  General  Statutes  of  Massachusetts,  63, 
ch.  12.  (The  various  Statutes  were  passed  between  1836  and  1858.)  "Labour  per- 
formed during  a  period  of  10  hours  on  any  day  in  all  cotton,  woollen,  silk,  paper, 
glass,  and  flax  factories,  or  in  manufactories  of  iron  and  brass,  shall  be  considered 
a  legal  day's  labour.  And  be  it  enacted,  that  hereafter  no  minor  engaged  in  any 
factory  shall  be  holdcn  or  required  to  work  more  than  10  hours  in  any  day,  or 
60  hours  in  any  week;  and  that  hereafter  no  minor  shall  be  admitted  as  a  worker 
under  the  age  of  10  years  in  any  factory  within  this  State."  State  of  New  Jersey. 
An  Act  to  limit  the  hours  of  labour,  Stc,  61  and  62.  (Law  of  11th  March,  1855.) 
"No  minor  who  has  attained  the  age  of  12  years,  and  is  under  the  age  of  16 
years,  shall  be  employed  in  any  manufacturing  establishment  more  than  11  hours 
in  any  one  day,  nor  before  5  o'clock  in  the  morning,  nor  after  7.30  in  the  evening." 
("Revised  Statutes  of  the  State  of  Rhode  Island,"  &c.,  ch.  39,  §  23,  1st  July,  1857.) 

» "Sophisms  of  Free  Trade."  7th  Ed.  London,  1850,  p.  205.  9th  Ed.,  p.  253. 
This  same  Tory,  moreover,  admits  that  "Acts  of  Parliament  regulating  wages,  but 
against  the  labourer  and  in  favour  of  the  master,  lasted  for  the  long  period  of 
464  years.  Population  grew.  These  laws  were  then  found,  and  really  became,  un- 
necessary and  burdensome."     (1.  c.,  p.  206.) 


The  Working  Day.  299 

in  the  evening.  But  the  meal  times  consist  of  1  hour  for 
breakfast,  1-^  hours  for  dinner,  and  \  an  hour  for  "noon- 
meate,"  i.e.,  exactly  twice  as  much  as  under  the  factory  acts 
now  in  force.  ^  In  winter,  work  was  to  last  from  5  in  the 
morning  until  dark,  with  the  same  intervals.  A  statute  of 
Elizabeth  of  1562  leaves  the  length  of  the  working  day  for  all 
labourers  "hired  for  daily  or  weekly  wage"  untouched,  but 
aims  at  limiting  the  intervals  to  2|  hours  in  the  summer,  or 
to  2  in  the  winter.  Dinner  is  only  to  last  1  hour,  and  the 
"afternoon-sleep  of  half  an  hour"  is  only  allowed  between  the 
middle  of  May  and  the  middle  of  August.  For  every  hour  of 
absence  Id.  is  to  be  subtracted  from  the  wage.  In  practice, 
however,  the  conditions  were  much  more  favourable  to  the 
labourers  than  in  the  statute-book.  William  Petty,  the  father 
of  political  economy,  and  to  some  extent  the  founder  of  Sta- 
tistics, says  in  a  work  that  he  published  in  the  last  third  of  the 
17th  century:  "Labouring-men  (then  meaning  field-labourers) 
work  10  hours  per  diem,  and  make  20  meals  per  week,  viz.,  3 
a  day  for  working  days,  and  2  on  Sundays ;  whereby  it  is  plain, 
that  if  they  could  fast  on  Fryday  nights,  and  dine  in  one  hour 
and  a  half,  whereas  they  take  two,  from  eleven  to  one ;  thereby 
this  working  ^  more,  and  spending  ^  less,  the  above-men- 
tioned (tax)  might  be  raised."  ^  Was  not  Dr.  Andrew  Ure 
right  in  crying  down  the  12  hours'  bill  of  1833  as  a  retrogres- 
sion to  the  times  of  the  dark  ages?  It  is  true,  these  regula- 
tions contained  in  the  statute  mentioned  by  Petty,  apply  also  to 
apprentices.  But  the  condition  of  child-labour,  even  at  the 
end  of  the  iTth  century,  is  seen  from  the  following  complaint: 
"'Tis  not  their  practice  (in  Germany)  as  with  us  in  this  king- 

^  In  reference  to  this  statute,  J.  Wade  with  truth  remarks:  "From  the  statement 
above  (t.  e.,  with  regard  to  the  statute)  it  appears  that  in  1496  the  diet  was  con- 
sidered equivalent  to  one  third  of  the  income  of  an  artificer  and  one-half  the  income 
of  a  labourer,  which  indicates  a  greater  degree  of  independence  among  the  working 
classes  than  prevails  at  present;  for  the  board,  both  of  labourers  and  artificers, 
would  now  be  reckoned  at  a  much  higher  proportion  of  their  wages."  (J.  Wade, 
"History  of  the  Middle  and  Working  Classes,"  p.  24,  25,  and  577.)  The  opinion 
that  this  difference  is  due  to  the  difference  in  the  price-relations  between  food  and 
clothing  then  and  now  is  refuted  by  the  most  cursory  glance  at  "Chronicon  Pre- 
tiosum,  &c."     By  Bishop  Fleetwood.     1st  Ed.,  London,  1707;  2d  Ed.,  London,  1745. 

^'W.  Petty,  "Political  Anatomy  of  Ireland.  Verbum  Sapienti,"  1762,  Ed.  1691, 
p.  10. 


200  Capitalist  Production. 

dom,  to  bind  an  apprentice  for  seven  years;  three  or  four  is 
their  common  standard:  and  the  reason  is,  because  they  are 
educated  from  their  cradle  to  something  of  employment,  which 
renders  them  the  more  apt  to  docile,  and  consequently  the  more 
capable  of  attaining  to  a  ripeness  and  quicker  proficiency  in 
business.  Whereas  our  youth,  here  in  England,  being  bred  to 
nothing  before  they  come  to  be  apprentices,  make  a  very  slow 
prc^ess  and  require  much  longer  time  wherein  to  reach  the 
perfection  of  accomplished  artists."* 

Still,  during  the  greater  part  of  the  18th  century,  up  to  the 
epoch  of  Modem  Industry  and  machinism,  capital  in  England 
had  not  succeeded  in  seizing  for  itself^  by  the  payment  of  the 
weekly  value  of  labour-power,  the  whole  week  of  the  labourer 
with  the  exception,  however,  of  the  agricultural  labourers. 
The  fact  that  they  could  live  for  a  whole  week  on  the  wage  of 
four  days,  did  not  appear  to  the  labourers  a  sufficient  reason 
that  they  should  work  the  other  two  days  for  the  capitalist. 
One  party  of  English  economists,  in  the  interest  of  capital,  de- 
nounces this  obstinacy  in  the  most  violent  manner,  another 

*  "A  Discourse  on  the  necessity  of  encouraging  Mecbanick  Industry,"  London, 
1689,  p.  13.  Macaulay,  who  has  falsified  English  history  in  the  interest  of  the 
Whigs  and  the  bourgeoisie,  declares  as  follows:  "The  practice  of  setting  children 
prematurely  to  work  .  .  .  prevailed  in  the  17th  century  to  an  extent  which, 
.when  compared  with  the  extent  of  the  manufacturing  system,  seems  almost  incred- 
ible. At  Norwich,  the  chief  seat  of  the  clothing  trade,  a  little  creature  of  six  years 
old  was  thought  fit  for  labour.  Several  writers  of  that  time,  and  among  them  some 
who  were  considered  as  eminently  benevolent,  mention  with  exultation  the  fact 
that  in  that  single  city,  boys  and  girls  of  very  tender  age  create  wealth  exceeding 
what  was  necessary  for  their  own  subsistence  by  twelve  thousand  pounds  a  year. 
The  more  carefully  we  examine  the  history  of  the  past,  the  more  reason  shall  we 
find  to  dissent  from  those  who  imagine  that  our  age  has  been  fruitful  of  new 
social  evils.  .  .  .  That  which  is  new  is  the  intelligence  and  the  humanity  which 
remedies  them."  ("History  of  England,"  vol.  I.,  p.  419.)  Macaulay  might  have 
reported  further  that  "extremely  well-disposed"  amis  du  commerce  in  the  17th 
century,  narrate  with  "exultation"  how  in  a  poorhouse  in  Holland  a  child  of  four 
was  employed,  and  that  this  example  of  "vertu  mise  en  pratique"  passes  muster  in 
all  the  humanitarian  works,  d  la  Macaulay,  to  the  time  of  Adam  Smith.  It  is 
true  that  with  the  substitution  of  manufacture  for  handicrafts,  traces  of  the  exploi- 
tation of  children  begin  to  appear.  This  exploitation  existed  always  to  a  certain 
extent  among  peasants,  and  was  the  more  developed,  the  heavier  the  yoke  pressing 
on  the  husbandman.  The  tendency  of  capital  is  there  unmistakably;  but  the  facts 
themselves  are  still  as  isolated  as  the  phenomena  of  two-headed  children.  Hence 
they  were  noted  "with  exultation"  as  especially  worthy  of  remark  and  as  wonders 
by  the  far-seeing  "amis  du  commerce,"  and  recommended  as  models  for  their  own 
time  and  for  posterity.  This  same  Scotch  sycophant  and  fine  talker,  Macaulay, 
says:  "We  hear  to-day  only  of  retrogression  and  see  only  progress."  What  eyes, 
and  especially  what  ears! 


The  Working  Day.  301 

party  defends  the  labourers.  Let  us  listen,  e.g.,  to  the  contest 
between  Postlethwayt  whose  Dictionary  of  Trade  then  had  the 
same  reputation  as  the  kindred  works  of  M'Culloch  and 
McGregor  to-day,  and  the  author  (already  quoted)  of  the 
''Essay  on  Trade  and  'Commerce."^ 

Postlethwayt  says  among  other  things :  "We  cannot  put  an 
end  to  those  few  observations,  without  noticing  that  trite  re- 
mark in  the  mouth  of  too  many ;  that  if  the  industrious  poor 
can  obtain  enough  to  maintain  themselves  in  five  days,  they 
will  not  work  the  whole  six.  Whence  they  infer  the  necessity 
of  even  the  necessaries  of  life  being  made  dear  by  taxes,  or  any 
other  means,  to  compel  the  working  artizan  and  manufacturer 
to  labour  the  whole  six  days  in  the  week,  without  ceasing.  I 
must  beg  leave  to  differ  in  sentiment  from  those  great 
politicians,  who  contend  for  the  perpetual  slavery  of  the  work- 
ing people  of  this  kingdom ;  they  forget  the  vulgar  adage,  all 
work  and  no  play.  Have  not  the  English  boasted  of  the  in- 
genuity and  dexterity  of  her  working  artists  and  manufacturers 
which  have  heretofore  given  credit  and  reputation  to  British 
wares  in  general  ?  What  has  this  been  owing  to  ?  To  nothing 
more  probably  than  the  relaxation  of  the  working  people  in 
their  own  way.  Were  they  obliged  to  toil  the  year  round,  the 
whole  six  days  in  the  week,  in  a  repetition  of  the  same  work, 
might  it  not  blunt  their  ingenuity,  and  render  them  stupid  in- 
stead of  alert  and  dexterous ;  and  might  not  our  workmen  lose 
their  reputation  instead  of  maintaining  it  by  such  eternal 
slavery  ?  .  .  .  .  And  what  sort  of  workmanship  could  we  ex- 
pect from  such  hard-driven  animals  ?  .  .  .  .  Many  of  them 
will  execute  as  much  work  in  four  days  as  a  Frenchman  will  in 

*  Among  the  accusers  of  the  workpeople,  the  most  angry  is  the  anonymous  author 
quoted  in  the  text  of  "An  Essay  on  trade  and  commerce,  containing  observations  on 
Taxation,  &c.,  London,  1770."  He  had  already  dealt  with  this  subject  in  his  earlier 
work:  "Considerations  on  Taxes."  London,  1765.  On  the  same  side  follows 
Polonius  Arthur  Young,  the  unutterable  statistical  prattler.  Among  the  defenders 
of  the  working  classes  the  foremost  are:  Jacob  Vanderlint,  in:  "Money  answers 
all  things."  London,  1734;  the  Rev.  Nathaniel  Forster,  D.D.;  in  "An  Enquiry  into 
the  Causes  of  the  Present  Price  of  Provisions,"  London,  1766;  Dr.  Price,  and 
especially  Postlethwayt,  as  well  in  the  supplement  to  his  "Universal  Dictionary  of 
Trade  and  Commerce,"  as  in  his  "Great  Britain's  Commercial  Interest  explained  and 
improved."  2nd  Edition,  1755.  The  facts  themselves  are  confirmed  by  many  other 
writers  of  the   time,   among  others  by  Josiah  Tucker. 


202  Capitalist  Production. 

five  or  six.  But  if  Englishmen  are  to  be  eternal  drudges,  'tis 
to  be  feared  they  will  degenerate  below  the  Frenchmen.  As 
our  people  are  famed  for  bravery  in  war,  do  we  not  say  that  it 
is  owing  to  good  English  roast  beef  and  pudding  in  their 
bellies,  as  well  as  their  constitutional  spirit  of  liberty  ?  And 
why  may  not  the  superior  ingenuity  and  dexterity  of  our 
artists  and  manufactures,  be  owirg  to  that  freedom  and  liberty 
to  direct  themselves  in  their  own  way,  and  I  hope  we  shall 
never  have  them  deprived  of  such  privileges  and  that  good 
living  from  whence  their  ingenuity  no  less  than  their  courage 
may  proceed."^  Thereupon  the  author  of  the  "Essay  on  Trade 
and  Commerce"  replies:  "If  the  making  of  every  seventh 
day  an  holiday  is  supposed  to  be  of  divine  institution,  as  it 
implies  the  appropriating  the  other  six  days  to  labour"  (he 
means  capital  as  we  shall  soon  see)    "surely  it  will  not  be 

thought  cruel  to  enforce   it That  mankind  in 

general,  are  naturally  inclined  to  ease  and  indolence,  we  fatally 
experience  to  be  true,  from  the  conduct  of  our  manufacturing 
populace,  who  do  not  labour,  upon  an  average,  above  four  days 

in  a  week,  unless  provisions  happen  to  be  very  dear 

Put  all  the  necessaries  of  the  poor  under  one  denomination; 
for  instance,  call  them  all  wheat,  or  suppose  that  ....  the 
bushel  of  wheat  shall  cost  five  shillings  and  that  he  (a  manu- 
facturer) earns  a  shilling  by  his  labour,  he  then  would  be 
obliged  to  work  five  days  only  in  a  week.  If  the  bushel  of 
wheat  should  cost  but  four  shillings,  he  would  be  obliged  to 
work  but  four  days;  but  as  wages  in  this  kingdom  are  much 
higher  in  proportion  to  the  price  of  necessaries.  .  .  .  the 
manufacturer,  who  labours  four  days,  has  a  surplus  of  money 
to  live  idle  with  the  rest  of  the  week  ....  I  hope  I 
have  said  enough  to  make  it  appear  that  the  moderate  labour 
of  six  days  in  a  week  is  no  slavery.  Our  labouring  people  do 
this,  and  to  all  appearance  are  the  happiest  of  all  our  labour- 
ing poor,2  but  the  Dutch  do  this  in  manufactures,  and  appear 
to  be  a  very  happy  people.     The  French  do  so,  when  holidays 

*  Postlethwayt,  1.  c,  "First  Preliminary  Discourse,"  p.   14. 

*"An  Essay,"  &c.  He  himself  relates  on  p.  96  wherein  the  "happiness"  of  the 
English  agricultural  labour  already  in  1770  consisted.  "Their  powers  are  alwayi 
upon  the  stretch,  they  cannot  live  cheaper  than  they  do,  nor  work  harder." 


The  Working  Day.  303 

do  not  intervene.*  But  our  populace  have  adopted  a  notion, 
that  as  Englishmen  they  enjoy  a  birthright  privilege  of  being 
more  free  and  independent  than  in  any  country  in  Europe. 
Now  this  idea,  as  far  as  it  may  affect  the  bravery  of  our  troops, 
may  be  of  some  use ;  but  the  less  the  manufacturing  poor  have 
of  it,  certainly  the  better  for  themselves  and  for  the  State. 
The  labouring  people  should  never  think  themselves  independ- 
ent of  their  superiors It  is  extremely  dangerous  to 

encourage  mobs  in  a  commercial  state  like  ours,  where,  per- 
haps, seven  parts  out  of  eight  of  the  whole,  are  people  with 
little  or  no  property.  The  cure  will  not  be  perfect,  till  our 
manufacturing  poor  are  contented  to  labour  six  days  for  the 
same  sum  which  they  now  earn  in  four  days."^  To  this  end, 
and  for  "extirpating  idleness,  debauchery  and  excess,"  promot- 
ing a  spirit  of  industry,  "lowering  the  price  of  labour  in  our 
manufactories,  and  easing  the  lands  of  the  heavy  burden  of 
poor's  rates,"  our  "faithful  Eckart"  of  capital  proposes  this 
approved  device :  to  shut  up  such  labourers  as  become  depend- 
ent on  public  support,  in  a  word,  paupers,  in  "an  ideal  work- 
house." Such  ideal  workhouse  must  be  made  a  "House  of 
Terror,"  and  not  an  asylum  for  the  poor,  "where  they  are  to 
be  plentifully  fed,  warmly  and  decently  clothed,  and  where 
they  do  but  little  work."^  In  this  "House  of  Terror,"  this 
"ideal  workhouse,  the  poor  shall  work  14  hours  in  a  day, 
allowing  proper  time  for  meals,  in  such  manner  that  there  shall 
remain  12  hours  of  neat-labour."* 

Twelve  working  hours  daily  in  the  Ideal  Workhouse,  in  the 
"House  of  Terror"  of  17Y0 !  63  years  later,  in  1833,  when  the 
English  Parliament  reduced  the  working  day  for  children  of 
13  to  18,  in  four  branches  of  industry  to  12  full  hours,  the 
judgment  day  of  English  Industry  had  dawned!     In  1852, 

*  Protestantism,  by  changing  almost  all  the  traditional  holidays  into  workdays, 
plays  an  important  part  in  the  genesis  of  capital. 

=  "An  Essay,"  &c.,  p.  15,  41,  96,  97,  55,  57,  69. — Jacob  Vanderlint,  as  early  as 
1734,  declared  that  the  secret  of  the  out-cry  of  the  capitalists  as  to  the  laziness  of 
the  working  people  was  simply  that  they  claimed  for  the  same  wages  6  days'  labour 
instead  of  4. 

M.  c.  p.  242. 

■*  1.  c.  "The  French,"  he  says,  "laugh  at  our  enthusiastic  ideas  of  liberty."  1.  c. 
p.  78. 


204  Capitalist  Production. 

when  Louis  Bonaparte  sought  to  secure  his  position  with  the 
bourgeoisie  by  tampering  with  the  legal  working  day,  the 
French  people  cried  out  with  one  voice  "the  law  that  limits 
the  working  day  to  12  hours  is  the  one  good  that  has  remained 
to  us  of  the  legislation  of  the  Republic  !"^  At  Ziirich  the  work 
of  children  over  10,  is  limited  to  12  hours;  in  Aargau  in  1862, 
the  work  of  children  between  13  and  16,  was  reduced  from 
12^  to  12  hours;  in  Austria  in  1860,  for  children  between  14 
and  16,  the  same  reduction  was  made.^  "What  a  progress," 
since  1770 !     Macaulay  would  shout  with  exultation ! 

The  "House  of  Terror"  for  paupers  of  which  the  capitalistic 
soul  of  1770  only  dreamed,  was  realized  a  few  years  later  in 
the  shape  of  a  gigantic  "Workhouse"  for  the  industrial  worker 
himself.  It  is  called  the  Factory.  And  the  ideal  this  time 
fades  before  the  reality. 

SECTION    6. THE   STRUGGLE   FOB  THE  NORMAL   WORKING   DAY. 

COMPULSORY  LIMITATION  BY  LAW  OF  THE  WORKING  TIME. 
THE  ENGLISH  FACTORY  ACTS,  1833   TO  1864. 

After  capital  had  taken  centuries  in  extending  the  working- 
day  to  its  normal  maximum  limit,  and  then  beyond  this  to  the 
limit  of  the  natural  day  of  12  hours,^  there  followed  on  the 
birth  of  machinism  and  modern  industry  in  the  last  third  of 

*  "They  especially  objected  to  work  beyond  the  12  hours  per  day,  because  the  law 
which  fixed  those  hours,  is  the  only  good  which  remains  to  them  of  the  legislation 
of  the  Republic."  ("Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,"  31st  October,  1856,  p.  80.)  The 
French  Twelve  hours'  Bill  of  September  5th,  1850,  a  bourgeois  edition  of  the  decree 
of  the  Provisional  Government  of  March  2nd,  1848,  holds  in  all  workshops  without 
exceptions.  Before  this  law  the  working  day  in  France  was  without  definite  limit. 
It  lasted  in  the  factories  14,  15,  or  more  hours.  See  "Des  classes  ouvrieres  en 
France  pendant  I'annee  1848.  Par  M.  Blanqui."  M.  Blanqui  the  economist,  not  the 
Revolutionist,  had  been  entrusted  by  the  Government  with  an  inquiry  into  the  con- 
dition of  the  working  class. 

*  Belgium  is  the  model  bourgeois  state  in  regard  to  the  regulation  of  the  working 
day.  Lord  Howard  of  Welden,  English  Plenipotentiary  at  Brussels,  reports  to  the 
Foreign  Office,  May  12th,  1862:  "M.  Rogier,  the  minister,  informed  me  that 
children's  labour  is  limited  neither  by  a  general  law  nor  by  any  local  regjulations; 
that  the  Government,  during  the  last  three  years,  intended  in  every  session  to  pro- 
pose a  bill  on  the  subject,  but  always  found  an  insuperable  obstacle  in  the  jealous 
opposition  to  any  legislation  in  contradiction  with  the  principle  of  perfect  freedom  of 
labour." 

•"It  is  certainly  much  to  be  regretted  that  any  class  of  persons  should  toil  12 
hours  a  day,  which,  including  the  time  for  their  meals  and  for  going  to  and  re- 
turning from  their  work,  amounts,  in  fact,  to  14  of  the  24  hours ....    Without 


The  Working  Day.  305 

the  ISth.  century,  a  violent  encroachment  like  that  of  an 
avalanche  in  its  intensity  and  extent.  All  bounds  of  morals 
and  nature,  age  and  sex,  day  and  night,  were  broken  down. 
Even  the  ideas  of  day  and  night,  of  rustic  simplicity  in  the  old 
statutes,  became  so  confused  that  an  English  judge,  as  late  as 
1860,  needed  a  quite  Talmudic  sagacity  to  explain  "judicially" 
what  was  day  and  what  was  night.^  Capital  celebrated  its 
orgies. 

As  soon  as  the  working  class,  stunned  at  first  by  the  noise 
and  turmoil  of  the  new  system  of  production,  recovered,  in 
some  measure,  its  senses,  its  resistance  began,  and  first  in  the 
native  land  of  machinism,  in  England.  For  30  years,  how- 
ever, the  concessions  conquered  by  the  workpeople  were  purely 
nominal.  Parliament  passed  5  Labour  Laws  between  1802 
and  1833,  but  was  shrewd  enough  not  to  vote  a  penny  for  their 
carrying  out,  for  the  requisite  officials,  &c.^ 

They  remained  a  dead  letter.  "The  fact  is,  that  prior  to  the 
Act  of  1833,  young  persons  and  children  were  worked  all  night, 
all  day,  or  both  ad  libitum."^ 

A  normal  working  day  for  modern  industry  only  dates  from 
the  Factory  Act  of  1833,  which  included  cotton,  wool,  flax,  and 
silk  factories.     Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  the  spirit  of 

entering  into  the  question  of  health,  no  one  will  hesitate,  I  think,  to  admit  that,  in  a 
moral  point  of  view,  so  entire  an  absorption  of  the  time  of  the  working  classes, 
without  intermission,  from  the  early  age  of  13,'  and  in  trades  not  subject  to  restric- 
tion, much  younger,  must  be  extremely  prejudicial,  and  is  an  evil  greatly  to  be  de- 
plored ....  For  the  sake,  therefore,  of  public  morals,  of  bringing  up  an  orderly 
population,  and  of  giving  the  great  body  of  the  people  a  reasonable  enjoyment  of 
life,  it  is  much  to  be  desired  that  in  all  trades  some  portion  of  every  working  day 
should  be  reserved  for  rest  and  leisure."  (Leonard  Horner  in  Reports  of  Insp.  of 
Fact.,  Dec,  1841.) 

1  See  "Judgment  of  Mr.  J.  H.  Otwey,  Belfast.  Hilary  Sessions,  County  Antrim, 
1860." 

*  It  is  very  characteristic  of  the  regime  of  Louis  Philippe,  the  bourgeois  king,  that 
the  one  Factory  Act  passed  during  his  reign,  that  of  March  22nd,  1841,  was  never 
put  in  force.  And  this  law  only  dealt  with  child-labour.  It  fixed  8  hours  a  day  for 
children  between  8  and  12,  12  hours  for  children  between  12  and  16,  &c.,  with  many 
exceptions  which  allow  night-work  even  for  children  8  years  old.  The  supervision 
and  enforcement  of  this  law  are,  in  a  country  where  every  mouse  is  under  police 
administration,  left  to  the  good-will  of  the  amis  dit  commerce.  Only  since  1853, 
in  one  single  department — the  Departement  du  Nord — has  a  paid  government  in- 
spector been  appointed.  Not  less  characteristic  of  the  development  of  French  so- 
ciety, generally,  is  the  fact,  that  Louis  Philippe's  law  stood  solitary  among  the  all- 
embracing  mass  of  French  laws,  till  the  Revolution  of  1848. 

»  "Report  of  Injo,  of  Fact.,"  30th  April,  1860,  p.  50. 

T 


2o6  Capitalist  Production. 

capital  than  the  history  of  the  English  Factory  Acts  from  1833 
to  1864. 

The  Act  of  1833  declares  the  ordinary  factory  working  day 
to  be  from  half-past  five  in  the  morning  to  half-past  eight  in 
the  evening,  and  within  these  limits,  a  period  of  15  hours,  it  is 
lawful  to  employ  young  persons  {i.e.,  persons  between  13  and 
18  years  of  age),  at  any  time  o£  the  day,  provided  no  one  in- 
dividual young  person  should  work  more  than  12  hours  in  any 
one  day,  except  in  certain  cases  especially  provided  for.  The 
6th  section  of  the  Act  provided:  "That  there  shall  be  allowed 
in  the  course  of  every  day  not  less  than  one  and  a  half  hours  for 
meals  to  every  such  person  restricted  as  hereinbefore  pro- 
vided." The  employment  of  children  under  9,  with  excep- 
tions mentioned  later,  was  forbidden;  the  work  of  children 
between  9  and  13  was  limited  to  8  hours  a  day,  night  work, 
i.e.,  according  to  this  Act,  work  between  8.30  p.m.  and  5.30 
a.m.,  was  forbidden  for  all  persons  between  9  and  18. 

The  law-makers  were  so  far  from  wishing  to  trench  on  the 
freedom  of  capital  to  exploit  adult  labour-power,  or,  as  they 
called  it,  "the  freedom  of  labour,"  that  they  created  a  special 
system  in  order  to  prevent  the  Factory  Acts  from  having  a 
consequence  so  outrageous. 

"The  great  evil  of  the  factory  system  as  at  present  con- 
ducted," says  the  first  report  of  the  Central  Board  of  the  Com- 
mission of  June  28th,  1833,  "has  appeared  to  us  to  be  that  it 
entails  the  necessity  of  continuing  the  labour  of  children  to 
the  utmost  length  of  that  of  the  adults.  The  only  remedy  for 
this  evil,  short  of  the  limitation  of  the  labour  of  adults,  which 
would,  in  our  opinion,  create  an  evil  greater  than  that  which  is 
sought  to  be  remedied,  appears  to  be  the  plan  of  working 
double  sets  of  children."  .  .  .  Under  the  name  of  System 
of  Relays,  this  "plan"  was  therefore  carried  out,  so  that,  e.g., 
from  5.30  a.m.  until  1.30  in  the  afternoon,  one  set  of  children 
between  9  and  13,  and  from  1.30  p.m.  to  8.30  in  the  evening 
another  set  were  "put  to,"  &c. 

In  order  to  reward  the  manufacturers  for  having,  in  the 
most  barefaced  way,  ignored  all  the  Acts  as  to  children's  labour 
passed  during  the  last  twenty-two  years,  the  bill  was  yet 


The  Working  Day.  307 

further  gilded  for  them.  Parliament  decreed  that  after  March 
1st,  1834,  no  child  under  11,  after  March  1st,  1835,  no  child 
under  12,  and  after  March  1st,  1836,  no  child  under  13,  was  to 
work  more  than  eight  hours  in  a  factory.  This  "liberalism," 
so  full  consideration  for  "capital,"  was  the  more  noteworthy 
as.  Dr.  Farre,  Sir  A.  Carlisle,  Sir  B.  Brodie,  Sir  C.  Bell,  Mr. 
Guthrie,  &c.,  in  a  word,  the  most  distinguished  physicians  and 
surgeons  in  London,  had  declared  in  their  evidence  before  the 
House  of  Commons,  that  there  Avas  danger  in  delay.  Dr. 
Farre  expressed  himself  still  more  coarsely.  "Legislation  is 
necessary  for  the  prevention  of  death,  in  any  form  in  which  it 
can  be  prematurely  inflicted,  and  certainly  this  {i.e.,  the  fac- 
tory method)  must  be  viewed  as  a  most  cruel  mode  of  in- 
flicting it." 

That  same  "reformed"  Parliament,  which  in  its  delicate 
consideration,  for  the  manufacturers,  condemned  children 
under  13,  for  years  to  come,  to  72  hours  of  work  per  week  in 
the  Factory  Hell,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  Emancipation  Act, 
which  also  administered  freedom  drop  by  drop,  forbade  the 
planters,  from  the  outset,  to  work  any  negro  slave  more  than 
45  hours  a  week. 

But  in  no  wise  conciliated  capital  now  began  a  noisy  agita- 
tion that  went  on  for  several  years.  It  turned  chiefly  on  the 
age  of  those  who,  under  the  name  of  children,  were  limited  to 
8  hours  work,  and  were  subject  to  a  certain  amount  of  com- 
pulsory education.  According  to  capitalistic  anthropology,  the 
age  of  childhood  ended  at  10,  or  at  the  outside,  at  11.  The 
more  nearly  the  time  approached  for  the  coming  into  full  force 
of  the  Factory  Act,  the  fatal  year  1836,  the  more  wildly  raged 
the  mob  of  manufacturers.  They  managed,  in  fact,  to  in- 
timidate the  government  to  such  an  extent  that  in  1835  it  pro- 
posed to  lower  the  limit  of  the  age  of  childhood  from  13  to  12. 
In  the  meantime  the  pressure  from  without  grew  more  threat- 
ening. Courage  failed  the  House  of  Commons.  It  refused  to 
throw  children  of  13  under  the  Juggernaut  Car  of  capital  for 
more  than  8  hours  a  day,  and  the  Act  of  1833  came  into  full 
operation.     It  remained  unaltered  until  June,  1844. 

In  the  ten  years  during  which  it  regulated  factory  work, 


2o8  Capitalist  Production. 

first  in  part,  and  then  entirely,  the  official  reports  of  the  factory 
inspectors  teem  with  complaints  as  to  the  impossibility  of 
putting  the  Act  into  force.  As  the  law  of  1833  left  it  optional 
with  the  lords  of  capital  during  the  15  hours,  from  5.30  a.m. 
to  8.30  p.m.,  to  make  every  "young  person,"  and  "every  child" 
begin,  break  off,  resume,  or  end  his  12  or  8  hours  at  any 
moment  they  liked,  and  also  permitted  them  to  assign  to  differ- 
ent persons  different  times  for  meals,  these  gentlemen  soon 
discovered  a  new  "system  of  relays,"  by  which  the  labour- 
horses  were  not  changed  at  fixed  stations,  but  were  constantly 
re-harnessed  at  changing  stations.  We  do  not  pause  longer  on 
the  beauty  of  this  system,  as  we  shall  have  to  return  to  it  later. 
But  this  much  is  clear  at  the  first  glance:  that  this  system 
annulled  the  whole  Factory  Act,  not  only  in  the  spirit,  but  in 
the  letter.  How  could  factory  inspectors,  with  this  complex 
book-keeping  in  respect  to  each  individual  child  or  young 
person,  enforce  the  legally  determined  work  time  and  the 
granting  of  the  legal  meal-times?  In  a  great  many  of  the 
factories,  the  old  brutalities  soon  blossomed  out  again  un- 
punished. In  an  interview  with  the  Home  Secretary  (1844), 
the  factory  inspectors  demonstrated  the  impossibility  of  any 
control  under  the  newly  invented  relay  system.^  In  the  mean- 
time, however,  circumstances  had  greatly  changed.  The  fac- 
tory hands,  especially  since  1838,  had  made  the  Ten  Hours' 
Bill  their  economical,  as  they  had  made  the  Charter  their 
political,  election-cry.  Some  of  the  manufacturers,  even,  who 
had  managed  their  factories  in  conformity  with  the  Act  of 
1833,  overwhelmed  Parliament  with  memorials  on  the  im- 
moral competition  of  their  false  brethren  whom  greater  impu- 
dence, or  more  fortunate  local  circumstances,  enabled  to  break 
the  law.  Moreover,  however  much  the  individual  manufac- 
turer might  give  the  rein  to  his  old  lust  for  gain,  the  spokes- 
men and  political  leaders  of  the  manufacturing  class  ordered 
a  change  of  front  and  of  speech  towards  the  workpeople.  They 
had  entered  upon  the  contest  for  the  repeal  of  the  Com  Laws, 
and  needed  the  workers  to  help  them  to  victory.  They  prom- 
ised, therefore,  not  only  a  double-sized  loaf  of  bread,  but  the 

*"Rcpt.  of  Imp.  of  Fact,"  81st  October,  1849,  p.  6, 


The  Working  Day.  309 

enactment  of  the  Ten  Plours'  Bill  in  tlie  Free  Trade  millen- 
ium.^  Thus  they  still  less  dared  to  oppose  a  measure  intended 
only  to  make  the  law  of  1833  a  reality.  Threatened  in  their 
holiest  interest;  the  rent  of  land,  the  Tories  thundered  with 
philanthropic  indignation  against  the  "nefarious  practices"^ 
of  their  foes. 

This  was  the  origin  of  the  additional  Factory  Act  of  June 
7th,  1844.  It  came  into  effect  on  September  10th,  1844.  It 
places  under  protection  a  new  category  of  workers,  viz.,  the 
women  over  18.  They  were  placed  in  every  respect  on  the 
same  footing  as  the  young  persons,  their  work  time  limited  to 
twelve  hours,  their  night-labour  forbidden,  &c.  For  the  first 
time,  legislation  saw  itself  compelled  to  control  directly  and 
officially  the  labour  of  adults.  In  the  Factory  Report  of  1844- 
1845,  it  is  said  with  irony:  "No  instances  have  come  to  my 
knowledge  of  adult  women  having  expressed  any  regret  at 
their  rights  being  thus  far  interfered  with."^  The  working 
time  of  children  under  13  was  reduced  to  6^,  and  in  certain 
circumstances  to  Y  hours  a-day.^ 

To  get  rid  of  the  abuses  of  the  "spurious  relay-system,"  the 
law  established  besides  others  the  following  important  regula- 
tions : — "That  the  hours  of  work  of  children  and  young  persons 
shall  be  reckoned  from  the  time  when  any  child  or  young 
person  shall  begin  to  work  in  the  morning."  So  that  if  A, 
e.g. J  begins  work  at  8  in  the  morning,  and  B  at  10,  B's  work- 
day must  nevertheless  end  at  the  same  hour  as  A's.  "The 
time  shall  be  regulated  by  a  public  clock,"  for  example,  the 
nearest  railway  clock,  by  which  the  factory  clock  is  to  be  set. 
The  occupier  is  to  hang  up  a  "legible"  printed  notice  stating 
the  hours  for  the  beginning  and  ending  of  work  and  the  times 
allowed  for  the  several  meals.  Children  beginning  work  be- 
fore 12  noon  may  not  be  again  employed  after  1  p.m.  The 
afternoon  shift  must  therefore  consist  of  other  children  than 

i"Rept.   of  Insp.   of   Fact,"   31st   October,   1848,    p.    98. 

*  Leonard  Horner  uses  the  expression  "nefarious  practices"  in   his  official  reports. 
("Report  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,"  31st  October,  1859,  p.  7.) 

»"Rept.,"   &c.,  30th  Sept.,   1844,  p.   15. 

*  The  Act  allows  children  to  be  employed  for  10  hours  if  they  do  not  work  day 
after  day,  but  only  on  alternate  days.     In  the  main  this  clause  remained  inoperative. 


310  Capitalist  Production. 

those  employed  in  the  morning.  Of  the  hour  and  a  half  for 
meal  times,  "one  hour  thereof  at  the  least  shall  be  given  before 
three  of  the  clock  in  the  afternoon.  .  .  .  and  at  the  same 
period  of  the  day.  No  child  or  young  person  shall  be  em- 
ployed more  than  five  hours  before  1  p.m.  without  an  interval 
for  meal  time  of  at  least  30  minutes.  No  child  or  young  per- 
son [or  female]  shall  be  employed  or  allowed  to  remain  in  any 
room  in  which  any  manufacturing  process  is  then  [i.e.,  at  meal 
times]  carried  on,"  &c. 

It  has  been  seen  that  these  minutiae,  which,  with  military 
uniformity,  regulate  by  stroke  of  the  clock  the  times,  limits, 
pauses  of  the  work,  were  not  at  all  the  products  of  Parlia- 
mentary fancy.  They  developed  gradually  out  of  circum- 
stances as  natural  laws  of  the  modern  mode  of  production. 
Their  formulation,  oflficial  recognition,  and  proclamation  by  the 
S^tate,  were  the  result  of  a  long  struggle  of  classes.  One  of 
their  first  consequences  was  that  in  practice  the  working  day 
of  the  adult  males  in  factories  became  subject  to  the  same 
limitations,  since  in  most  processes  of  production  the  co-opera- 
tion of  the  children,  young  persons,  and  women  is  indis- 
pensable. On  the  whole,  therefore,  during  the  period  from 
1844  to  1847,  the  12  hours'  working  day  became  general  and 
uniform  in  all  branches  of  industry  under  the  Factory  Act. 

The  manufacturers,  however,  did  not  allow  this  "progress" 
without  a  compensating  "retrogression."  At  their  instigation 
the  House  of  Commons  reduced  the  minimum  age  for  exploit- 
able children  from  9  to  8,  in  order  to  assure  that  additional 
supply  of  factory  children  which  is  due  to  capitalists,  accord- 
ing to  divine  and  human  law.^ 

The  years  1846-47  are  epoch-making  in  the  economic  history 
of  England.  The  Eepeal  of  the  Com  Laws,  and  of  the  duties 
on  cotton  and  other  raw  material ;  free  trade  proclaimed  as  the 
guiding  star  of  legislation ;  in  a  word,  the  arrival  of  the  mil- 
leniura.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  same  years,  the  Chartist 
movement  and  the  10  hours'  agitation  reached  their  highest 

*"As  a  reduction  in  their  hours  of  work  would  cause  a  larger  number  (of  chil- 
dren) to  be  employed,  it  was  thought  that  the  additional  supply  of  children  from  8 
to  9  years  of  age  would  meet  the  increased  demand"     (1.  c,  p.  13.) 


The  Working  Day.  311 

point.  They  found  allies  in  the  Tories  panting  for  revenge. 
Despite  the  fanatical  opposition  of  the  army  of  perjured  Free- 
traders, with  Bright  and  Cobden  at  their  head,  the  Ten  Hours' 
Bill,  struggled  for  so  long,  went  through  Parliament. 

The  new  Factory  Act  of  June  8th,  1847,  enacted  that  on 
July  1st,  1847,  there  should  he  a  preliminary  shortening  of  the 
working  day  for  "young  persons"  (from  13  to  18),  and  all 
females  to  11  hours,  but  that  on  May  1st,-  1848,  there  should 
be  a  definite  limitation  of  the  working  day  to  10'  hours.  In 
other  respects,  the  Act  only  amended  and  completed  the  Acts 
of  1833  and  1844. 

Capital  now  entered  upon  a  preliminary  campaign  in  order 
to  hinder  the  Act  from  coming  into  full  force  on  May  1st, 
1848.  And  the  workers  themselves,  under  the  pretence  that 
they  had  been  taught  by  experience,  were  to  help  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  their  own  work.  The  moment  was  cleverly  chosen. 
"It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  there  has  been  more  than 
two  years  of  great  suffering  (in  consequence  of  the  terrible 
crisis  of  1846-47)  among  the  factory  operatives,  from  many 
mills  having  worked  short  time,  and  many  being  altogether 
closed.  A  considerable  number  of  the  operatives  must  there- 
fore be  in  very  narrow  circumstances ;  many,  it  is  to  be  feared, 
in  debt ;  so  that  it  might  fairly  have  been  presumed  that  at  the 
present  time  they  would  prefer  working  the  longer  time,  in 
order  to  make  up  for  past  losses,  perhaps  to  pay  off  debts,  or 
get  their  furniture  out  of  pawn,  or  replace  that  sold,  or  to  get 
a  new  supply  of  clothes  for  themselves  and  their  families."^ 

The  manufacturers  tried  to  aggravate  the  natural  effect  of 
these  circumstances  by  a  general  reduction  of  wages  by  10%. 
This  was  done,  so  to  say,  to  celebrate  the  inauguration  of  the 
new  Free  Trade  era.  Then  followed  a  further  reduction  of 
8^%  as  soon  as  the  working  day  was  shortened  to  11,  and  a 
reduction  of  double  that  amount  as  soon  as  it  was  finally 
shortened  to  10  hours.  Wherever,  therefore,  circumstances 
allowed  it,  a  reduction  of  wages  of  at  least  25%  took  place.^ 

1  "Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,"  31st  Oct.,  1848,  p.  16. 

*  "I  found  that  men  who  had  been  getting  10s.  a  week,  had  had  Is.  taken  off  for 
a  reduction  in  the  rate  of  10  per  cent,  and  Is.  6d.  off  the  remaining  9s.  for  the  re- 


312  Capitalist  Production. 

Under  such  favourably  prepared  conditions  the  agitation 
among  the  factory  workers  for  the  repeal  of  the  Act  of  1847 
was  begun.  Neither  lies,  bribery,  nor  threats  were  spared  in 
this  attempt.  But  all  was  in  vain.  Concerning  the  half- 
dozen  petitions  in  which  workpeople  were  made  to  complain  of 
"their  oppression  by  the  Act,"  the  petitioners  themselves  de- 
clared under  oral  examination,  that  their  signatures  had  been 
extorted  from  them*  "They  felt  themselves  oppressed,  but  not 
exactly  by  the  Factory  Act."^  But  if  the  manufacturers  did 
not  succeed  in  making  the  workpeople  speak  as  they  wished, 
they  themselves  shrieked  all  the  louder  in  press  and  Parliament 
in  the  name  of  the  workpeople.  They  denounced  the  Factory 
Inspectors  as  a  kind  of  revolutionary  commissioners  like  those 
of  the  French  National  Convention  ruthlessly  sacrificing  the 
unhappy  factory  workers  to  their  humanitarian  crotchet.  This 
manoeuvre  also  failed.  Factory  Inspector  Leonard  Horner 
conducted  in  his  own  person,  and  through  his  sub-inspectors, 
many  examinations  of  witnesses  in  the  factories  of  Lancashire. 
About  70%  of  the  workpeople  examined  declared  in  favour 
of  10  hours,  a  much  smaller  percentage  in  favour  of  11,  and  an 
altogether  insignificant  minority  for  the  old  12  hours. ^ 

Another  "friendly"  dodge  was  to  make  the  adult  males 
work  12  to  15  hours,  and  then  to  blazon  abroad  this  fact  as 
the  best  proof  of  what  the  proletariat  desired  in  its  heart  of 
hearts.  But  the  "ruthless"  Factory  Inspector  Leonard  Horner 
was  again  to  the  fore.  The  majority  of  the  "over-timers" 
declared:  "They  would  much  prefer  working  ten  hours  for 
less  wages,  but  that  they  had  no  choice;  that  so  many  were 
out  of  employment  (so  many  spinners  getting  very  low  wages 
by  having  to  work  as  piecers,  being  unable  to  do  better),  that 
if  they  refused  to  work  the  longer  time,  others  would  im- 

duction  in  time,  together  2s.  6d.,  and  notwithstanding  this,  many  of  them  said  they 
would  rather  work  10  hours."  1.  c. 

»  "  'Though  I  signed  it  [the  petition],  I  said  at  the  time  I  was  putting  my  hand  to  a 
wrong  thing.'  'Then  why  did  you  put  your  hand  to  it?*  'Because  I  should  have 
been  turned  off  if  I  had  refused.'  Whence  it  would  appear  that  this  petitioner  felt 
himself  'oppressed,'  but  not  exactly  by  the  Factory  Act."     1.  c.  p.  102. 

M.  c.  p.  17,  1.  c.  In  Mr.  Horner's  district  10,270  adult  male  labourers  were  thus 
examined  in  101  factories.  Their  evidence  is  to  be  found  in  the  appendix  to  the 
Factory  Reports  for  the  half-year  ending  October  1848.  These  examinations  furnish 
valuable  material  in  other  connexions  also. 


The  Working  Day.  313 

mediately  get  their  places,  so  that  it  was  a  question  with  them 
of  agreeing  to  work  the  long  time,  or  of  being  thrown  out  of 
employment  altogether."^ 

The  preliminary  campaign  of  capital  thus  came  to  grief,  and 
the  Ten  Hours'  Act  came  into  force  May  1st,  1848.  But  mean- 
while the  fiasco  of  the  Chartist  party  whose  leaders  were  im- 
prisoned, and  whose  organisation  was  dismembered,  had  shaken 
the  con^dence  of  the  English  working  class  in  its  own  strength. 
Soon  after  this  the  June  insurrections  in  Paris  and  its  bloody 
suppression  united,  in  England  as  on  the  Continent,  all  frac- 
tions of  the  ruling  classes,  landlords  and  capitalists,  stock- 
exchange  wolves  and  shop-keepers.  Protectionists  and  Free- 
traders, government  and  opposition,  priests  and  free-thinkers, 
young  whores  and  old  nuns,  under  the  common  cry  for  the  sal- 
vation of  Property,  Religion,  the  Family  and  Society.  The 
working  class  was  everywhere  proclaimed,  placed  under  a  ban, 
under  a  virtual  law  of  suspects.  The  manufacturers  had  no 
need  any  longer  to  restrain  themselves.  They  broke  out  in 
open  revolt  not  only  against  the  Ten  Hours'  Act,  but  against 
the  whole  of  the  legislation  that  since  1833  had  aimed  at  re- 
stricting in  some  measure  the  "free"  exploitation  of  labour- 
power.  It  was  a  pro-slavery  rebellion  in  miniature,  carried  on 
for  over  two  years  with  a  cynical  recklessness,  a  terrorist 
energy  all  the  cheaper  because  the  rebel  capitalist  risked 
nothing  except  the  skin  of  his  "hands." 

To  understand  that  which  follows  we  must  remember  that 
the  Factory  Acts  of  1833,  1844,  and  1847  were  all  three  in 
force  so  far  as  the  one  did  not  amend  the  other:  that  not  one 
of  these  limited  the  working  day  of  the  male  worker  over  18, 
and  that  since  1833  the  15  hours  from  5.30  a.m.  to  8.30  p.m. 
had  remained  the  legal  "day,"  within  the  limits  of  which 
at  first  the  12,  and  later  the  10  hours'  labour  of  young  persons 
and  women  had  to  be  performed  under  the  prescribed  condi- 
tions. 

The  manufacturers  began  by  here  and  there  discharging  a 

*  1.  c.  See  the  evidence  collected  by  Leonard  Horner  himself,  Nos.  69,  70,  71,  72, 
92,  93,  and  that  collected  by  Sub-Inspector  A.,  Nos.  51,  52,  58,  59,  62,  70,  of  the 
Appendix.  One  manufacturer,  too,  tells  the  plain  truth.  See  No,  14,  and  No. 
265,  1.  c. 


314  Capitalist  Production. 

part  of,  in  many  cases  half  of,  the  young  persons  and  women 
employed  by  them,  and  then,  for  the  adult  males,  restoring 
the  almost  obsolete  night-work.  The  Ten  Hours'  Act,  they 
cried,  leaves  no  other  alternative.* 

Their  second  step  dealt  with  the  legal  pauses  for  meals. 
Let  us  hear  the  Factory  Inspectors.  "Since  the  restriction  of 
the  hours  of  work  to  ten,  the  factory  occupiers  maintain, 
although  they  have  not  yet  practically  gone  the  whole  length, 
that  supposing  the  hours  of  work  to  be  from  9  a.m.  to  7  p.m., 
they  fulfil  the  provisions  of  the  statutes  by  allowing  an  hour 
before  9  a.m.  and  half-an-hour  after  7  p.m.  [for  meals].  In 
some  cases  they  now  allow  an  hour,  or  half  an  hour  for  dinner, 
insisting  at  the  same  time,  that  they  are  not  bound  to  allow 
any  part  of  the  hour  and  a  half  in  the  course  of  the  factory 
working-day."'^  The  manufacturers  maintained  therefore  that 
the  scrupulously  strict  provisions  of  the  Acts  of  1844  with 
regard  to  meal  times  only  gave  the  operatives  permission  to  eat 
and  drink  before  coming  into,  and  after  leaving  the  factory — 
i.e.,  at  home.  And  why  should  not  the  workpeople  eat  their 
dinner  before  9  in  the  morning?  The  crown  lawyers,  how- 
ever, decided  that  the  prescribed  meal  times  "must  be  in  the 
interval  during  the  working  hours,  and  that  it  will  not  be 
lawful  to  work  for  10  hours  continuously,  from  9  a.m.  to  7 
p.m.,  without  any  interval."^ 

After  these  pleasant  demonstrations.  Capital  preluded  its 
revolt  by  a  step  which  agreed  with  the  letter  of  the  law  of 
1844,  and  was  therefore  legal. 

The  Act  of  1844  certainly  prohibited  the  employment  after 

1  p.m.  of  such  children,  from  8  to  13,  as  had  been  employed 
before  noon.  But  it  did  not  regulate  in  any  way  the  6^ 
hours'  work  of  the  children  whose  work-time  began  at  12  mid- 
day or  later.  Children  of  8  might,  if  they  began  work  at  noon, 
be  employed  from  12  to  1, 1  hour ;  from  2  to  4  in  the  afternoon, 

2  hours ;  from  5  to  8 :30  in  the  evening,  3|  hours ;  in  all,  the 
legal  6|  hours.     Or  better  still.     In  order  to  make  their  work 

»  Reports,  &c.,  for  31st  October,  1848,  p.  133,  134. 

*  Reports,    &c.,    for   30th    April,    1848,   p.    47. 

*  Reports,   &c.,    for  31st  October,   1848,   p.   130. 


The  Working  Day,  315 

coincide  with  that  of  the  adult  male  labourers  up  to  8.30  p.m., 
the  manufacturers  only  had  to  give  them  no  work  till  2  in  the 
afternoon;  they  could  then  keep  them  in  the  factoiy  without 
intermission  till  8.30  in  the  evening.  "And  it  is  now  expressly 
admitted  that  the  practice  exists  in  England  from  the  desire 
of  mill-owners  to  have  their  machinery  at  work  for  more  than 
10  hours  a-day,  to  keep  the  children  at  work  with  male  adults 
after  all  the  young  persons  and  women  have  left,  and  until 
S.30  p.m.,  if  the  factory-owners  choose."^  Workmen  and 
factory  inspectors  protested  on  hygienic  and  moral  grounds,  but 
Capital  answered: 

"My    deeds    upon    my   head!     I    crave    the    law, 
The  penalty  and  forfeit  of  my  bond." 

In  fact,  according  to  statistics  laid  before  the  House  of  Com- 
mons on  July  26th,  1850,  in  spite  of  all  protests,  on  July  15th, 
1850,  3,742  children  were  subjected  to  this  "practice"  in  257 
factories.^  Still  this  was  not  enough.  The  lynx  eye  of 
Capital  discovered  that  the  Act  of  1844  did  not  allow  5  hours' 
work  before  mid-day  without  a  pause  of  at  least  30  minutes  for 
refreshment,  but  prescribed  nothing  of  the  kind  for  work  after 
mid-day.  Therefore,  it  claimed  and  obtained  the  enjoyment 
not  only  of  making  children  of  8  drudge  without  intermission 
from  2  to  8.30  p.m.,  but  also  of  making  them  hunger  during 

that  time. 

"Ay,  his  heart, 

So  says  the  bond."  s 

This  Shylock-clinging  to  the  letter  of  the  law  of  1844,  so  far 
as  it  regulated  children's  labour,  was  but  to  lead  up  to  an  open 

1  Reports,  &c.,  1  c,  p.  142. 

'  Reports,   &c.,   for  31st  October,   1850,  pp.   6,   6. 

'  The  nature  of  capital  remains  the  same  in  its  developed  as  in  its  undeveloped 
form.  In  the  code  which  the  influence  of  the  slave-owners,  shortly  before  the  out- 
break of  the  American  civil  war,  imposed  on  the  territory  of  New  Mexico,  it  is  said 
that  the  labourer,  in  as  much  as  the  capitalist  has  bought  his  labour-power,  "is  his 
(the  capitalist's)  money."  The  same  view  was  current  among  the  Roman  patricians. 
The  money  they  had  advanced  to  the  plebeian  debtor  had  been  transformed  via  the 
means  of  subsistence  into  the  flesh  and  blood  of  the  debtor.  This  "flesh  and  blood" 
were,  therefore,  "their  money."  Hence,  the  Shylock-law  of  the  Ten  Fables. 
Linguet's  hypothesis  that  the  patrician  creditors  from  time  to  time  prepared,  beyond 
the  Tiber,  banquets  of  debtors'  flesh,  may  remain  as  undecided  as  that  of  Uaumer 
on  the  Christian   Eucharist. 


^i6  Capitalist  Production. 

revolt  against  the  same  law,  so  far  as  it  regulated  the  labour  of 
"young  persons  and  women."  It  will  be  remembered  that  the 
abolition  of  the  "false  relay  system"  was  the  chief  aim  and 
object  of  that  law.  The  masters  began  their  revolt  with  the 
simple  declaration  that  the  sections  of  the  Act  of  1844  which 
prohibited  the  ad  libitum  use  of  young  persons  and  women  in 
such  short  fractions  of  the  day  of  15  hours  as  the  employer 
chose,  were  "comparatively  harmless"  so  long  as  the  work- 
time  was  fixed  at  12  hours.  But  under  the  Ten  Hours'  Act 
they  were  a  "grievous  hardship."^  They  informed  the  in- 
spectors in  the  coolest  manner  that  they  should  place  them- 
selves above  the  letter  of  the  law,  and  re-introduce  the  old 
system  on  their  own  account.^  They  were  acting  in  the  inter- 
ests of  the  ill-advised  operatives  themselves,  "in  order  to  be 
able  to  pay  them  higher  wages."  "This  was  the  only  possible 
plan  by  which  to  maintain,  under  the  Ten  Hours'  Act,  the  in- 
dustrial supremacy  of  Great  Britain.'*  "Perhaps  it  may  be  a 
little  difficult  to  detect  irregularities  under  the  relay  system; 
but  what  of  that  ?  Is  the  great  manufacturing  interest  of  this 
country  to  be  treated  as  a  secondary  matter  in  order  to  save 
same  little  trouble  to  Inspectors  and  Sub-Inspectors  of  Fac- 
tories ?"3 

All  these  shifts  naturally  were  of  no  avail.  The  Factory 
Inspectors  appealed  to  the  Law  Courts.  But  soon  such  a  cloud 
of  dust  in  the  way  of  petitions  from  the  masters  overwhelmed 
the  Home  Secretary,  Sir  George  Grey,  that  in  a  circular  of 
August  5th,  1848,  he  recommends  the  inspectors  not  "to  lay 
informations  against  mill-owners  for  a  breach  of- the  letter  of 
the  Act,  or  for  employment  of  young  persons  by  relays  in  cases 
in  which  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  such  young  persons 
have  been  actually  employed  for  a  longer  period  than  that 
sanctioned  by  law."  Hereupon,  Factory  Inspector  J.  Stuart 
allowed  the  so-called  relay  system  during  the  15  hours  of  the 
factory  day  throughout  Scotland,  where  it  soon  flourished  again 
as  of  old.     The  English  Factory  Inspectors,  on  the  other  hand, 

*  Reports,  &c.,   for  30th  April,  1848,   p.   28. 

'  Thus,  among  others.  Philanthropist  Ashworth  to  Leonard  Homer,  in  a  disgusting 
Quaker  letter.     (Reports,  &c.,  April,  1849,  p.  4.) 
•L  c,  p.  140. 


The  Working  Day.  317 

declared  that  the  Home  Secretary  had  no  power  dictatorially 
to  suspend  the  law,  and  continued  their  legal  proceedings 
against  the  pro-slavery  rebellion. 

But  what  was  the  good  of  summoning  the  capitalists  when 
the  Courts,  in  this  case  the  country  magistrates — Cobbett's 
"Great  Unpaid" — acquitted  them  ?  In  these  tribunals,  the 
masters  sat  in  judgment  on  themselves.  An  example.  One 
Eskrigge,  cotton-spinner,  of  the  firm  of  Kershaw,  Leese,  & 
Co.,  had  laid  before  the  Factory  Inspector  of  his  district  the 
scheme  of  a  relay  system  intended  for  his  mill.  Receiving  a 
refusal,  he  at  first  kept  quiet.  A  few  months  later,  an  in- 
dividual named  Robinson^  also  a  cotton-spinner,  and  if  not  his 
Man  Friday,  at  all  events  related  to  Eskrigge,  appeared  before 
the  borough  magistrates  of  Stockport  on  a  charge  of  introduc- 
ing the  identical  plan  of  relays  invented  by  Eskrigge.  Four 
Justices  sat,  among  them  three  cotton-spinners,  at  their  head 
this  same  inevitable  Eskrigge.  Eskrigge  acquitted  Robinson, 
and  now  was  of  opinion  that  what  was  right  for  Robinson  was 
fair  for  Eskrigge.  Supported  by  his  own  legal  decision,  he  in- 
troduced the  system  at  once  into  his  own  factory.^  Of  course, 
the  composition  of  this  tribunal  was  in  itself  a  violation  of  the 
law.^  These  judicial  farces,  exclaims  Inspector  Howell, 
urgently  call  for  a  remedy — either  that  the  law  should  be  so 
altered  as  to  be  made  to  conform  to  these  decisions,  or  that  it 
should  be  administered  by  a  less  fallible  tribunal,  whose  de- 
cisions would  conform  to  the  law.  .  .  .  when  these  cases  are 
brought  forward.     I  long  for  a  stipendiary  magistrate."^ 

The  Crown  lawyers  declared  the  masters'  interpretation  of 
the  Act  of  1848  absurd.  But  the  Saviours  of  Society  would 
not  allow  themselves  to  be  turned  from  their  purpose.  Leonard 
Horner  reports,  "Having  endeavoured  to  enforce  the  Act  .  .  . 
by  ten  prosecutions  in  seven  magisterial  divisions,  and  having 
been  supported  by  the  magistrates  in  one  case  only.  ...  I 

*  Reports,  &c.,  for  30th  April,  1849,  pp.  21,  22.     Cf.  like  examples  ibid.   pp.  4,  6. 

*  By  I.  and  II.  Will.  IV.,  ch.  24,  s.  10,  known  as  Sir  John  Hobhouse's  Factory 
Act,  it  was  forbidden  to  any  owner  of  a  cotton-spinning  or  weaving  mill,  or  the 
father,  son,  or  brother  of  such  owner,  to  act  as  Justice  of  the  Peace  in  any  io- 
quiries  that  concerned  the  Factory  Act. 

il.  c. 


3i8  Capitalist  Production. 

considered  it  useless  to  prosecute  more  for  this  evasion  of  the 
law.  That  part  of  the  Act  of  1884  which  was  framed  for 
securing  uniformity  in  the  hours  of  work,  ...  is  thus  no 
longer  in  force  in  my  district  (Lancashire).  Neither  have  the 
sub-inspectors  or  myself  any  means  of  satisfying  ourselves, 
when  we  inspect  a  mill  working  by  shifts,  that  the  young  per- 
sons and  women  are  not  working  more  than  10  hours  a-day. 
...  In  a  return  of  the  30th  April,  ...  of  mill-owners  work- 
ing by  shifts,  the  number  amounts  to  114,  and  has  been  for 
some  time  rapidly  increasing.  In  general,  the  time  of  work- 
ing the  mill  is  extended  to  13^  hours,  from  6  a.m.  to  7^  p.m., 
...  in  some  instances  it  amounts  to  15  hours,  from  5^  a.m. 
to  8^  p.  m."^  Already,  in  December,  1848,  Leonard  Horner 
had  a  list  of  65  manufacturers  and  29  overlookers  who  unani- 
mously declared  that  no  system  of  supervision  could,  under  this 
relay  system,  prevent  enormous  overwork.^  Now,  the  same 
children  and  young  persons  were  shifted  from  the  spinning- 
room  to  the  weaving-room,  now,  during  15  hours,  from  one 
factory  to  another.^  How  was  it  possible  to  control  a  system 
which,  "under  the  guise  of  relays,  is  some  one  of  the  many 
plans  for  shuffling  'the  hands'  about  in  endless  variety,  and 
shifting  the  hours  of  work  and  of  rest  for  different  individuals 
throughout  the  day,  so  that  you  may  never  have  one  complete 
set  of  hands  working  together  in  the  same  room  at  the  same 
time."* 

But  altogether  independently  of  actual  overwork,  this  so- 
called  relay-system  was  an  offspring  of  capitalistic  fantasy 
such  as  Fourier,  in  his  humorous  sketches  of  "Courtes 
Seances,"  has  never  surpassed,  except  that  the  "attraction  of 
labour"  was  changed  into  the  attraction  of  capital.  Look,  for 
example,  at  those  schemes  of  the  masters  which  the  "respect- 
able" press  praised  as  models  of  "what  a  reasonable  degree  of 
care  and  method  can  accomplish."  The  personnel  of  the  work- 
people was  sometimes  divided  into  from  12  to  14  categories, 
which  themselves  constantly  changed  and  rechanged  their  con- 

*  Reports,   &c.,   for  30th  April,   1849,  p.  6. 

» Reports,   &c.,    for   31st   October,    1849,    p.    6. 

•  Reports,   &c.,    for  30th  April,  1849.  p.   21. 
•Reports,  &c.,   for  1st  October,  1848,  p.   96, 


The  Working  Day.  319 

stituent  parts.  During  the  15  hours  of  the  factory  day,  capital 
dragged  in  the  labourer  now  for  30  minutes,  now  for  an  hour, 
and  then  pushed  him  out  again,  to  drag  him  into  the  factory 
and  to  thrust  him  out  afresh,  hounding  him  hither  and  thither, 
in  scattered  shreds  of  time,  without  ever  losing  hold  of  him 
until  the  full  10  hours'  work  was  done.  As  on  the  stage,  the 
same  persons  had  to  appear  in  turns  in  the  different  scenes 
of  the  different  acts.  But  as  an  actor  during  the  whole  course 
of  the  play  belongs  to  the  stage,  so  the  operatives,  during  15 
hours,  belonged  to  the  factory,  without  reckoning  the  time 
for  going  and  coming.  Thus  the  hours  of  rest  were  turned 
into  hours  of  enforced  idleness,  which  drove  the  youths  to 
the  pot-house,  and  the  girls  to  the  brothel.  At  every  new 
trick  that  the  capitalist,  from  day  to  day,  hit  upon  for  keep- 
ing his  machinery  going  12  or  15  hours  without  increasing 
the  number  of  his  hands,  the  worker  had  to  swallow  his  meals 
now  in  this  fragment  of  time,  now  in  that.  At  the  time  of  the 
10  hours'  agitation,  the  masters  cried  out  that  the  working  mob 
petitioned  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  12  hours'  wages  for  10 
hours'  work.  Now  they  reversed  the  medal.  They  paid  10 
hours'  wages  for  12  or  15  hours'  lordship  over  labour-power.* 
This  was  the  gist  of  the  matter,  this  the  masters'  interpretation 
of  the  10  hours'  law!  These  were  the  same  unctuous  free- 
traders, perspiring  with  the  love  of  humanity,  who  for  full  10 
years,  during  the  Anti-Corn  Law  agitation,  had  preached  to 
the  operatives,  by  a  reckoning  of  pounds,  shillings  and  pence, 
that  with  free  importation  of  corn,  and  with  the  means  pos- 
sessed by  English  industry,  10  hours'  labour  would  be  quite 
enough  to  enrich  the  capitalist.'^  This  revolt  of  capital,  after 
two  years,  was  at  last  crowned  with  victory  by  a  decision  of 
one  of  the  four  highest  Courts  of  Justice  in  England,  the 
Court  of  Exchequer,  which  in  a  case  brought  before  it  on 
February   8th,    1850,    decided   that   the  manufacturers  were 

^  See  Reports,  &c.,  for  30th  April,  1849,  p.  6,  and  the  detailed  explanation  of  the 
"shifting  system,"  by  Factory  Inspectors  Howell  and  Saunders,  in  "Reports,  &c.,  for 
31st  October,  1848."  See  also  the  petition  to  the  Queen  from  the  clergy  of  Ashton 
and  vicinity,   in  the  spring  of   1849,   against   the   "shift  system." 

==  Cf.  for  example,  "The  Factory  Question  and  the  Ten  Hours'  Bill."  By  R.  H. 
Greg,   1837. 


220  Capitalist  Production. 

certainly  acting  against  the  sense  of  the  Act  of  1844,  but  that 
this  Act  itself  contained  certain  words  that  rendered  it  mean- 
ingless. "By  this  decision,  the  Ten-  Hours'  Act  was  abol- 
ished."^ A  crowd  of  masters,  who  until  then  had  been  afraid 
of  using  the  relay-system  for  young  persons  and  women,  now 
took  it  up  heart  and  soul.^ 

But  on  this  apparently  decisive  victory  of  capital,  followed 
at  once  a  revulsion.  The  workpeople  had  hitherto  offered  a 
passive,  although  inflexible  and  unremitting  resistance.  They 
now  protested  in  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire  in  threatening 
meetings.  The  pretended  Ten  Hours'  Act,  was  thus  simple 
humbug,  parliamentary  cheating,  had  never  existed!  The 
Factory  Inspectors  urgently  warned  the  Government  that  the 
antagonism  of  classes  had  arrived  at  an  incredible  tension. 
Some  of  the  masters  themselves  murmured:  "On  account  of 
the  contradictory  decisions  of  the  magistrates,  a  condition  of 
things  altogether  abnormal  and  anarchial  obtains.  One  law 
holds  in  Yorkshire,  another  in  Lancashire;  one  law  in  one 
parish  of  Lancashire,  another  in  its  immediate  neighborhood. 
The  manufacturer  in  large  towns  could  evade  the  law,  the 
manufacturer  in  country  districts  could  not  find  the  people 
necessary  for  the  relay-system,  still  less  for  the  shifting  of 
hands  from  one  factory  to  another,"  &c.  And  the  first  birth- 
right of  capital  is  equal  exploitation  of  labour-power  by  all 
capitalists. 

Under  these  circumstances  a  compromise  between  masters 
and  men  was  effected  that  received  the  seal  of  Parliament  in 
the  additional  Factory  Act  of  August  5th,  1850.  The  work- 
ing day  for  "young  persons  and  women,"  was  raised  from  10 
to  10^  hours  for  the  first  five  days  of  the  week,  and  was 
shortened  to  7^  on  the  Saturday.  The  work  was  to  go  on  be- 
tween 6  a.m.  and  6  p.m.,^  with  pauses  of  not  less  than  1|  hours 
for  meal-times,  these  meal-times  to  be  allowed  at  one  and  the 

*  F.  Engels:  "The  English  Ten  Hours'  Bill."  (In  the  "Neue  Rheinische  Zeitung, 
Politisch-oekonomische  Revue."  Edited  by  K.  Marx.  April  number,  1850,  p.  13.) 
The  same  "high"  Court  of  Justice  discovered,  during  the  American  Civil  War,  a 
verbal  ambiguity  which  exactly  reversed  the  meaning  of  the  law  against  the  arming 
of   pirate  ships. 

»  Rep.,  &c.,  for  30th  April,  1860. 

*  In  winter,  from  7  a.m.  to  7  p.m.  may  be  substituted. 


The  Working  Day.  321 

same  time  for  all,  and  conformably  to  the  conditions  of  1844. 
By  this  an  end  was  put  to  the  relay-system  once  for  all.^  For 
children's  labour,  the  Act  of  1844  remained  in  force. 

One  set  of  masters,  this  time  as  before,  secured  to  itseK 
epecial  seigneurial  rights  over  the  children  of  the  proletariat. 
These  were  the  silk  manufacturers.  In  1833  they  had  howled 
out  in  threatening  fashion,  "if  tlie  liberty  of  working  children 
of  any  age  for  10  hours  a  day  were  taken  away,  it  would  stop 
their  works."^  It  would  be  impossible  for  them  to  buy  a  suffi- 
cient number  of  children  over  13,  They  extorted  the  privilege 
they  desired.  The  pretext  was  shown  on  subsequent  investiga- 
tion to  be  a  deliberate  lie.^  It  did  not,  however,  prevent  them, 
during  10  years,  from  spinning  silk  10  hours  a  day  out  of  the 
blood  of  little  children  who  had  to  be  placed  upon  stools  for 
the  performance  of  their  work.*  The  Act  of  1844  certainly 
"robbed"  them  of  the  "liberty"  of  employing  children  under 
11  longer  than  6|  hours  a  day.  But  it  secured  to  them,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  privilege  of  working  children  between  11  and 
13,  10  hours  a  day,  and  of  annulling  in  their  case  the  educa- 
tion made  compulsory  for  all  other  factory  children.  This 
time  the  pretext  was  "the  delicate  texture  of  the  fabric  in 
which  they  were  employed,  requiring  a  lightness  of  touch,  only 
to  be  acquired  by  their  early  introduction  to  these  factories."^ 
The  children  were  slaughtered  out-and-out  for  the  sake  of  their 
delicate  fingers,  as  in  Southern  Russia  the  homed  cattle  for  the 
sake  of  their  hide  and  tallow.  At  length,  in  1850,  the  privilege 
granted  in  1844  was  limited  to  the  departments  of  silk-twist- 
ing and  silk-winding.  But  here,  to  make  amends  to  capital 
bereft  of  its  "freedom,"  the  work  time  for  children  from  11 
to  13  was  raised  from  10  to  10|  hours.  Pretext:  "Labour  in 
silk  mills  was  lighter  than  in  mills  for  other  fabrics,  and  less 
likely  in  other  respects  also  to  be  prejudicial  to  health."® 
Official  medical  inquiries  proved  afterwards  that,  on  the  con- 

'■  "The  present  law  (of  1850)  was  a  compromise  whereby  the  employed  surrendered 
the  benefit  of  the  Ten  Hours'  Act  for  the  advantage  of  one  uniform  period  for  the 
commencement  and  termination  of  the  labour  of  those  whose  labour  is  restricted." 
(Reports,   &c.,   for   30th  April,   1852,  p.   14.) 

«  Reports,  &c.,   for  Sept.,  1844,  p.  13.  »1.  c.  *  1.  c. 

M.  c, 

•  Reports,  &c.,  for  31st  Oct.,   1861,  p.  26. 

U 


322  Capitalist  I  roduction. 

trary,  "the  average  death-rate  is  exceedingly  high  in  the  silk 
districts,  and  amongst  the  female  part  of  the  population  is 
higher  even  than  it  is  in  the  cotton  districts  of  Lancashire."^ 
Despite  the  protests  of  the  Factory  Inspector,  renewed  every 
C  months,  the  mischief  continues  to  this  hour.^ 

The  Act  of  1850  changed  the  15  hours'  time  from  G  a.m.  to 
8.30  p.m.,  into  the  12  hours  from  6  a.m.  to  6  p.m.  for  "young 
persons  and  women"  only.  It  did  not,  therefore,  affect  chil- 
dren who  could  always  be  employed  for  half  an  hour  before 
and  2^  hours  after  this  period,  provided  the  whole  of  their 
labour  did  not  exceed  6|  hours.  Whilst  the  bill  was  under 
discussion,  the  Factory  Inspectors  laid  before  Parliament  sta- 
tistics of  the  infamous  abuses  due  to  this  anomaly.  To  no 
purpose.  In  the  background  lurked  the  intention  of  screwing 
up,  during  prosperous  years,  the  working  day  of  adult  males 

^  1.  c,  p.  27.  On  the  whole  the  working  population,  subject  to  the  Factory  Act, 
has  greatly  improved  physically.  All  medical  testimony  agrees  on  this  point,  and 
personal  observation  at  different  times  has  convinced  me  of  it.  Nevertheless,  and 
exclusive  of  the  terrible  death-rate  of  children  in  the  first  years  of  their  life,  the 
official  reports  of  Dr.  Greenhow  show  the  unfavourable  health  condition  of  the  manu- 
facturing districts  as  compared  with  "agricultural  districts  of  normal  health."  As 
evidence,  take  the   following  table  from   his  1861   report: — 


Percentage 

Death-rate 

Death-rate 

Percentage 

of  Adult 

from 

from 

of  Adult 

Males  en- 
gaged in 

Pulmonary 
Affections 

Name  of  District. 

Pulmonaiy 
Affections 

Females 
engaged  in 

Kind  of  Female 
Occupation. 

manufac- 

per 100,000 

per  100,000 

manufac- 

tures. 

Males. 

Females. 

tures. 

14-9 

59& 

Wigan 

044 

180 

Cotton 

42-6 

708 

Blackburn 

734 

34-9. 

Do. 

37-3 

547 

Halifax 

564 

20-4 

Worsted 

41-9 

611 

Bradford 

603 

300 

Do. 

310 

691 

Macclesfield 

804 

260 

Silk 

14-9 

588 

Leek 

705 

17-2 

Do. 

36-6 

721 

Stoke-upon-Trent 

665 

19-3 

Earthenware 

30-4 

726 

Woolstanton 
Eight  healthy  agri- 

727 

13-9 

Do. 

305 

cultural   districts 

340 

*  It  is  well-known  with  what  reluctance  the  English  "free  traders"  gave  up  the 
protective  duty  on  the  silk  manufacture.  Instead  of  the  protection  against  French 
importation,  the  absence  of  protection  to  English  factory  children  now  serves  their 
turn. 


The  Working  Day.  323 

to  15  hours  by  the  aid  of  the  children.  The  experience  of  the 
three  following  years  showed  that  such  an  attempt  must  come 
to  grief  against  the  resistance  of  the  adult  male  operatives. 
The  Act  of  1850  was  therefore  finally  completed  in  1853  by 
forbidding  the  "employment  of  children  in  the  morning  be- 
fore and  in  the  evening  after  young  persons  and  women." 
Henceforth  with  a  few  exceptions  the  Factory  Act  of  1850 
regulated  the  working  day  of  all  workers  in  the  branches  of 
industry  that  come  under  it.^  Since  the  passing  of  the  first 
Factory  Act  half  a  century  had  elapsed.^ 

Factory  legislation  for  the  first  time  went  beyond  its  original 
sphere  in  the  "Printworks'  Acts  of  1845."  The  displeasure 
with  which  capital  received  this  new  "extravagance"  speaks 
through  every  line  of  the  Act.  It  limits  the  working  day  for 
children  from  8  to  13,  and  for  women  to  16  hours,  between 
6  a.m.  and  10  p.m.,  without  any  legal  pause  for  meal  times. 
It  allows  males  over  13  to  be  worked  at  will  day  and  night.^ 
It  is  a  Parliamentary  abortion.* 

However,  the  principle  had  triumphed  with  its  victory  in 
those  great  branches  of  industry  which  form  the  most  char- 
acteristic creation  of  the  modern  mode  of  production.  Their 
wonderful  development  from  1853  to  1860,  hand-in-hand  with 
the  physical  and  moral  regeneration  of  the  factory  workers, 

^  During  1859  and  1860,  the  zenith  years  of  the  English  cotton  industry,  some 
manufacturers  tried,  by  the  decoy  bait  of  higher  wages  for  over-time,  to  reconcile 
the  adult  male  operatives  to  an  extension  of  the  working  day.  The  hand-mule  spin- 
ners and  self-actor  minders  put  an  end  to  the  experiment  by  a  petition  to  their 
employers  in  which  they  say,  "Plainly  speaking,  our  lives  are  to  us  a  burthen;  and, 
while  we  are  confined  to  the  mills  nearly  two  days  a  week  more  than  the  other 
operatives  of  the  country,  we  feel  like  helots  in  the  land,  and  that  we  are  perpetu- 
ating a  system  injurious  to  ourselves  and  future  generations.  .  .  .  This,  there- 
fore, is  to  give  you  most  respectful  notice  that  when  we  commence  work  again  after 
the  Christmas  and  New  Years'  holidays,  we  shall  work  60  hours  per  week,  and  no 
more,  or  from  six  to  six,  with  one  hour  and  a  half  out."  (Reports,  &c.,  for  30th 
April,    1860,   p.    30.) 

'  On  the  means  that  the  wording  of  this  Act  afforded  for  its  violation  cf.  the 
Parliamentary  Return  "Factory  Regulations  Act"  (6th  August,  1859),  and  in  it 
Leonard  Horner's  "Suggestions  for  amending  the  Factory  Acts  to  enable  the  Inspec- 
tors to  prevent  illegal  working,  now  become  very  prevalent." 

'  "Children  of  the  age  of  8  years  and  upwards,  have,  indeed,  been  employed  from 
6  a.m.  to  9  p.m.  during  the  last  h^lf  year  in  my  district."  (Reports,  &c.,  for  31st 
October,   1857,  p.   39.) 

*  "The  Prmtworks'  Act  is  admitted  to  be  a  failure,  both  with  reference  to  its 
educational  and  protective  provisions."     (Reports,  &c.,  for  31st  October,  1802,  p.  52.) 


324  Capitalist  Production. 

struck  the  most  purblind.  The  masters  from  whom  the  legal 
limitation  and  regulation  had  been  wrung  step  by  step  after  a 
civil  war  of  half  a  century,  themselves  referred  ostentatiously 
to  the  contrast  with  the  branches  of  exploitation  still  "free."^ 
The  Pharisees  of  "political  economy"  now  proclaimed  the  dis- 
cernment of  the  necessity  of  a  legally  fixed  working  day  as  a 
characteristic  new  discovery  of  their  "science."^  It  will  be 
easily  understood  that  after  the  factory  magnates  had  resigned 
themselves  and  become  reconciled  to  the  inevitable,  the  power 
of  resistance  of  capital  gradually  weakened,  whilst  at  the  same 
time  the  power  of  attack  of  the  working  class  grew  with  the 
number  of  its  allies  in  the  classes  of  society  not  immediately 
interested  in  the  question.  Hence  tibe  conaparatively  rapid 
advance  since  1860. 

The  dye-works  and  bleach-works  all  came  under  the  Factory 
Act  of  1850  in.  I860;*  lace  and  stocking  manufacturers  in 
1861. 

In  consequence  of  the  first  report  of  the  Commission  on  the 
employment  of  children  (1863),  the  same  fate  was  shared  by 
the  manufacturers  of  all  earthenwares  (not  merely  pottery), 
lucifer-matches,  percussion-caps,  cartridges,  carpets,  fustian- 

»Thus,  e.g.,  E.  Potter  in  a  letter  to  the  "Times"  of  March  24th,  1863.  The 
"Times"  reminded  him  of  the  manufacturers'  revolt  against  the  Ten  Hours'  Bill. 

»  Thus,  among  others,  Mr.  W.  Newmarch,  collaborator  and  editor  of  Tooke's  "His- 
tory of  Prices."  Is  it  a  scientific  advance  to  make  cowardly  concessions  to  public 
opinion  ? 

•  The  Act  passed  in  1860,  determined  that,  in  regard  to  dye  and  bleach-works,  the 
working  day  should  be  fixed  on  August  1st,  1861,  provisionally  at  12  hours,  and 
definitely  on  August  1st,  1862,  at  10  hours,  i.e.,  at  10J4  hours  for  ordinary  days,  and 
jyi  for  Saturday.  Now,  when  the  fatal  year,  1862,  came,  the  old  farce  was  repeated. 
Besides,  the  manufacturers  petitioned  Parliament  to  allow  the  employment  of  young 
persons  and  women  for  12  hours  during  one  year  longer.  "In  the  existing  condition 
of  the  trade  (the  time  of  the  cotton  famine),  it  was  greatly  to  the  advantage  of  the 
operatives  to  work  12  hours  per  day,  and  make  wages  when  they  could."  A  bill  to 
this  effect  had  been  brought  in,  "and  it  was  mainly  due  to  the  action  of  the  operative 
bleachers  in  Scotland  that  tlie  bill  was  abandoned."  (Reports,  &c.,  for  31st  October, 
1862,  p.  14-15.)  Thus  defeated  by  the  very  work-people,  in  whose  name  it  pre- 
tended to  speak,  Capital  discovered,  with  the  help  of  lawyer  spectacles,  that  the  Act 
of  1860,  drawn  up,  like  all  the  Acts  of  Parliament  for  the  "protection  of  labour," 
in  equivocal  phrases,  gave  them  a  pretext  to  exclude  from  its  working  the  calenderers 
and  finishers.  English  jurisprudence,  ever  the  faithful  servant  of  capital,  sanctioned 
in  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  this  piece  of  pettifogging.  "The  operatives  have 
been    greatly    disappointed  .     .     they    have    complained    of    overwork,    and    it    is 

preatly  to  be  regretted  that  the  clear  intention  of  the  legislature  should  have  failed 
oy  reason  of  a   faulty  definition."     (1.  c,  p.  18.) 


The  Working  Day.  325 

cutting,  and  many  processes  included  under  the  name  of 
"finishing."  In  the  year  1863  bleaching  in  the  open  air^  and 
baking  were  placed  under  special  Acts,  by  which,  in  the 
former,  the  labour  of  young  persons  and  women  during  the 
night-time  (from  8  in  the  evening  to  6  in  the  morning),  and  in 
the  latter,  the  employment  of  journeymen  bakers  under  18, 
between  9  in  the  evening  and  5  in  the  morning  were  forbidden. 
We  shall  return  to  the  later  proposals  of  the  same  Commission, 
which  threatened  to  deprive  of  their  "freedom"  all  the  import- 
ant branches  of  English  Industry,  with  the  exception  of  agri- 
culture, mines,  and  the  means  of  transport.^ 

*  The  "open-air  bleachers"  had  evaded  the  law  of  1860,  by  means  of  the  lie  that  no 
women  worked  at  it  in  the  -night.  The  lie  was  exposed  by  the  Factory  Inspectors, 
and  at  the  same  time  Parliament  was,  by  petitions  from  the  operatives,  bereft  of 
its  notions  as  to  the  cool  meadow-fragrance,  in  which  bleaching  in  the  open-air  was 
reported  to  take  place.  In  this  aerial  bleaching,  drying-rooms  were  used  at  tempera- 
tures of  from  90°  to  100°  Fahrenheit,  in  which  the  work  was  done  for  the  most  part 
by  girls.  "Cooling"  is  the  technical  expression  for  their  occasional  escape  from  the 
drying-rooms  into  the  fresh  air.  "Fifteen  girls  in  stoves.  Heat  from  80°  to  90°  for 
linens,  and  100°  and  upwards  for  cambrics.  Twelve  girls  ironing  and  doing  up 
in  a  small  room  about  10  feet  square,  in  the  centre  of  which  is  a  close  stove.  The 
girls  stand  round  the  stove,  which  throws  out  a  terrific  heat,  and  dries  the  cambrics 
rapidly  for  the  ironers.  The  hours  of  work  for  these  hands  are  unlimited.  If  busy, 
they  work  till  9  or  12  at  night  for  successive  nights."  (Reports,  &c.,  for  31st  Octo- 
ber, 1862,  p.  56.)  A  medical  man  states:  "No  special  hours  are  allowed  for  cooling, 
but  if  the  temperature  gets  too  high,  or  the  workers'  hands  get  soiled  from  perspira- 
tion, they  are  allowed  to  go  out  for  a  few  minutes.  .  .  .  My  experience,  which 
is  considerable,  in  treating  the  diseases  of  stove  workers,  compels  me  to  express  the 
opinion  that  their  sanitary  condition  is  by  no  means  so  high  as  that  of  the  operatives 
in  a  spinning  factory  (and  Capital,  in  its  memorials  to  Parliament,  had  painted  them 
as  floridly  healthy,  after  the  manner  of  Rubens).  The  diseases  most  observable 
amongst  them  are  phthisis,  bronchitis,  irregularity  of  uterine  functions,  hysteria  in 
its  most  aggravated  forms,  and  rheumatism.  All  of  these,  I  believe,  are  either  di- 
rectly or  indirectly  induced  by  the  impure,  overheated  air  of  the  apartments  in 
which  the  hands  are  employed,  and  the  want  of  sufficient  comfortable  clothing  to 
protect  them  from  the  cold,  damp  atmosphere,  in  winter,  when  going  to  their 
homes."  (1.  c.  p.  56-57.)  The  Factory  Inspectors  remarked  on  the  supplementary 
law  of  1860,  torn  from  these  open-air  bleachers:  "The  Act  has  not  orly  failed  to 
afford  that  protection  to  the  workers  which  it  appears  to  offer,  but  contains  a  clause 
.  .  .  apparently  so  worded  that,  unless  persons  are  detected  working  after  8 
o'clock  at  night  they  appear  to  come  under  no  protective  provisions  at  all,  and  if 
they  do  so  work,  the  mode  of  proof  is  so  doubtful  that  a  conviction  can  scarcely 
follow."  (1.  c,  p.  52.)  "To  all  intents  and  purposes,  therefore,  as  an  Act  for  any 
benevolent  or  educational  purpose,  it  is  a  failure;  since  it  can  scarcely  be  called 
benevolent  to  permit,  which  is  tantamount  to  compelling,  women  and  children  to 
work  14  hours  a  day  with  or  without  meals,  as  the  case  may  be,  and  perhaps  for 
longer  hours  than  these,  without  limit  as  to  age,  without  reference  to  sex,  and 
without  regard  to  the  soci-al  habits  of  the  families  of  the  neighbourhood,  in  which 
such  works  (bleaching  and  dyeing)  are  situated."  (Reports,  &c.,  for  30th  April, 
1863,  p.  40.) 

^  Note  to  the  2nd  Ed.  Since  1866,  when  I  wrote  the  above  passages,  a  re-action 
has  again  set  in. 


326  Capitalist  Production. 

SECTION    7. THE   STRUGGLE   FOR   THE   NORMAL    WORKING-DAY. 

RE-ACTION  OF  THE  ENGLISH  ACTS  ON  OTHER  COUNTRIES. 

The  reader  will  bear  in  mind  that  the  production  of  surplus- 
value,  or  the  extraction  of  surplus-labour,  is  the  specific  end 
and  aim,  the  sum  and  substance,  of  capitalist  production  quite 
apart  from  any  changes  in  the  mode  of  production,  which 
may  arise  from  the  subordination  of  labour  to  capital.  He 
will  remember  that  as  far  as  we  have  at  present  gone,  only  the 
independent  labourer,  and  therefore  only  the  labourer  legally 
qualified  to  act  for  himself,  enters  as  a  vendor  of  a  commodity 
into  a  contract  with  the  capitalist.  If,  therefore,  in  our  his- 
torical sketch,  on  the  one  hand,  modem  industry ;  on  the  other, 
the  labour  of  those  who  are  physically  and  legally  minors,  play 
important  parts,  the  former  was  to  us  only  a  special  depart- 
ment, and  the  latter  only  a  specially  striking  example  of  labour 
exploitation.  Without,  however,  anticipating  the  subsequent 
development  of  our  inquiry,  from  the  mere  connexion  of  the 
historic  facts  before  us,  it  follows : 

First.  The  passion  of  capital  for  an  unlimited  and  reckless 
extension  of  the  working  day,  is  first  gratified  in  the  industries 
earliest  revolutionised  by  water-power,  steam,  and  machinery, 
in  those  first  creations  of  the  modem  mode  of  production, 
cotton,  wool,  flax,  and  silk  spinning,  and  weaving.  The 
changes  in  the  material  mode  of  production,  and  the  corre- 
sponding changes  in  the  social  relations  of  the  producers^  gave 
rise  first  to  an  extravagance  beyond  all  bounds,  and  then  in 
opposition  to  this,  called  forth  a  control  on  the  part  of  Society 
which  legally  limits,  regulates,  and  makes  uniform  the  work- 
ing day  and  its  pauses.  This  control  appears,  therefore,  dur- 
ing the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  simply  as  ex- 
ceptional legislation.^     As  soon  as  this  primitive  dominion  of 

^"The  conduct  of  each  of  these  classes  (capitalists  and  workmen)  has  been  the 
result  of  the  relative  situation  in  which  they  have  been  placed."  (Reports,  &c.,  for 
31st  October,  1848,  p.  113.) 

*  "The  employments,  placed  under  restriction,  were  connected  with  the  manufac- 
ture of  textile  fabrics  by  the  aid  of  steam  or  water-power.  There  were  two  condi- 
tions to  which  an  employment  must  be  subject  to  cause  it  to  be  inspected,  viz.,  the 
use  of  steam  or  water-power,  and  the  manufacture  of  certain  specified  fibres."  (Re- 
ports, &c.,  for  8l8t  October,  1864,  p.  8.) 


The  Working  Day.  327 

the  new  mode  of  production  was  conquered,  it  was  found  that, 
in  the  meantime,  not  only  had  many  other  branches  of  produc- 
tion been  made  to  adopt  the  same  factory  system,  but  that 
manufacturers  with  more  or  less  obsolete  methods,  such  as 
potteries,  glass-making,  &c.,  that  old-fashioned  handicrafts, 
like  baking,  and,  finally,  even  that  the  so-called  domestic  in- 
dustries such  as  nail-making,^  had  long  since  fallen  as  com- 
pletely under  capitalist  exploitation  as  the  factories  themselves. 
Legislation  was,  therefore,  compelled  to  gradually  get  rid  of 
its  exceptional  character,  or  where,  as  in  England,  it  proceeds 
after  the  manner  of  the  Roman  Casuists,  to  declare  any  house 
in  which  work  was  done  to  be  a  factory.^ 

Second.  The  history  of  the  regulation  of  the  working  day  in 
certain  branches  of  production,  and  the  struggle  still  going  on 
in  others  in  regard  to  this  regulation,  prove  conclusively  that 
the  isolated  labourer,  the  labourer  as  "free"  vendor  of  his 
labour-power,  when  capitalist  production  has  once  attained  a 
certain  stage,  succumbs  without  any  power  of  resistance.  The 
creation  of  a  normal  working  day  is,  therefore,  the  product  of 
a  protracted  civil  war,  more  or  less  dissembled,  between  the 
capitalist  class  and  the  working  class.  As  the  contest  takes 
place  in  the  arena  of  modem  industry,  it  first  breaks  out  in 
the  home  of  that  industry — England.^  The  English  factory 
workers  were  the  champions,  not  only  of  the  English,  but  of 
the  modern  working-class  generally,  as  their  theorists  were 
the  first  to  throw  down  the  gauntlet  to  the  theory  of  capital.* 

'  On  the  condition  of  so-called  domestic  industries,  specially  valuable  materials 
are  to  be  found  in  the  latest  reports  of  the  Children's  Employment  Commission. 

^  "The  Acts  of  last  Session  (1864)  .  .  .  embrace  a  diversity  of  occupations, 
the  customs  in  which  differ  greatly,  and  the  use  of  mechanical  power  to  give  motion 
to  machinery  is  no  longer  one  of  the  elements  necessary,  as  formerly,  to  constitute, 
in   legal  phrase,   a   'Factory.'  "      (Reports,   &c.,   for   31st  October,   1864,   p.   8.) 

^  Belgium,  the  paradise  of  Continental  Liberalism,  shows  no  trace  of  this  move- 
ment. Even  in  the  coal  and  metal  mines,  labourers  of  both  sexes,  and  all  ages,  are 
consumed  in  perfect  "freedom,"  at  any  period,  and  through  any  length  of  time. 
Of  every  1000  persons  employed  there,  733  are  men,  88  women,  135  boys,  and  44 
girls  under  16;  in  the  blast-furnaces,  &c.,  of  every  1000,  68S  are  men,  149  women, 
98  boys,  and  85  girls  under  16.  Add  to  this  the  low  wages  for  the  enormous  exploi- 
tation of  mature  and  immature  labour-power.  The  average  daily  pay  for  a  man  is 
2s.  8d.,  for  a  woman.  Is.  8d.,  for  a  boy.  Is.  SJ/^d.  As  a  result,  Belgium  had  in  1863, 
as  compared  with  1850,  nearly  doubled  both  the  amount  and  the  value  of  its  exports 
of  coal,  iron,  &c. 

*  Robert  Owen,  soon  after  1810,  not  only  maintained  the  necessity  of  a  limitation 


228  Capitalist  Production. 

Hence,  the  philosopher  of  the  Factory,  Ure,  denounces  as  &n 
ineffable  disgrace  to  the  English  working-class  that  they  i.i- 
scribed  "the  slavery  of  the  Factory  Acts"  on  the  banner  v>'hi'h 
they  bore  against  capital,  manfully  striving  for  "perfect  frte- 
dom  of  labour."^ 

France  limps  slowly  behind  England.  The  February  i-ev- 
olution  was  necessary  to  bring  into  the  world  the  12  hours' 
law,2  which  is  much  more  deficient  than  its  English  original. 
For  all  that,  the  French  revolutionary  method  has  its  special 
advantages.  It  once  for  all  commands  the  same  limit  to  the 
working-day  in  all  shops  and  factories  without  distinction, 
whilst  English  legislation  reluctantly  yields  to  the  pressure  of 
circumstances,  now  on  this  point,  now  on  that,  and  is  getting 
lost  in  a  hopelessly  bewildering  tangle  of  contradictory  enact- 
ments.^ On  the  other  hand,  the  French  law  proclaims  as  a 
principle  that  which  in  England  was  only  won  in  the  name 
of  children,  minors,  and  women,  and  has  been  only  recently 
for  the  first  time  claimed  as  a  general  right.* 

of  the  working  day  in  theory,  but  actually  introduced  the  10  hours'  day  into  his 
factory  at  New  Lanark.  This  was  laughed  at  as  a  communistic  Utopia;  so  were  his 
"Combination  of  children's  education  with  productive  labour,"  and  the  Co-operative 
Societies  of  working-men,  first  called  into  being  by  him.  To-day,  the  first  Utopia  is 
a  Factory  Act,  the  second  figures  as  an  official  phrase  in  all  Factory  Acts,  the  third 
is  already  being  used  as  a  cloak  for  reactionary  humbug. 

^Urc:  "French  translation.  Philosophic  des  Manufactures."  Paris,  1836,  Vol.  II., 
p.  39,  40,  67,  77,  &c. 

'  In  the  Compte  Rendu  of  the  International  Statistical  Congress  at  Paris,  1855,  it 
is  stated:  "The  French  law,  which  limits  the  length  of  daily  labour  in  factories  and 
workshops  to  12  hours,  does  not  confine  this  work  to  definite  fixed  hours.  For 
children's  labour  only  the  work-time  is  prescribed  as  between  5  a.  m.  and  9  p.  m. 
Therefore,  some  of  the  masters  use  the  right  which  this  fatal  silence  gives  them  to 
keep  their  works  going,  without  intermission,  day  in,  day  out,  possibly  with  the 
exception  of  Sunday.  For  this  purpose  they  use  two  different  sets  of  workers,  of 
whom  neither  is  in  the  workshop  more  than  12  hours  at  a  time,  but  the  work  of  the 
establishment  lasts  day  and  night.  The  law  is  satisfied,  but  is  humanity?"  Besides 
"the  destructive  influence  of  night  labour  on  the  human  organism,"  stress  is  also 
laid  upon  "the  fatal  influence  of  the  association  of  the  two  sexes  by  night  in  the 
same  badly-lighted  workshops." 

•  "For  instance,  there  is  within  my  district  one  occupier  who,  within  the  same 
curtilage,  is  at  the  same  time  a  bleacher  and  dyer  under  the  Bleaching  and  Dyeing 
Works  Act,  a  printer  under  the  Print  Works  Act,  and  a  finisher  under  the  Factory 
Act."  (Report  of  Mr.  Baker,  in  Reports,  &c.,  for  Octobre  31st,  1861,  p.  20.)  After 
enumerating  the  different  provisions  of  these  Acts,  and  the  complications  arising  from 
them,  Mr.  Baker  says:  "It  will  hence  appear  that  it  must  be  very  difficult  to  secure 
the  execution  of  these  three  Acts  of  Parliament  where  the  occupier  chooses  to  evade 
the  law."  But  what  is  assured  to  the  lawyers  by  this  is  lawsuits. 
•Thus   the    Factory    Inspectors   at    last    venture    to    say:      "These    objections    (of 


Tlie  Working  Day.  329 

In  the  United  Stntes  of  l^orth  America,  every  independent 
movement  of  the  woikers  was  paralysed  so  long  as  slavery  dis- 
figured a  part  of  tie  Eepublic.  Labour  cannot  emancipate 
itself  in  the  white  skin  where  in  the  black  it  is  branded. 
But  out  of  the  denth  of  slavery  a  new  life  at  once  arose.  The 
first  fruit  of  the  Civil  War  was  the  eight  hours'  agitation,  that 
ran  with  the  seven-leagued  boots  of  the  locomotive  from  th.c 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  from  ^ew  England  to  California.  The 
General  Congress  of  Labour  at  Baltimore  (August  16th,  186G) 
declared :  "The  first  and  great  necessity  of  the  present,  to  free 
the  labour  of  this  country  from  capitalistic  slavery,  is  the  pass- 
ing of  a  law  by  which  eight  hours  shall  be  the  normal  work- 
ing-day in  all  States  of  the  American  Union.  We  are  resolved 
to  put  forth  all  our  strength  until  this  glorious  result  is 
attained."^  At  the  same  time,  the  Congress  of  the  Inter- 
national  Working  Men's  Association  at  Geneva,  on  the  prop- 
osition of  the  London  General  Council,  resolved  that  "the 
limitation  of  the  working-day  is  a  preliminaiy  condition  with- 
out which  all  further  attempts  at  improvement  and  emancipa- 
tion must  prove  abortive.  .  .  .  the  Congress  proposes 
eight  hours  as  the  legal  limit  of  the  working-day." 

Thus  the  movement  of  the  working-class  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic,  that  had  grown  instinctively  out  of  the  conditions 
of  production  themselves,  endorsed  the  words  of  the  English 
Factory  Inspector,  R.  J.  Saunders :  "Further  steps  towards  a 
reformation  of  society  can  never  be  carried  out  with  any  hope 
of  success,  unless  the  hours  of  labour  be  limited,  and  the  pre- 
scribed limit  strictly  enforced."  ^ 

It  must  be  acknowledged  that  our  labourer  comes  out  of  the 

capital  to  the  legal  limitation  of  the  working-day)  must  succumb  before  the  broad 
principle  of  the  rights  of  labour.  .  .  .  There  is  a  time  when  the  master's  right  in 
his  workman's  labour  ceases,  and  his  time  becomes  his  own,  even  if  there  were  no 
exhaustion  in  the  question."      (Reports,   &c.,  for  31st   Oct.,  1862,   p.   54.) 

^  "We,  the  workers  of  Dunkirk,  declare  that  the  length  of  time  of  labour  required 
under  the  present  system  is  too  great,  and  that,  far  from  leaving  the  worker  time  for 
rest  and  education,  it  plunges  him  into  a  condition  of  servitude  but  little  better  than 
slavery.     That   is   why    we   decide   that   8   hours   are   enough    for   a    working-day,    and 

light  to  be  legally  recognized  as  enough;  why  we  call  to  our  help  that  powerful 
lever,  the  press;  .  .  .  and  why  we  shall  consider  all  those  that  refuse  us  this 
help  as  enemies  of  the  reform  of  labour  and  of  the  rights  of  the  labourer."  (Reso- 
lution of  the  Working  Men  of  Dunkirk,  New  York  State,  1866.) 

2  Reports,   S:c.,  for  Oct.,  1848,  p.  112. 


330  Capitalist  Production. 

process  of  production  other  than  he  entered.  In  the  market 
he  stood  as  owner  of  the  commodity  "labour-power"  face  to 
face  witli  other  owners  of  commodities,  dealer  against  dealer. 
The  contract  by  which  he  sold  to  the  capitalist  his  labour- 
power  proved,  so  to  say,  in  black  and  white  that  he  disposed 
I  of  himself  freely.  The  bargain  concluded,  it  is  discovered 
that  he  was  no  "free  agent,"  that  the  time  for  which  he  is  free 
to  sell  his  labour-power  is  the  time  for  which  he  is  forced  to 
sell  it,^  that  in  fact  the  vampire  will  not  lose  its  hold  on  him 
"so  long  as  there  is  a  muscle,  a  nerve,  a  drop  of  blood  to  be 
exploited."^  For  "protection"  against  "the  serpent  of  their 
agonies,"  the  labourers  must  put  their  heads  together,  and,  as 
a  class,  compel  the  passing  of  a  law,  an  all-powerful  social 
barrier  that  shall  prevent  the  very  workers  from  selling,  by 
voluntary  contract  with  capital,  themselves  and  their  families 
into  slavery  and  death.^  In  place  of  the  pompous  catalogue 
of  the  "inalienable  rights  of  man"  comes  the  modest  Magna 
Charta  of  a  legally  limited  working-day,  which  shall  make 
clear  "when  the  time  which  the  worker  sells  is  ended,  and 
when  his  own  begins."*     Quantum  mutatus  ab  illo ! 

*  "The  proceedings  (the  manoeuvres  of  capital,  e.g.,  from  1848—50)  have  aflEorded, 
moreover,  incontrovertible  proof  of  the  fallacy  of  the  assertion  so  often  advanced, 
that  operatives  need  no  protection,  but  may  be  considered  as  free  agents  in  the  dis- 
posal of  the  only  property  which  they  possess — the  labour  of  their  hands  and  the 
sweat  of  tlieir  brows."  (Reports,  &c.,  for  April  30th,  1850,  p.  45.)  "Free  labour 
(if  so  it  may  be  termed)  even  in  a  free  country,  requires  the  strong  arm  of  the  law 
to  protect  it."  (Reports,  &c.,  for  October  31st,  18C4,  p.  34.)  "To  permit,  which  is 
tantamount  to  compelling  ...  to  work  14  hours  a  day  with  or  without  meals," 
&c.     (Repts.,  &c.,  for  April  30th,  18C3,  p.  40.)  *  Friedrich  Engels,  1.  c.,  p.  5. 

*  The  10  Hours'  Act  has,  in  the  branches  of  industry  that  come  under  it,  "put  an 
end  to  the  premature  decrepitude  of  the  former  long-hour  workers."  (Reports,  &c., 
for  31st  Oct.,  1859,  p.  47.)  "Capital  (in  factories)  can  never  be  employed  in  keep- 
ing the  machinery  in  motion  beyond  a  limited  tipie,  without  certain  injury  to  the 
health  and  morals  of  the  labouiers  employed;  and  they  are  not  in  a  position  to 
protect  themselves."     (1.   c,   p.   8.) 

*  "A  still  greater  boon  is  the  distinction  at  last  made  clear  between  the  worker's 
own  time  and  his  master's.  The  worker  knows  now  when  that  which  he  sells  is 
ended,  and  when  his  own  begins;  and  by  possessing  a  sure  foreknowledge  of  this,  is 
enabled  to  pre-arrange  his  own  minutes  for  his  own  purposes."  (1.  c,  p.  52.)  "By 
making  them  masters  of  their  own  time  (the  Factory  Acts)  have  given  them  a  moral 
energy  which  is  directing  them  to  the  eventual  possession  of  political  power"  (1.  c., 
p.  47).  With  suppressed  irony,  and  in  very  well  weighed  words,  the  Factory  In- 
spectors hint  that  the  actual  law  also  frees  the  capitalist  from  some  of  the  brutality 
natural  to  a  man  who  is  a  mere  embodiment  of  capital,  and  that  it  has  given  him 
time  for  little  "culture."  Formerly  the  master  had  no  time  for  anything  but  money; 
the  servant  had  no  time  for  anything  but  labour"   (1.  c.,  p.  48). 


Rate  and  Mass  of  Surplus-Value.  331 

CHAPTER  XI. 

BATE  AND   MASS  OF  SUEPLUS-VALUB. 

In  this  chapter,  as  hitherto,  the  value  of  labour-power,  and 
therefore  the  part  of  tho  working-day  necessary  for  the  repro- 
duction or  maintenance  o-j  that  labour-power,  are  supposed  to 
b©  given,  constant  magnitudes. 

This  premised,  with  the  rate,  the  mass  is  at  the  same  time 
given  of  the  surplus-value  that  the  individual  labourer  fur- 
nishes to  the  capitalist  in  a  definite  period  of  time.  If,  e.g., 
the  necessary  labour  amounts  to  0  hours  daily,  expressed  in  a 
quantum  of  gold =3  shillings,  then  3s.  is  the  daily  value  of 
one  labour-power  or  the  value  of  the  capital  advanced  in  the 
buying  of  one  labour-power.  If,  further,  the  rate  of  surplus- 
value  be^lOO%,  this  variable  capit;.l  of  3s,  produces  a  mass 
of  surplus-value  of  3s.,  or  the  labourer  supplies  daily  a  mass  of 
surplus-labour  equal  to  6  hours. 

But  the  variable  capital  of  a  capitalist  is  the  expression  in 
money  of  the  total  value  of  all  the  labour-powers  that  he 
employs  simultaneously.  Its  value  is,  therefore,  equal  to  the 
average  value  of  one  labour-power,  multiplied  by  the  number 
of  labour-powers  employed.  With  a  given  value  of  labour- 
power,  therefore,  the  magnitude  of  the  variable  capital  varies 
directly  as  the  number  of  labourers  employed  simultaneously. 
If  the  daily  value  of  one  labour-power=3s.,  then  a  capital  of 
300s.  must  be  advanced  in  order  to  exploit  daily  100  labour- 
powers,  of  n  times  3s.,  in  order  to  exploit  daily  n  labour- 
powers. 

In  the  same  way,  if  a  variable  capital  of  3s.,  being  the  daily 
value  of  one  labour-power,  produce  a  daily  surplus-value  of  3s., 
a  variable  capital  of  300s.  will  produce  a  daily  surplus-value  of 
300s.,  and  one  of  n  times  3s.  a  daily  surplus-value  of  nX3s. 
The  mass  of  the  surplus-value  produced  is  therefore  equal  to 
the  surplus-value  which  the  working-day  of  one  labourer  sup- 
plies multiplied  by  the  number  of  labourers  employed.     But 


232  Capitalist  Production. 

as  further  the  mass  of  surplus-value  which  a  single  labourer 
produces,  the  value  of  labour-power  being  given,  is  determined 
by  the  rate  of  the  surplus-value,  this  law  follows:  the  mass  of 
the  surplus-value  produced  is  equal  to  the  amount  of  the 
variable  capital  advanced,  multiplied  by  the  rate  of  surplus- 
value  ;  in  other  words :  it  is  determined  by  the  compound  ratio 
between  the  number  of  labour-powers  exploited  simultaneously 
by  the  same  capitalist  and  the  degree  of  exploitation  of  each 
individual  labour-power. 

Let  the  mass  of  the  surplus-value  be  S,  the  surplus-value 
supplied  by  the  individual  labourer  in  the  average  day  s,  the 
variable  capital  daily  advanced  in  the  purchase  of  one  in- 
dividual labour-power  v,  the  sum  total  of  the  variable  capital 
V,  the  value  of  an  average  labour-power  P,  its  degree  of  ex- 
ploitation £j„-~|^^^^:|^)  and  the  number  of  labourers  employed 
n :  we  have : 


S  = 


V 

Px?xn 


It  is  s.lway8  supposed,  not  only  that  the  value  of  an  average 
labour-power  is  constant,  but  that  the  labourers  employed  by 
a  capitalist  are  reduced  to  average  labourers.  There  are  ex- 
ceptional cases  in  which  the  surplus-value  produced  does  not 
increase  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  labourers  exploited, 
Init  then  the  value  of  the  labour-power  does  not  remain  con- 
stant:. ' 

In  the  production  of  a  definite  mass  of  surplus-value,  there- 
fore, the  decrease  of  one  factor  may  be  compensated  by  the  in- 
crease of  the  other.  If  the  variable  capital  diminishes,  and  at 
the  same  time  the  rate  of  surplus-value  increases  in  the  same 
ratio,  the  mass  of  surplus-value  produced  remains  unaltered. 
If  on  our  earlier  assumption  the  capitalist  must  advance  300s., 
in  order  to  exploit  100  labourers  a  day,  and  if  the  rate  of 
surplus-value  amounts  to  50%,  this  variable  capital  of  300s. 
yields  a  surplus-value  of  150s.  or  of  100X3  working  hours. 
If  the  rate  of  surplus-value  doubles,  or  the  working  day,  in- 


Rate  and  Mass  of  Sur phis-Value.  333 

stead  of  being  extended  from  6  to  9,  is  extended  from  6  to  12 
hours  and  at  the  same  time  variable  capital  is  lessened  by  half, 
and  reduced  to  150s.,  it  yields  also  a  surplus-value  of  150s.  or 
50X6  working  hours.  Diminution  of  the  variable  capital  may 
therefore  be  compensated  by  a  proportionate  rise  in  the  degree 
of  exploitation  of  labour-power,  or  the  decrease  in  the  number 
of  the  labourers  employed  by  a  proportionate  extension  of  the 
working-day.  Within  certain  limits  therefore  the  supply  of 
labour  exploitable  by  capital  is  independent  of  the  supply  of 
labourers.^  On  the  contrary,  a  fall  in  the  rate  of  surplus- 
value  leaves  unaltered  the  mass  of  the  surplus-value  produced, 
if  the  amount  of  the  variable  capital,  or  number  of  the  labour- 
ers employed,  increases  in  the  same  proportion. 

Nevertheless,  the  compensation  of  a  decrease  in  the  number 
of  labourers  employed,  or  of  the  amount  of  variable  capital 
advanced,  by  a  rise  in  the  rate  of  surplus-value,  or  by  the 
lengthening  of  the  working-day,  has  impassable  limits.  What- 
ever the  value  of  labour-power  may  be,  whether  the  working 
time  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  the  labourer  is  2  or  10 
hours,  the  total  value  that  a  labourer  can  produce,  day  in,  day 
out,  is  always  less  than  the  value  in  which  24  hours  of  labour 
are  embodied,  less  than  12s.,  if  12s.  is  the  money  expression  for 
24  hours  of  realized  labour.  In  our  former  assumption,  ac- 
cording to  which  6  working  hours  are  daily  necessary  in  order 
to  reproduce  the  labour-power  itself  or  to  replace  the  value 
of  the  capital  advanced  in  its  purchase,  a  variable  capital  of 
1500s.,  that  employs  500  labourers  at  a  rate  of  surplus-value  of 
100%  with  a  12  hours'  working-day,  produces  daily  a  surplus- 
value  of  1500s.  or  of  6X500  working  hours.  A  capital  of 
300s.  that  employs  100  labourers  a  day  with  a  rate  of  surplus- 
value  of  200%  or  with  a  working-day  of  18  hours,  produces 
only  a  mass  of  surplus-value  of  600s.  or  12X100  working 
hours ;  and  its  total  value-product,  the  equivalent  of  the  varia- 
ble capital  advanced  plus  the  surplus-value,  can,  day  in,  day 
out,  never  reach  the  sum  of  1200s.  or  24X100  working  hours. 

1  This  elementary  law  appears  to  be  unknown  to  the  vulgar  economists,  who,  up- 
sidedown  Archimedes,  in  the  determination  of  the  market-price  of  labour  by  supply 
and  demand,  imagine  they  have  found  the  fulcrum  by  means  of  which,  not  to  move 
the  world,  but  to  stop  its  motion. 


234  Capitalist  Production. 

The  absolute  limit  of  the  average  working-day — this  being  by 
Nature  always  less  than  24  hours — sets  an  absolute  limit  to 
the  compensation  of  a  reduction  of  variable  capital  by  a  higher 
rate  of  surplus-value,  or  of  the  decrease  of  the  number  of  la- 
bourers exploited  by  a  higher  degree  of  exploitation  of  labour- 
power.  This  palpable  law  is  of  importance  for  the  clearing  up 
of  many  phenomena,  arising  from  a  tendency  (to  be  worked 
out  later  on)  of  capital  to  reduce  as  much  as  possible  the  num- 
ber of  labourers  employed  by  it,  or  its  variable  constituent 
transformed  into  labour-power,  in  contradiction  to  its  other 
tendency  to  produce  the  greatest  possible  mass  of  surplus-value. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  the  mass  of  labour-power  employed,  or 
the  amount  of  variable  capital,  increases,  but  not  in  proportion 
to  the  fall  in  the  rate  of  surplus-value,  the  mass  of  the  surplus- 
value  produced,  falls. 

A  third  law  results  from  the  determination,  of  the  mass  of 
the  surplus-value  produced,  by  the  two  factors :  rate  of  surplus- 
value  and  amount  of  variable  capital  advanced.  The  rate  of 
surplus-value,  or  the  degree  of  exploitation  of  labour-power, 
and  the  value  of  labour-power,  or  the  amount  of  necessary 
working  time  being  given,  it  is  self-evident  that  the  greater  the 
variable  capital,  the  greater  would  be  the  mass  of  the  value 
produced  and  of  the  surplus-value.  If  the  limit  of  the  work- 
ing-day is  given,  and  also  the  limit  of  its  necessary  constituent, 
the  mass  of  value  and  surplus-value  that  an  individual  capital' 
ist  produces,  is  clearly  exclusively  dependent  on  the  mass  oi 
labour  that  he  sets  in  motion.  But  this,  under  the  conditiona 
supposed  above,  depends  on  the  mass  of  labour-power,  or  the 
number  of  labourers  whom  he  exploits,  and  this  number  in  its 
turn  is  determined  by  the  amount  of  the  variable  capital  ad- 
vanced. With  a  given  rate  of  surplus-value,  and  a  given  value 
of  labour-power,  therefore,  the  masses  of  surplus-value  pro- 
duced vary  directly  as  the  amounts  of  the  variable  capitala 
advanced.  Now  we  know  that  the  capitalist  divides  his  capital 
into  two  parts.  One  part  he  lays  out  in  means  of  production. 
This  is  the  constant  part  of  his  capital.  The  other  part  he  lays 
out  in  living  labour-power.  This  part  forms  his  variable 
capital.     On  the  basis  of  the  same  mode  of  social  production. 


Rate  and  Mass  of  Surplus-Value.  335 

the  division  of  capital  into  constant  and  variable  differs  in 
different  branches  of  production,  and  within  the  same  branch 
of  production,  too,  this  relation  changes  with  changes  in  the 
technical  conditions  and  in  the  social  combinations  of  the  pro- 
cesses of  production.  But  in  whatever  proportion  a  given 
capital  breaks  up  into  a  constant  and  a  variable  part,  whether 
the  latter  is  to  the  former  as  1 :  2  or  1 :  10  or  1 :  x,  the  law  just 
laid  down  is  not  affected  by  this.  For,  according  to  our  previ- 
ious  analysis,  the  value  of  the  constant  capital  reappears  in  the 
value  of  the  product,  but  does  not  enter  into  the  newly  produced 
value,  the  newly  created  value-product.  To  employ  1000 
spinners,  more  raw  material,  spindles,  &c.,  are,  of  course,  re- 
quired, than  to  employ  100.  The  value  of  these  additional 
means  of  production  however  may  rise,  fall,  remain  unaltered, 
be  large  or  small ;  it  has  no  influence  on  the  process  of  creation 
of  surplus-value  by  means  of  the  labour-powers  that  put  them 
in  motion.  The  law  demonstrated  above  now,  therefore,  takes 
this  form :  the  masses  of  value  and  of  surplus-value  produced 
by  different  capitals — the  value  of  labour-power  being  given 
and  its  degree  of  exploitation  being  equal — ^vary  directly  as  the 
amounts  of  the  variable  constituents  of  these  capitals,  i.e.,  as 
their  constituents  transformed  into  living  labour-power. 

This  law  clearly  contradicts  all  experience  based  on  appear- 
ance. Every  one  knows  that  a  cotton  spinner,  who,  reckoning 
the  percentage  on  the  whole  of  his  applied  capital,  employs 
much  constant  and  little  variable  capital,  does  not,  on  account 
of  this,  pocket  less  profit  or  surplus-value  than  a  baker,  who 
relatively  sets  in  motion  much  variable  and  little  constant 
capital.  For  the  solution  of  this  apparent  contradiction,  many 
intermediate  terms  are  as  yet  wanted,  as  from  the  standpoint 
of  elementary  algebra  many  intermediate  terms  are  wanted  to 
understand  that  §-  may  represent  an  actual  magnitude.  'Class- 
ical economy,  although  not  formulating  the  law,  holds  instinc- 
tively to  it,  because  it  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  general 
law  of  value.  It  tries  to  rescue  the  law  from  collision  with 
contradictory  phenomena  hj  a  violent  abstraction.  It  will  be 
seen  later^  how  the  school  of  Ricardo  has  come  to  grief  over 

*  Further   particulars  will   be    found   in    "Theories   of    Surplus- Value,"   edited   1^ 

Karl   Kautsky. 


336  Capitalist  Production. 

this  stumbling-block.  Vulgar  economy  which,  indeed,  "has 
really  learnt  nothing,"  here  as  everywhere  sticks  to  appear- 
ances in  opposition  to  the  law  which  regulates  and  explains 
them.  In  opposition  to  Spinoza,  it  believes  that  "ignorance  is 
a  sufficient  reason." 

The  labour  which  is  set  in  motion  by  the  total  capital  of  a 
society,  day  in,  day  out,  may  be  regarded  as  a  single  collective 
working-day.  If,  e.g.,  the  number  of  labourers  is  a  million, 
and  the  average  working-day  of  a  labourer  is  10  hours,  the 
social  working-day  consists  of  ten  million  hours.  With  a  given 
length  of  this  working-day,  whether  its  limits  are  fixed 
physically  or  socially,  the  mass  of  surplus-value  can  only  be  in- 
creased by  increasing  the  number  of  labourers,  i.e.,  of  the 
labouring  population.  The  growth  of  population  here  forms 
the  mathematical  limit  to  the  production  of  surplus-value  by 
the  total  social  capital.  On  the  contrary,  with  a  given  amount 
of  population,  this  limit  is  formed  by  the  possible  lengthening 
of  the  working-day.-^  It  will,  however,  be  seen  in  the  follow- 
ing chapter  that  this  law  only  holds  for  the  form  of  surplus- 
value  dealt  with  up  to  the  present. 

From  the  treatment  of  the  production  of  surplus-value,  so 
far,  it  follows  that  not  every  sum  of  money,  or  of  value,  is  at 
pleasure  transformable  into  capital.  To  effect  this  transforma- 
tion, in  fact,  a  certain  minimum  of  money  or  of  exchange- 
value  must  be  presupposed  in  the  hands  of  the  individual 
possessor  of  money  or  commodities.  The  minimum  of  variable 
capital  is  the  cost  price  of  a  single  labour-power,  employed  the 
whole  year  through,  day  in,  day  out,  for  the  production  of 
surplus-value.  If  this  labourer  were  in  possession  of  his  own 
means  of  production,  and  were  satisfied  to  live  as  a  labourer, 
he  need  not  work  beyond  the  time  necessary  for  the  reproduc- 
tion of  his  means  of  subsistence,  say  8  hours  a  day.  He  would, 
besides,  only  require  the  means  of  production  sufficient  for  8 
working  hours.     The  capitalist,  on  ihe  other  hand,  who  makes 

*  "The  labour,  that  is  the  economic  time,  of  society,  is  a  given  portion,  say  ten 
hours  a  day  of  a  million  of  people,  or  ten  million  hours.  .  .  .  Capital  has  its 
boundary  of  increase.  This  boundary  may,  at  any  given  period,  be  attained  in  the 
actual  extent  of  economic  time  employed."  ("An  Essay  on  the  Political  Economy  of 
Nations."     London,   1821,  pp.  47,  49.) 


Rate  and  Mass  of  Surplus-Value.  337 

him  do,  besides  these  8  hours,  say  4  hours'  surplus-lahour,  re- 
quires an  additional  sum  of  money  for  furnishing  the  addi- 
tional means  of  production.  On  our  supposition,  however,  he 
would  have  to  employ  two  labourers  in  order  to  live,  on  the 
surplus-value  appropriated  daily,  as  well  as,  and  no  better  than 
a  labourer,  i.e.,  to  be  able  to  satisfy  his  necessary  wants.  In 
this  case  the  mere  maintenance  of  life  would  be  the  end  of  his 
production,  not  the  increase  of  wealth;  but  this  latter  is  im- 
plied in  capitalist  production.  That  he  may  live  only  twice 
Sik  well  as  an  ordinary  labourer,  and  besides  turn  half  of  the 
surplus-value  produced  into  capital,  he  would  have  to  raise, 
with  the  number  of  labourers,  the  minimum  of  the  capital  ad- 
vanced 8  times.  Of  course  he  can,  like  his  labourer,  take  to 
work  himself,  participate  directly  in  the  process  of  production, 
but  he  is  then  only  a  hybrid  between  capitalist  and  labourer,  a 
"small  master."  A  certain  stage  of  camtalist  production  ne- 
cessitates that  the  capitalist  be  able  to  d<ivote  the  whole  of  the 
time  during  which  he  functions  as  a  capitalist,  i.e.,  as  personi- 
fied capital,  to  the  appropriation  and  therefore  control  of  the 
labour  of  others^  and  to  the  selling  of  the  products  of  this  la- 
bour.^ The  guilds  of  the  middle  ages  therefore  tried  to 
prevent  by  force  the  transformation  of  the  master  of  a  trade 
into  a  capitalist,  by  limiting  the  number  of  labourers  that  could 
be  employed  by  one  master  within  a  very  small  maximum. 
The  possessor  of  money  or  commodities  actually  turns  into  a 
capitalist  in  such  cases  only  where  the  minimum  sum  advanced 
for  production  greatly  exceeds  the  maximum  of  the  middle 
ages.     Here,  as  in  natural  science,  is  shown  the  correctness  of 

*  "The  farmer  cannot  rely  on  his  own  labour,  and  if  he  does,  I  will  maintain  that 
he  is  a  loser  by  it.  His  employment  should  be  a  general  attention  to  the  whole:  his 
thresher  must  be  watched,  or  he  will  soon  lose  his  wages  in  corn  not  threshed  out; 
his  mowers,  reapers,  &c.,  must  be  looked  after;  he  must  constantly  go  round  his 
fences;  he  must  see  there  is  no  neglect;  which  would  be  the  case  if  he  was  confined 
to  any  one  spot."  ("An  Inquiry  into  the  connection  between  the  Price  of  Provisions 
and  the  Size  of  Farms,  &c.  By  a  Farmer."  London,  1773,  p.  12.)  This  book  is 
very  interesting.  In  it  the  genesis  of  the  "capitalist  farmer"  or  "merchant  farmer," 
as  he  is  explicitly  called,  may  be  studied,  and  his  self-glorification  at  the  expense 
of  the  small  farmer  who  has  only  to  do  with  bare  subsistence,  be  noted.  "The  class 
of  capitalists  are  from  the  first  partially,  and  they  become  ultimately  completely, 
discharged  from  the  necessity  of  the  manual  labour."  ("Text-book  of  Lectures  on 
the  Political  Economy  of  Nations.  By  the  Rev.  Richard  Jones."  Hertford,  1852. 
Lecture  III.  p.  39.) 

V 


338  Capitalist  Production. 

the  law  discovered  bj  Hegel  (in  his  "Logic"),  that  merely 
quantitative  differences  beyond  a  certain  point  pass  into  quali- 
tative changes.* 

The  minimum  of  the  sum  of  value  that  the  individual  pos- 
sessor of  money  or  commodities  must  command,  in  order  to 
metamorphose  himself  into  a  capitalist,  changes  with  the  dif- 
ferent stages  of  development  of  capitalist  production,  and  is 
at  given  stages  different  in  different  spheres  of  production, 
according  to  their  special  and  technical  conditions.  Certain 
spheres  of  production  demand,  even  at  the  very  outset  of  capi- 
talist production,  a  minimum  of  capital  that  is  not  as  yet 
found  in  the  hands  of  single  individuals.  This  gives  rise 
partly  to  state  subsidies  to  private  persons,  as  in  France  in  the 
time  of  Colbert,  and  as  in  many  German  states  up  to  our  own 
epoch  ;  partly  to  the  formation  of  societies  with  legal  monopoly 
for  the  exploitation  of  certain  branches  of  industry  and  com- 
merce, the  fore-runners  of  our  own  modern  joint-stock  com- 
panies.^ 

Within  the  process  of  production,  as  we  have  seen,  capital 
acquired  the  command  over  labour,  i.  e.,  over  functioning  la- 
bouring-power or  the  labourer  himself.  Personified  capital, 
the  capitalist  takes  care  that  the  labourer  does  his  work  regu- 
larly and  with  the  proper  degree  of  intensity. 

Capital  further  developed  into  a  coercive  relation,  which 
compels  the  working  class  to  do  more  work  than  the  narrow 
round  of  its  own  life-wants  prescribes.  As  a  producer  of  the 
activity  of  others,  as  a  pumper-out  of  surplus-labour  and  ex- 
ploiter of  labour-power,  it  surpasses  in  energy,  disregard  of 

*  The  molecular  theory  of  modem  chemistry  first  scientifically  worked  out  by 
Laurent  and  Gerhardt  rests  on  no  other  law.  (Addition  to  3rd  Edition.)  For  the 
explanation  of  this  statement,  which  is  not  very  clear  to  non-chemists,  we  remark  that 
the  author  speaks  here  of  the  homologous  series  of  carbon  compounds,  first  so  named 
by  C.  Gerhardt  in  1843,  each  series  of  which  has  its  own  general  algebraic  formula. 
Thus  the  series  of  paraffins:  Cn  H*n+*,  that  of  the  normal  alcohols:  Cn  H*n-f-*0; 
of  the  normal  fatty  acids:  Cn  H'n  O*  and  many  others.  In  the  above  examples,  by 
the  simply  quantitative  addition  of  C  H'  to  the  molecular  formula,  a  qualitatively 
different  body  is  each  time  formed.  On  the  share  (overestimated  by  Marx)  of 
Laurent  and  Gerhardt  in  the  determination  of  this  important  fact  see  Kopp,  "Ent- 
wicklung  der  Chemie."  Miinchen,  1873,  pp.  709,  716,  and  Schorlemmer,  "Rise  and 
Progress  of  Organic   Chemistry."     London,   1879,   p.   54. — Ed. 

'  Martin  Luther  calls  these  kinds  of  institutions:     "The  Company  Monopolia." 


Rate  and  Mass  of  Surplus-Value.  339 

bounds,  recklessness  and  efficiency,  all  earlier  systems  of  pro- 
duction based  on  directly  compulsory  labour. 

At  first,  capital  subordinates  labour  on  the  basis  of  the  tech- 
nical conditions  in  which  it  historically  finds  it.  It  does  not, 
therefore,  change  immediately  the  mode  of  production.  The 
production  of  surplus-value — in  the  form  hitherto  considered 
by  us — by  means  of  simple  extension  of  the  working-day, 
proved,  therefore,  to  be  independent  of  any  change  in  the 
mode  of  production  itself.  It  was  not  less  active  in  the  old- 
fashioned  bakeries  than  in  the  modern  cotton  factories. 

If  we  consider  the  process  of  production  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  simple  labour-process,  the  labourer  stands  in  rela- 
tion to  the  means  of  production,  not  in  their  quality  as  capital, 
but  as  the  mere  means  and  material  of  his  own  intelligent  pro- 
ductive activity.  In  tanning,  e.  g.,  he  deals  with  the  skins  as 
his  simple  object  of  labour.  It  is  not  the  capitalist  whose  skin 
he  tans.  But  it  is  different  as  soon  as  we  deal  with  the  process 
of  production  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  process  of  creation 
of  surplus-value.  The  means  of  production  are  at  once 
changed  into  means  for  the  absorption  of  the  labour  of  others. 
It  is  now  no  longer  the  labourer  that  employes  the  means  of 
production,  but  the  means  of  production  that  employ  the  la- 
bourer. Instead  of  being  consumed  by  him  as  material  ele- 
ments of  his  productive  activity,  they  consume  him  as  the 
ferment  necessary  to  their  own  life-process,  and  the  life-process 
of  capital  consists  only  in  its  movement  as  value  constantly 
expanding,  constantly  multiplying  itself.  Furnaces  and  work- 
shops that  stand  idle  by  night,  and  absorb  no  living  labour,  are 
"a  mere  loss"  to  the  capitalist.  Hence,  furnaces  and  work- 
shops constitute  lawful  claims  upon  the  night-labour  of  the 
workpeople.  The  simple  transformation  of  money  into  the 
material  factors  of  the  process  of  production,  into  means  of 
production,  transforms  the  latter  into  a  title  and  a  right  to  the 
labour  and  surplus-labour  of  others.  An  example  will  show, 
in  conclusion,  how  this  sophistication,  peculiar  to  and  charac- 
teristic of  capitalist  production,  this  complete  inversion  of  the 
relation  between  dead  and  living  labour,  between  value  and 


340  Capitalist  Production. 

the  force  that  creates  value,  mirrors  itself  in  the  consciousness 
of  capitalists.  During  the  revolt  of  the  English  factory  lords 
between  1848  and  1850,  "the  head  of  one  of  the  oldest  and 
most  respectable  houses  in  the  West  of  Scotland,  Messrs.  Car- 
lile  Sons  &  Co.,  of  the  linen  and  cotton  thread  factory  at  Pais- 
ley, a  company  which  has  now  existed  for  about  a  century, 
which  was  in  operation  in  1752,  and  four  generations  of  the 
same  family  have  conducted  it"  .  .  .  this  "very  intelli- 
gent gentleman"  then  wrote  a  letter  ^  in  the  "Glasgow  Daily 
Mail"  of  April  25th,  1849,  with  the  title,  "The  relay  system," 
in  which  among  other  things  the  following  grotesquely  naive 
passage  occurs:  "Let  us  now  ...  see  what  evils  will 
attend  the  limiting  to  10  hours  the  working  of  the  factory. 
.  .  .  They  amount  to  the  most  serious  damage  to  the  mill- 
owner's  prospects  and  property.  If  he  (i.  e.,  his  "hands") 
worked  12  hours  before,  and  is  limited  to  10,  then  every  12 
machines  or  spindles  in  his  establishment  shrink  to  10,  and 
should  the  works  be  disposed  of,  they  will  be  valued  only  as  10, 
so  that  a  sixth  part  would  thus  be  deducted  from  the  value  of 
every  factory  in  the  country."  ^ 

To  this  West  of  Scotland  bourgeois  brain,  inheriting  the 
accumulated  capitalistic  qualities  of  "four  generations,"  the 
value  of  the  means  of  production,  spindles,  &c.  is  so  insepar- 
ably mixed  up  with  their  property,  as  capital,  to  expand  their 
own  value,  and  to  swallow  up  daily  a  definite  quantity  of  the 
unpaid  labour  of  others,  that  the  head  of  the  finn  of  Carlile  & 
Co.  actually  imagines  that  if  he  sells  his  factory,  not  only  will 
the  value  of  the  spindles  be  paid  to  him,  but,  in  addition,  their 
power  of  annexing  surplus-value,  not  only  the  labour  which  is 
embodied  in  them,  and  is  necessary  to  the  production  of  spin- 
dles of  this  kind,  but  also  the  surplus-labour  which  they  help 

*  Reports  of  Insp.   of  Fact.,  April  30th,   1849,  p.   59. 

*1.  c,  p.  60.  Factory  Inspector  Stuart,  himself  a  Scotchman,  and  in  contrast  to 
the  English  Factory  Inspectors,  quite  taken  captive  by  the  capitalistic  method  of 
thinking,  remarks  expressly  on  this  letter  which  he  incorporates  in  his  report  that  it 
is  "the  most  useful  of  the  communications  which  any  of  the  factory-owners  working 
with  relays  have  given  to  those  engaged  in  the  same  trade,  and  which  is  the  :nost 
calculated  to  remove  the  prejudices  of  such  of  them  as  have  scruples  respecting  any 
change  of  the  arrangement  of  the  hours  of  work." 


Rate  and  Mass  of  Surplus  Value.  341 

to  pump  out  daily  from  the  brave  Scots  of  Paisley,  and  for 
that  very  reason  he  thinks  that  with  the  shortening  of  the 
working-day  by  2  hours,  the  selling-price  of  12  spinning  ma- 
chines dwindles  to  that  of  10 ! 


PART  IV. 
PRODUCTION  OF  RELATIVE  SURPLUS- VALUE. 


CHAPTER  XIL 

THE  CONCEPT  OF  RELATIVE  SURPLUS-VALUE. 

That  portion  of  the  working-day  which  merely  produces  an 
equivalent  for  the  value  paid  by  the  capitalist  for  his  labour- 
power,  has,  up  to  this  point,  been  treated  by  us  as  a  constant 
magnitude;  and  such  in  fact  it  is,  under  given  conditions  of 
production  and  at  a  given  stage  in  the  economical  develop- 
ment of  society.  Beyond  this,  his  necessary  labour-time, 
the  labourer,  we  saw,  could  continue  to  work  for  2,  3,  4, 
6,  &c.,  hours.  The  rate  of  surplus-value  and  the  length  of  the 
working  day  depended  on  the  magnitude  of  this  prolongation. 
Though  the  necessary  labour-time  was  constant,  we  saw,  on 
the  other  hand,  that  the  total  working-day  was  variable. 
Now  suppose  we  have  a  working-day  whose  length,  and  whose 
apportionment  between  necessary  labour  and  surplus-labour, 
are  given.  Let  the  whole  line  a  c,  a — • — b — c,  repre- 
sent, for  example,  a  working-day  of  12  hours;  the  portion  of 
a  b  10  hours  of  necessary  labour,  and  the  portion  b  c  2  hours 
of  surplus-labour.  How  now  can  the  production  of  surplus- 
value  be  increased,  i.e.,  how  can  the  surplus-labour  be  pro- 
longed, without,  or  independently  of,  any  prolongation  of  a  c  ? 
Although  the  lengh  of  a  c  is  given,  b  c  appears  to  be  capable 
of  prolongation,  if  not  by  extension  beyond  its  end  c,  which  is 
also  the  end  of  the  working  day  a  c,  yet,  at  all  events,  by  push- 
ing back  its  starting  point  b  in  the  direction  of  a.  Assume 
that  b' — b  in  the  line,  a  V  b  c  is  equal  to  half  of  b  c 

342 


The  Concept  of  Relative  Surplus-Value.  343 

or  to  one  hour's  labour-time.  If  now,  in  a  c,  the  working  day 
of  12  hours^  we  move  the  point  b  to  b',  b  c  becomes  b'  c;  the 
surplus-labour  increases  by  one-half,  from  2  hours  to  3  hours, 
although  the  working  day  remains  as  before  at  12  hours. 
This  extension  of  the  surplus  labour-time  from  b  c  to  b'  c, 
from  2  hours  to  3  hours,  is,  however,  evidently  impossible, 
without  a  simultaneous  contraction  of  the  necessary  labour- 
time  from  a  b  into  a  b',  from  10  hours  to  9  hours.  The  pro- 
longation of  the  surplus-labour  would  correspond  to  a  shorten- 
ing of  the  necessary  labour;  or  a  portion  of  the  labour-time 
previously  consumed,  in  reality,  for  the  labourer's  own  bene- 
fit, would  be  converted  into  labour-time  for  the  benefit  of  the 
capitalist.  There  would  be  an  alteration,  not  in  the  length 
of  the  working  day,  but  in  its  division  into  necessary  labour- 
time  and  surplus  labour-time. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  evident  that  the  duration  of  the 
surplus-labour  is  given,  when  the  length  of  the  working  day, 
and  the  value  of  labour-power,  are  given.  The  value  of  la- 
bour-power, i.e.,  the  labour-time  requisite  to  produce  labour- 
power,  determines  the  labour-time  necessary  for  the  repro- 
duction of  that  value.  If  one  working  hour  be  embodied  in 
sixpence,  and  the  value  of  a  day's  labour-power  be  five  shill- 
ings, the  labourer  must  work  10  hours  a  day,  in  order  to  re- 
place the  value  paid  by  capital  for  his  labour-power,  or  to 
produce  an  equivalent  for  the  value  of  his  daily  necessary 
means  of  subsistence.  Given  the  value  of  these  means  of  sub- 
sistence, the  value  of  his  labour-power  is  given ;  ^  and  given 
the  value  of  his  labour-power,  the  duration  of  his  necessary  la- 
bour-time is  given.     The  duration  of  the  surplus-labour,  how- 

*  The  value  of  his  average  daily  wages  is  determined  by  what  the  labourer  requires 
"so  as  to  live,  labour,  and  generate."  (Wm.  Petty:  "Political  Anatomy  of  Ireland," 
1672,  p.  64.)  "The  price  of  Labour  is  always  constituted  of  the  price  of  necessaries 
.  .  .  whenever  .  .  .  the  labouring  man's  wages  will  not,  suitably  to  his  low 
rank  and  station,  as  a  labouring  man,  support  such  a  family  as  is  often  the  lot  of 
many  of  them  to  have,"  he  does  not  receive  proper  wages.  (J.  Vanderlint,  1.  c.  p. 
15.)  "Le  simple  ouvrier,  qui  n'a  que  ses  bras  et  son  Industrie,  n'a  rien  qu'autant 
qu'il  parvient  a  vendre  a  d'autres  sa  peine.  .  .  .  En  tout  genre  de  travail  il  doit 
arriver,  et  il  arrive  en  effet,  que  le  salaire  de  I'ouvrier  se  borne  a  ce  qui  lui  est  neces- 
saire  pour  lui  procurer  sa  substance."  (Turgot,  Reflexions,  &c.,  Oeuvres  ed.  Daire  t. 
I.  p.  10).  "The  price  of  the  necessaries  of  life  is,  in  fact,  the  cost  of  producing 
labour."     (Malthus,  Inquiry  into,  &c..   Rent,  London,  1815,  p.   48  note). 


244  Capitalist  Production. 

ever,  is  arrived  at,  by  subtracting  the  necessary  labour-timt) 
from  the  total  working  day.  Ten  hours  subtracted  from 
twelve,  leave  two,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  see,  how,  under  the 
given  conditions,  the  surplus-labour  can  possibly  be  prolonged 
beyond  two  hours.  No  doubt,  the  capitalist  can,  instead  of 
five  shillings,  pay  the  labourer  four  shillings  and  sixpence  or 
even  less.  For  the  reproduction  of  this  value  of  four  shill- 
ings and  sixpence,  nine  hours  labour-time  would  suffice;  and 
consequently  three  hours  of  surplus-labour,  instead  of  two, 
would  accrue  to  the  capitalist,  and  the  surplus-value  would  rise 
from  one  shilling  to  eighteenpence.  This  result,  however, 
would  be  obtained  only  by  lowering  the  wages  of  the  labourer 
below  the  value  of  his  labour-power.  With  the  four  shillings 
and  sixpence  which  he  produces  in  nine  hours,  he  commands 
one-tenth  less  of  the  necessaries  of  life  than  before,  and  conse- 
quently the  proper  reproduction  of  his  labour-power  is  crip- 
pled. The  surplus-labour  would  in  this  case  be  prolonged 
only  by  an  overstepping  of  its  normal  limits ;  its  domain 
would  be  extended  only  by  a  usurpation  of  part  of  the  domain 
of  necessary  labour-time.  Despite  the  important  part  which 
this  method  plays  in  actual  practice,  we  are  excluded  from 
considering  it  in  this  place,  by  our  assumption,  that  all  com- 
modities, including  labour-power,  are  bought  and  sold  at  their 
full  value.  Granted  this,  it  follows  that  the  labour-time  nec- 
essary for  the  production  of  labour-power,  or  for  the  reproduc- 
tion of  its  value,  cannot  be  lessened  by  a  fall  in  the  labourer's 
wages  below  the  value  of  his  labour-power,  but  only  by  a  fall 
in  this  value  itself.  Given  the  length  of  the  working  day,  the 
prolongation  of  the  surplus-labour  must  of  necessity  originate 
in  the  curtailment  of  the  necessary  labour-time;  the  latter 
cannot  arise  from  the  former.  In  the  example  we  have  taken, 
it  is  necessary  that  the  value  of  labour-power  should  actually 
fall  by  one-tenth,  in  order  that  the  necessary  labour-time  may 
be  diminished  by  one-tenth,  i.e.,  from  ten  hours  to  nine,  and 
in  order  that  the  surplus-labour  may  consequently  be  pro- 
longed from  two  hours  to  three. 

Such  a  fall  in  the  value  of  labour-power  implies,  however, 
that  the  same  necessaries  of  life  which  were  formerly  pro- 


The  Concept  of  Relative  Surplus-Value.  345 

duced  in  ten  hours,  can  now  be  produced  in  nine  hours.  But 
this  is  impossible  without  an  increase  in  the  productiveness  of 
labour.  For  example,  suppose  a  shoemaker,  with  given  tools, 
makes  in  one  working  day  of  twelve  hours,  one  pair  of  boots. 
If  he  must  make  two  pairs  in  the  same  time,  the  productive- 
ness of  his  labour  must  be  doubled;  and  this  cannot  be  done, 
except  by  an  alteration  in  his  tools  or  in  his  mode  of  working, 
or  in  both.  Hence,  the  conditions  of  production,  i.e.,  his 
mode  of  production,  and  the  labour-process  itself,  must  be 
revolutionised.  By  increase  in  the  productiveness  of  labour, 
we  mean,  generally,  an  alteration  in  the  labour-process,  of 
such  a  kind  as  to  shorten  the  labour-time  socially  necessary  for 
Iho  production  of  a  commodity,  and  to  endow  a  given  quantity 
of  labour  with  the  power  of  producing  a  greater  quantity  of 
use-value.^  Hitherto  in  treating  of  surplus-value,  arising 
from  a  simple  prolongation  of  the  working  day,  we  have  as- 
sumed the  mode  of  production  to  be  given  and  invariable. 
But  when  surplus-value  has  to  be  produced  by  the  conversion 
of  necessary  labour  into  surplus-labour,  it  by  no  means  suffices 
for  capital  to  take  over  the  labour-process  in  the  form  under 
which  it  has  been  historically  handed  down,  and  then  simply 
to  prolong  the  duration  of  that  process.  The  technical  and  so- 
cial conditions  of  the  process,  and  consequently  the  very  mode 
of  production  must  be  revolutionised,  before  the  productive- 
ness of  labour  can  be  increased.  By  that  means  alone  can  the 
value  of  labour-power  be  made  to  sink,  and  the  portion  of  the 
working  day  necessary  for  the  reproduction  of  that  value,  be 
shortened. 

The  surplus-value  produced  by  prolongation  of  the  working 
day,  I  call  absolute  surplus-value.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
surplus-value  arising  from  the  curtailment  of  the  necessary 
labour-time,  and  from  the  corresponding  alteration  in  the  re- 
spective lengths  of  the  two  components  of  the  working  day,  I 
call  relative  surplus-value. 

^  "Quando  si  perfezionano  le  arti,  che  non  e  altro  che  la  scoperta  di  nuove  vie, 
onde  si  possa  compiere  una  manufattura  con  meno  gente  o  (che  e  lo  stesso)  in  minor 
tempo  di  prima."  (Galiani  1.  c.  p.  159.)  "L'economie  sur  les  frais  de  production 
ne  peut  done  etre  autre  chose  que  l'economie  sur  la  quantite  de  travail  employe  pour 
produjre."     (Sismondi,  Etudes  t.  I.  p.  22.) 


^6  Capitalist  Production. 

In  order  to  effect  a  fall  in  the  value  of  labour-power,  the  in- 
crease in  the  productiveness  of  labour  must  seize  upon  those 
branches  of  industry,  whose  products  determine  the  value  of 
labour-power,  and  consequently  either  belong  to  the  class  of 
customary  means  of  subsistence,  or  are  capable  of  supplying 
the  place  of  those  means.  But  the  value  of  a  commodity  is 
determined,  not  only  by  the  quantity  of  labour  which  the  la- 
bourer directly  bestows  upon  that  commodity,  but  also  by  the 
labour  contained  in  the  means  of  production.  For  instance, 
the  value  of  a  pair  of  boots  depends,  not  only  on  the  cobbler's 
labour,  but  also  on  the  value  of  the  leather,  wax,  thread,  &c. 
Hence,  a  fall  in  the  value  of  labour-power  is  also  brought  about 
by  an  increase  in  the  productiveness  of  labour,  and  by  a  cor- 
responding cheapening  of  commodities  in  those  industries 
which  supply  the  instruments  of  labour  and  the  raw  material, 
that  form  the  material  elements  of  the  constant  capital  re- 
quired for  producing  the  necessaries  of  life.  But  an  increase 
in  the  productiveness  of  labour  in  those  branches  of  industry 
which  supply  neither  the  necessaries  of  life,  nor  the  means  of 
production  for  such  necessaries,  leaves  the  value  of  labour- 
power  undisturbed. 

The  cheapened  commodity,  of  course,  causes  only  a  pro 
tanto  fall  in  the  value  of  labour-power,  a  fall  proportional  to 
the  extent  of  that  commodity's  employment  in  the  reproduc- 
tion of  labour-power.  Shirts,  for  instance,  are  a  necessary 
means  of  subsistence,  but  are  only  one  out  of  many.  The 
totality  of  the  necessaries  of  life  consists,  however,  of  various 
commodities,  each  the  product  of  a  distinct  industry ;  and  the 
value  of  each  of  those  commodities  enters  as  a  component  part 
into  the  value  of  labour-power.  This  latter  value  decreases 
with  the  decrease  of  the  labour-time  necessary  for  its  reproduc- 
tion ;  the  total  decrease  being  the  sum  of  all  the  different  cur- 
tailments of  labour-time  effected  in  those  various  and  distinct 
industries.  This  general  result  is  treated,  here,  as  if  it  were 
the  immediate  result  directly  aimed  at  in  each  individual  case. 
Whenever  an  individual  capitalist  cheapens  shirts,  for  in- 
stance, by  increasing  the  productiveness  of  labour,  he  by  no 
means  necessarily  aims  at  reducing  the  value  of  labour-power 


The  Concept  of  Relative  Surplus-Value.  2>47 

and  shortening,  pro  tanto,  the  necessary  labour-time.  But  it 
is  only  in  so  far  as  he  ultimately  contributes  to  this  result, 
that  he  assists  in  raising  the  general  rate  of  surplus-value.^ 
The  general  and  necessary  tendencies  of  capital  must  be  dis- 
tinguished from  their  forms  of  manifestation. 

It  is  not  our  intention  to  consider,  here,  the  way  in  which 
the  laws,  immanent  in  capitalist  production,  manifest  them- 
selves in  the  movements  of  individual  masses  of  capital,  where 
they  assert  themselves  as  coercive  laws  of  competition,  and  arc 
brought  home  to  the  mind  and  consciousness  of  the  individual 
capitalist  as  the  directing  motives  of  his  operations.  But  this 
much  is  clear ;  a  scientific  analysis  of  competition  is  not  possi- 
ble, before  we  have  a  conception  of  the  inner  nature  of  capital, 
just  as  the  apparent  motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies  are  not 
intelligible  to  any  but  him,  who  is  acquainted  with  their  real 
motions,  motions  which  are  not  directly  perceptible  by  the 
senses.  ISTevertheless,  for  the  better  comprehension  of  the 
production  of  relative  surplus-value,  we  may  add  the  follow- 
ing remarks,  in  which  we  assume  nothing  more  than  the  re- 
sults we  have  already  obtained. 

If  one  hour's  labour  is  embodied  in  sixpence,  a  value  of  six 
shillings  will  be  produced  in  a  working  day  of  12  hours. 
Suppose,  that  with  the  prevailing  productiveness  of  labour,  12 
articles  are  produced  in  these  12  hours.  Let  the  value  of  the 
means  of  production  used  in  each  article  be  sixpence.  Under 
these  circumstances,  each  article  costs  one  shilling:  sixpence 
for  the  value  of  the  means  of  production,  and  sixpence  for  the 
value  newly  added  in  working  Avith  those  means.  Now  let 
some  one  capitalist  contrive  to  double  the  productiveness  of 
labour,  and  to  produce  in  the  working  day  of  12  hours,  24  in- 
stead of  12  such  articles.  The  value  of  the  means  of  produc- 
tion remaining  the  same,  the  value  of  each  article  will  fall  to 
ninepence,  made  up  of  sixpence  for  the  value  of  the  means  of 
production  and  threepence  for  the  value  newly  added  by  the 
labour.     Despite   the   doubled   productiveness   of  labour,   the 

'  "Let  us  suppose  .  .  .  the  products  ...  of  the  manufacturer  are  doubled 
by  iini)rovement  in  machinery  ...  he  will  be  able  to  clothe  his  workmen  by 
means  of  a  smaller  proportion  of  the  entire  return  .  .  .  and  thus  his  profit  will 
be  raised.      Hut  in   no  other  way  will  it  be  influenced."      (Ramsay,  I.  c.  p.  1G8,  109.) 


248  Capitalist  Production. 

day's  labour  creates,  as  before,  a  new  value  of  six  shillings  and 
no  more,  which,  however,  is  now  spread  over  twice  as  many 
articles.     Of  this  value  each  article  now  has  embodied  in  it 
3^th,  instead  of -^th,  threepence  instead  of  sixpence ;  or,  Avhat 
amounts  to  the  same  thing,  only  half  an  hour's  instead  of  a 
whole  hour's  labour-time,  is  now  added  to  the  means  of  pro- 
duction while  they  are  being  traDsformed  into  each  article. 
The  individual  value  of  these  articles  is  now  below  their  social 
value;  in  other  words,  they  have  cost  less  labour-time  than 
the  great  bulk  of  the  same  article  produced  under  the  average 
social  conditions.     Each  article  costs,  on  an  average,  one  shill- 
ing, and  represents  2  hours  of  social  labour;  but  under  the 
altered  mode  of  production  it  costs  only  ninepence,  or  contains 
only  1^  hours'  labour.     The  real  value  of  a  commodity  is, 
however,  not  its  individual  value,  but  its  social  value ;  that  is 
to  say,  the  real  value  is  not  measured  by  the  labour-time  that 
the  article  in  each  individual  case  costs  the  producer,  but  by 
the  labour-time  socially  required  for  its  production.     If  there- 
fore, the  capitalist  who  applies  the  new  method,  sells  his  com- 
modity at  its  social  value  of  one  shilling,  he  sells  it  for  three- 
pence above  its  individual  value,  and  thus  realises  an  extra 
surplus-value  of  threepence.     On  the  other  hand,  the  working 
day  of  12  hours  is,  as  regards  him,  now  represented  by  24  arti- 
cles instead  of  12.     Hence,  in  order  to  get  rid  of  the  product 
of  one  working  day,  the  demand  must  be  double  what  it  was, 
i.e.,  the  market  must  become  twice  as  extensive.     Other  things 
being  equal,  his  commodities  can  command  a  more  extended 
market  only  by  a  diminution  of  their  prices.     He  will  there- 
fore sell  them  above  their  individual  but  under  their  social 
value,  say  at  tenpence  each.     By  this  means  he  still  squeezes 
an  extra  surplus-value  of  one  penny  out  of  each.     This  aug- 
mentation of  surplus-value  is  pocketed  by  him,  whether  his 
commodities  belong  or  not  to  the  class  of  necessary  means  of 
subsistence  that  participate  in  determining  the  general  value 
of  labour- power.     Hence,  independently  of  this  latter  circum- 
stance,  there  is  a  motive  for  each  individual  capitalist  to 
cheapen  his  commodities,  by  increasing  the  productiveness  of 
labour. 


The  Concept  of  Relative  Surplus-Value.  349, 

N^evertlieless,  even  in  this  case^  the  increased  production  of 
surplus-value   arises   from  the   curtailment  of  the   necessary 
labour-time,  and  from  the  corresponding  prolongation  of  the 
surplus-labour.^     Let  the  necessary  labour-time  amount  to  10 
hours,  the  value  of  a  day's  labour-power  to  five  shillings,  the 
surplus  labour-time  to  2  hours,  and  the  daily  surplus-value  to 
one   shilling.     But  the   capitalist  now   produces   24   articles, 
which  he  sells  at  tenpence  a-piece,  making  twenty  shillings  in 
all.     Since  the  value  of  the  means  of  production  is  twelve 
shillings,   14f  of  these  articles  merely  replace  the   constant 
capital  advanced.     The  labour  of  the  12  hours'  working  day 
is  represented  by  the  remaining  9f  articles.     Since  the  prices 
of  the  labour  power  is  five  shillings,  6  articles  represent  the 
necessary   labour-time,    and    3f    articles   the    surplus-labour. 
The  ratio  of  the  necessary  labour  to  the  surplus-labour,  which 
under  average  social  conditions  was  5:1,  is  now  only  5 :  3. 
The  same  result  may  be  arrived  at  in  the  following  way.     The 
value  of  the  product  of  the  working  day  of  12  hours  is  twenty 
shillings.     Of  this  sum,  twelve  shillings  belong  to  the  value 
of  the  means  of  production,  a  value  that  merely  re-appears. 
There   remain   eight   shillings,   which   are   the   expression   in 
money,  of  the  value  newly  created  during  the  working  day. 
This  sum  is  greater  than  the  sum  in  which   average  social 
labour  of  the  same  kind  is  expressed:  twelve  hours  of  the 
latter  labour  are  expressed  by  six  shillings  only.     The  excep- 
tionally productive  labour  operates  as  intensified  labour;  it 
creates  in  equal  periods  of  time  greater  values  than  average 
social  labour  of  the  same  kind.      (See  Ch.  I.  Sect.  1.  p.  11.)  , 
But  our  capitalist  still  continues  to  pay  as  before  only  five 
shillings  as  the  value  of  a  day's  labour-power.     Hence,  instead 
of  10  hours,  the  labourer  need  now  work  only  7^  hours,  in 
order  to  re-produce  this  value.     His  surplus-labour  is,  there- 
fore, increased  2f  hours,  and  the  surplus-value  he  produces 

'^  "A  man's  profit  does  not  depend  upon  his  command  of  the  produce  of  other  men's 
labour,  but  upon  his  command  of  labour  itself.  If  he  can  sell  his  goods  at  a  higher 
price,  while  his  workmen's  wages  remain  unaltered,  he  is  clearly  benefited. 
A  smaller  proportion  of  what  he  produces  is  sufficient  to  put  that  labour  into  mo- 
tion, and  a  larger  proportion  consequently  remains  for  himself."  ("Outlines  of 
Pol.  Econ."     London,  1S32,  pp.  49,  50.) 


350  Capitalist  Production. 

grows  from  one,  into  three  shillings.  Hence,  the  capitalist 
who  applies  the  improved  method  of  production  appropriates 
to  surplus-labour  a  greater  portion  of  the  working  day,  than 
the  other  capitalists  in  the  same  trade.  He  does  individually, 
what  the  whole  body  of  capitalists  engaged  in  producing  rela- 
tive surplus-value,  do  collectively.  On  the  other  hand,  how- 
ever, this  extra  surplus-value  vanishes,  so  soon  as  the  new 
method  of'production  has  become  general  and  has  consequently 
caused  the  difference  between  the  individual  value  of  the 
cheapened  commodity  and  its  social  value  to  vanish.  The  law 
of  the  determination  of  value  by  labour-time,  a  law  which 
brings  under  its  sway  the  individual  capitalist  who  applies 
the  new  method  of  production,  by  compelling  him  to  sell  his 
goods  under  their  social  value,  this  same  law,  acting  as  a  co- 
ercive law  of  competition,  forces  his  competitors  to  adopt  the 
new  method.^  The  general  rate  of  surplus- value  is,  therefore, 
ultimately  affected  by  the  whole  process,  only  when  the  in- 
crease in  the  productiveness  of  labour,  has  seized  upon  those 
branches  of  production  that  are  connected  with,  and  has 
cheapened  those  commodities  that  form  part  of,  the  necessary 
means  of  subsistence,  and  are  therefore  elements  of  the  value 
of  labour-power. 

The  value  of  commodities  is  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  produc- 
tiveness of  labour.  And  so,  too,  is  the  value  of  labour-power, 
because  it .  depends  on  the  values  of  commodities.  Relative 
surplus-value  is,  on  the  contrary,  directly  proportional  to  that 
productiveness.  It  rises  with  rising  and  falls  with  falling 
productiveness.  The  value  of  money  being  assumed  to  be 
constant,  an  average  social  working  day  of  12  hours  always 
produces  the  same  new  value,  six  shillings,  no  matter  how  this 
sum  may  be  apportioned  between  surplus-value  and  wages. 
But  if,  in  consequence  of  increased  productiveness,  the  value 
of  the  necessaries  of  life  fall,  and  the  value  of  a  day's  labour- 

*"If  my  neighbour  by  doing  much  with  little  labour,  can  sell  cheap,  I  must  con- 
trive to  sell  as  cheap  as  he.  So'  that  every  art,  trade,  or  engine,  doing  work  with 
labour  of  fewer  hands,  and  consequently  cheaper,  begets  in  others  a  kind  of  necessity 
and  emulation,  either  of  using  the  same  art,  trade,  or  engine,  or  of  inventing  some- 
thing like  it,  that  every  man  may  be  upon  the  square,  that  no  man  may  be  able  to 
undersell  his  neighbour."  ("The  Advantages  of  the  East  India  Trade  to  England." 
London,  1720,  p.  67.) 


The  Concept  of  Relative  Surplus-Value.  351 

power  be  thereby  reduced  from  five  shillings  to  three,  the  sur- 
plus-value increases  from  one  shilling  to  three.  Ten  hours 
were  necessary"  for  the  reproduction  of  the  value  of  the  labour- 
power;  now  only  six  are  required.  Four  hours  have  been  set 
free,  and  can  be  annexed  to  the  domain  of  surplus-labour. 
Hence  there  is  immanent  in  capital  an  inclination  and  con- 
stant tendency,  to  heighten  the  productiveness  of  labour,  in 
order  to  cheapen  commodities,  and  by  such  cheapening  to 
cheapen  the  labourer  himself.^ 

The  value  of  a  commodity  is,  in  itself,  of  no  interest  to  the 
capitalist.  What  alone  interests  him,  is  the  surplus-value  that 
dwells  in  it,  and  is  realisable  by  sale.  Realisation  of  the  sur- 
plus-value necessarily  carries  with  it  the  refunding  of  the 
value  that  was  advanced.  Now,  since  relative  surplus-value 
increases  in  direct  proportion  to  the  development  of  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  labour,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  value  of 
commodities  diminishes  in  the  same  proportion ;  since  one  and 
the  same  process  cheapens  commodities,  and  augments  the  sur- 
plus-value contained  in  them ;  we  have  here  the  solution  of  the 
riddle:  why  does  the  capitalist,  whose  sole  concern  is  the  pro- 
duction of  exchange-value,  continually  strive  to  depress  the 
exchange-value  of  commodities  ?  A  riddle  with  which  Ques- 
nay,  one  of  the  founders  of  political  economy,  tormented  his 
opponents,  and  to  which  they  could  give  him  no  answer. 
"You  acknowledge,"  he  says,  "that  the  more  expenses  and  the 
cost  of  labour  can,  in  the  manufacture  of  industrial  products, 
be  reduced  without  injury  to  production,  the  more  advantage- 
ous is  such  reduction,  because  it  diminishes  the  price  of  the 
finished  article.  And  yet,  you  believe  that  the  production  of 
wealth,  which  arises  from  the  labour  of  the  workpeople,  con- 

*  "In  whatever  proportion  the  expenses  of  a  labourer  are  diminished,  in  the  same 
proportion  will  his  wages  be  diminished,  if  the  restraints  upon  industry  are  at  the 
same  time  taken  off."  ("Considerations  concerning  taking  off  of  the  Bounty  on  Corn 
Exported,"  &c.,  Lond.,  1753,  p.  7.)  "The  interest  of  trade  requires,  that  corn  and  all 
provisions  should  be  as  cheap  as  possible;  for  whatever  makes  them  dear,  must  make 
labour  dear  also  ...  in  all  countries  where  industry  is  not  restrained  the  price 
of  provisions  must  affect  the  price  of  labour.  This  will  always  be  diminished  when 
the  necessaries  of  life  grow  cheaper."  (1.  c.  p.  3.)  "Wages  are  decreased  in  the 
same  proportion  as  the  powers  of  production  increase.  Machinery,  it  is  true,  cheap- 
ens the  necessaries  of  life,  but  it  also  cheapens  the  labourer."  ("A  Prize  Essay  on 
the  Comparative  Merits  of  Competition  and  Co-operation."     London,  1834,  p.   87.) 


352  Capitalist  Production. 

sists   in   the    augmentation   of  the   exchange-value   of  their 
products."^ 

The  shortening  of  the  working  day  is,  therefore,  by  no 
means  what  is  aimed  at,  in  capitalist  production,  when  labour 
is  economised  by  increasing  its  productiveness.^  It  is  only 
the  shortening  of  the  labour-time,  necessary  for  the  production 
of  a  definite  quantity  of  commodities,  that  is  aimed  at.  The 
fact  that  the  workman,  when  the  productiveness  of  his  labour 
has  been  increased,  produces,  say  10  times  as  many  commodi- 
ties as  before,  and  thus  spends  one-tenth  as  much  labour-time 
on  each,  by  no  means  prevents  him  from  continuing  to  work  12 
hours  as  before,  nor  from  producing  in  those  12  hours  1200 
articles  instead  of  120.  Nay,  more,  his  working  day  may  be 
prolonged  at  the  same  time,  so  as  to  make  him  produce,  say 
1400  articles  in  14  hours.  In  the  treatises,  therefore,  of 
economists  of  the  stamp  of  MacCuUoch,  Ure,  Senior,  and  tutti 
quanti,  we  may  read  upon  one  page,  that  the  labourer  owes  a 
debt  of  gratitude  to  capital  for  developing  his  productiveness, 
because  the  necessary  labour-time  is  thereby  shortened,  and  on 
the  next  page,  that  he  must  prove  his  gratitude  by  working  in 
future  for  15  hours  instead  of  10.  The  object  of  all  develop- 
ment of  the  productiveness  of  labour,  within  the  limits  of 
capitalist  production,  is  to  shorten  that  part  of  the  working 
day,  during  which  the  workman  must  labour  for  his  own  bene- 
fit, and  by  that  very  shortening,  to  lengthen  the  other  part  of 
the  day,  during  which  he  is  at  liberty  to  work  gratis  for  the 
capitalist.  How  far  this  result  is  also  attainable,  without 
cheapening  commodities,  will  appear  from  an  examination  of 

'  "lis  conviennent  que  plus  on  peut,  sans  prejudice,  epargner  de  frais  ou  de  travaux 
dispendieux  dans  la  fabrication  des  ouvrages  des  artisans,  plus  cette  epargne  est  pro- 
fitable par  la  diminution  des  prix  de  ces  ouvrages.  Cependant  ils  croient  que  la  pro- 
duction de  richesse  qui  resulte  des  travaux  des  artisans  consiste  dans  I'augmentation 
de  la  valeur  vcnale  de  leurs  ouvrages."  (Quesnay:  "Dialogues  sur  le  Commerce  et 
sur  les  Travaux  des  artisans,"  pp.   188,   189.) 

*  "Ces  speculateurs  si  economes  du  travail  des  ouvriers  qu'il  faudrait  qu'ils  pay- 
assent."  (J.  N.  Bidaut:  "Du  Monopole  qui  s'etablit  dans  les  arts  industriels  et  Ic 
commerce."  Paris,  1828,  p.  13.)  "The  employer  will  be  always  on  the  stretch  to 
economise  time  and  labour."  (Dugald  Stewart:  Works  ed.  by  Sir  W.  Hamilton. 
Edinburgh,  v.  viii.,  1855.  Lecture  on  Polit.  Econ.,  p.  318.)  "Their  (the  capitalists') 
interest  is  that  the  productive  powers  of  the  labourers  they  employ  should  be  the 
greatest  possible.  On  promoting  that  power  their  attention  is  fixed  and  almost  ex- 
clusively fixed."     (R.  Jones:     1.  c.  Lecture  III.) 


X^o-Operation.  353 

the  particular  modes  ot  producing  relative  surplus-value,  to 
which  examination  we  now  proceed. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

CO-OPEEATION. 


Capitalist  production  only  then  really  begins,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  when  each  individual  capital  employs  simultane- 
ously a  comparatively  large  number  of  labourers ;  when  conse- 
quently the  labour-process  is  carried  on  on  an  extensive  scale 
and  yields,  relatively,  large  quantities  of  products.  A  greater 
number  of  labourers  working  together,  at  the  same  time,  in 
one  place  (or,  if  you  will,  in  the  same  field  of  labour),  in 
order  to  produce  tlie  same  sort  of  commodity  under  the  master- 
ship of  one  capitalist,  constitutes,  both  historically  and  logi- 
cally, the  starting  point  of  capitalist  production.  With  regard 
to  the  mode  of  production  itself,  manufacture,  in  its  strict 
meaning,  is  hardly  to  be  distinguished,  in  its  earliest  stages, 
from  the  handicraft  trades  of  the  guilds,  otherwise  than  by  the 
greater  number  of  workmen  simultaneously  employed  by  one 
and  the  same  individual  capital.  The  workshop  of  the 
mediaeval  master  handicraftsman  is  simply  enlarged. 

At  first,  tlierefore,  the  difference  is  purely  quantitative. 
We  have  shown  that  the  surplus-value  produced  by  a  given 
capital  is  equal  to  the  surplus-value  produced  by  each  work- 
man multiplied  by  the  number  of  workmen  simultaneously  em- 
ployed. The  number  of  workmen  in  itself  does  not  affect, 
either  the  rate  of  surplus-value,  or  the  degree  of  exploitation 
of  labour-power.  If  a  working  day  of  12  hours  be  embodied 
in  six  shillings,  1200  such  days  will  be  embodied  in  1200 
times  6  shillings.  In  one  case  12X1200  working  hours,  and 
in  the  other  12  such  hours  are  incorporated  in  the  product. 
In  the  production  of  value  a  number  of  workmen  rank  merely 
as  so  ma?  y  individual  workmen ;  and  it  therefore  makes  no 
difference  in  the  value  produced  whether  the  1200  men  work 

separate!'    or  united  under  the  control  of  one  capitalist. 

w 


354  Capitalist  Production. 

Xevertheless,  within  certain  limits,  a  modification  takes 
place.  The  labour  realised  in  value,  is  labour  of  an  average 
social  quality;  is  consequently  the  expenditure  of  average 
labour-power.  Any  average  magnitude,  however,  is  merely 
the  average  of  a  number  of  separate  magnitudes  all  of  one 
kind,  but  differing  as  to  quantity.  In  every  industry,  each 
individual  labourer,  be  he  Peter  or  Paul,  differs  from  the 
average  labourer.  These  individual  differences,  or  "errors" 
as  they  are  called  in  mathematics,  compensate  one  another, 
and  vanish,  whenever  a  certain  minimum  number  of  workmen 
are  employed  together.  The  celebrated  sophist  and  syco- 
phant, Edmund  Burke,  goes  so  far  as  to  make  the  following 
assertion,  based  on  his  practical  observations  as  a  farmer; 
viz.,  that  "in  so  small  a  platoon"  as  that  of  five  farm  labour- 
ers, all  individual  differenoes  in  the  labour  vanish,  and  that 
consequently  any  given  five  adult  farm  labourers  taken  to- 
gether, will  in  the  same  time  do  as  much  work  as  any  other 
five.^  But,  however  that  may  be,  it  is  clear,  that  the  collec- 
tive working  day  of  a  large  number  of  workmen  simultane- 
ously employed,  divided  by  the  number  of  these  workmen, 
gives  one  day  of  average  social  labour.  For  example,  let  the 
working  day  of  each  individual  be  12  hours.  Then  the  collect- 
ive working  day  of  12  men  simultaneously  employed,  consists 
of  144  hours;  and  although  the  labour  of  each  of  the  dozen 
men  may  deviate  more  or  less  from  average  social  labour,  each 
of  them  requiring  a  different  time  for  the  same  operation,  yet 
since  the  working  day  of  each  is  one-twelfth  of  the  collective 
working  day  of  144  hours,  it  possesses  the  qualities  of  an  aver- 
age social  working  day.  From  the  point  of  view,  however, 
of  the  capitalist  who  employs  these  12  men,  the  working  day 
is  that  of  the  whole  dozen.     Each  individual  man's  day  is 

'"Unquestionably,  there  is  a  good  deal  of  diflfercnce  between  the  value  of  one 
man's  labour  and  that  of  another  from  strength,  dexterity,  and  honest  application. 
But  I  am  quite  sure,  from  my  best  observation,  that  any  given  five  men  will,  in  their 
total,  afford  a  proportion  of  labour  equal  to  any  other  five  within  the  periods  of  life 
I  have  stated;  that  is,  that  among  such  five  men  there  will  be  one  possessing  all  the 
qualifications  of  a  good  workman,  one  bad,  and  the  other  three  middling,  and  ap- 
proximating to  the  first  and  the  last.  So  that  in  so' small  a  platoon  as  that  of  even 
five,  you  will  find  the  full  complement  of  all  that  five  men  can  earn."  (E.  Burke,  1. 
c.  p.   15,  10).     Compare  Quetelet  on  the  average   individual. 


Co-Operation.  355 

an  aliquot  part  of  the  collective  working  day,  no  matter 
whetlier  the  12  men  assist  one  another  in  their  work,  or 
whether  the  connexion  between  their  operations  consists  mere- 
ly in  the  fact,  that  the  men  are  all  working  for  the  same  capi- 
talist. But  if  the  12  men  are  employed  in  six  pairs,  by  as 
many  different  small  masters,  it  will  be  quite  a  matter  of 
chance,  whether  each  of  these  masters  produces  the  same  value, 
and  consequently  whether  he  realises  tlie  general  rate  of  sur- 
plus-value. Deviations  would  occur  in  individual  cases.  If 
one  workman  required  considerably  more  time  for  the  produc- 
tion of  a  commodity  than  is  socially  necessary,  the  duration  of 
the  necessary  labour-time  would,  in  his  case,  sensibly  deviate 
from  the  labour-time  socially  necessary  on  an  average ;  and 
consequently  his  labour  would  not  count  as  average  labour,  nor 
his  labour-power  as  average  labour-power.  It  would  either 
be  not  saleable  at  all,  or  only  at  something  below  the  average 
value  of  labour-power.  A  fixed  minimum  of  efficiency  in  all 
labour  is  therefore  assumed,  and  we  shall  see,  later  on,  that 
capitalist  production  provides  the  means  of  fixing  this  mini- 
mum. ^Nevertheless,  this  minimum  deviates  from  the  aver- 
age, although  on  the  other  hand  the  capitalist  has  to  pay  the 
average  value  of  labour-power.  Of  the  six  small  masters,  one 
would  therefore  squeeze  out  more  than  the  average  rate  of 
surplus-value,  another  less.  The  inequalities  would  be  com- 
pensated for  the  society  at  large,  but  not  for  the  individual 
masters.  Thus  the  laws  of  the  production  of  value  are  only 
fully  realised  for  the  individual  producer,  when  he  produces 
as  a  capitalist,  and  employes  a  number  of  workmen  together, 
whose  labour,  by  its  collective  nature,  is  at  once  stamped  as 
average  social  labour.^ 

Even  without  an  alteration  in  the  system  of  working,  the 
simultaneous  employment  of  a  large  number  of  labourers 
effects  a  revolution  in  the  material  conditions  of  the  labour- 
process.     The  buildings  in  which  they  work,  the  store-houses 

^  Professor  Roscher  claims  to  have  discovered  that  one  needlewoman  employed  by 
Mrs.  Roscher  during  two  days,  does  more  work  than  two  needlewomen  employed 
together  during  one  day.  The  learned  professor  should  not  study  the  capitalist  proc- 
ess of  production  in  the  nursery,  nor  under  circumstances  where  the  principal  per- 
sonage,  the  capitalist,   is  wanting. 


356  Capitalist  Production.  ^ 

for  the  raw  material,  the  implements  and  utensils  used  simul- 
taneously or  in  turns  by  the  workmen ;  in  short,  a  portion  of 
the  means  of  production,  are  now  consumed  in  common.  On 
the  one  hand,  the  exchange-value  of  these  means  of  production 
is  not  increased ;  for  the  exchange  value  of  a  commodity  is  not 
raised  by  its  use-value  being  consumed  more  thoroughly  and  to 
greater  advantage.  On  the  other  hand,  they  are  used  in  com- 
mon, and  therefore  on  a  larger  scale  than  before.  A  room 
where  twenty  weavers  work  at  twenty  looms  must  be  larger 
than  the  room  of  a  single  weaver  with  two  assistants.  But  it 
costs  less  labour  to  build  one  workshop  for  twenty  persons 
than  to  build  ten  to  accommodate  two  weavers  each;  thus  the 
value  of  the  means  of  production  that  are  concentrated  for  use 
in  common  on  a  large  scale  does  not  increase  in  direct  propor- 
tion to  the  expansion  and  to  the  increased  useful  effect  of 
those  means.  When  consumed  in  common,  they  give  up  a 
smaller  part  of  their  value  to  each  single  product;  partly  be- 
cause the  total  value  they  part  with  is  spread  over  a  greater 
quantity  of  products,  and  partly  because  their  value,  though 
absolutely  greater,  is,  having  regard. to  their  sphere  of  action 
in  the  process,  relatively  less  than  the  value  of  isolated  means 
of  production.  Owing  to  this,  the  value  of  a  part  of  the  con- 
stant capital  falls,  and  in  proportion  to  the  magnitude  of  the 
fall,  the  total  value  of  the  commodity  also  falls.  The  effect  is 
the  same  as  if  the  means  of  production  had  cost  less.  The 
economy  in  their  application  is  entirely  owing  to  their  being 
consumed  in  common  by  a  large  number  of  workmen.  More- 
over, this  character  of  being  necessary  conditions  of  social 
labour,  a  character  that  distinguishes  them  from  the  dispersed 
and  relatively  more  costly  means  of  production  of  isolated,  in- 
dependent labourers,  or  small  masters,  is  acquired  even  when 
the  numerous  workmen  assembled  together  do  not  assist  one 
another,  but  merely  work  side  by  side.  A  portion  of  the 
instruments  of  labour  acquires  this  social  character  before  the 
labour-process  itself  does  so. 

Economy  in  the  use  of  the  means  of  production  has  to  be 
considered  under  two  aspects.  First,  as  cheapening  commodi- 
ties, and  thereby  bringing  about  a  fall  in  the  value  of  labour- 


Co-Operation.  357 

power.  Secondly,  as  altering  the  ratio  of  the  surplus-value  to 
the  total  capital  advanced,  i.e.,  to  the  sum  of  the  values  of  the 
constant  and  variable  capital.  The  latter  aspect  will  not  be 
considered  until  we  come  to  the  third  volume,  to  which,  with 
the  object  of  treating  them  in  their  proper  connexion,  we  also 
relegate  many  other  points  that  relate  to  the  present  question. 
The  march  of  our  analysis  compels  this  splitting  up  of  the 
subject  matter,  a  splitting  up  that  is  quite  in  keeping  with  the 
spirit  of  capitalist  production.  For  since,  in  this  mode  of  pro- 
duction, the  workman  finds  the  instruments  of  labour  existing 
independently  of  him  as  another  man's  property,  economy  in 
their  use  appears,  with  regard  to  him,  to  be  a  distinct  operation, 
one  that  does  not  concern  him,  and  which,  therefore,  has  no 
connexion  with  the  methods  by  which  his  own  personal  pro- 
ductiveness is  increased. 

When  numerous  labourers  work  together  side  by  side, 
whether  in  one  and  the  same  process,  or  in  different  but  con- 
nected processes,  they  are  said  to  co-operate,  or  to  work  in  co- 
operation.^ 

Just  as  the  offensive  power  of  a  squadron  of  cavalry,  or  the 
defensive  power  of  a  regiment  of  infantry,  is  essentially  differ- 
ent from  the  sum  of  the  offensive  or  defensive  powers  of  the 
individual  cavalry  or  infantry  soldiers  taken  separately,  so 
the  sum  total  of  the  mechanical  forces  exerted  by  isolated 
workmen  differs  from  the  social  force  that  is  developed,  when 
many  hands  take  part  simultaneously  in  one  and  the  same  un- 
divided operation,  such  as  raising  a  heavy  weight,  turning  a 
winch,  or  removing  an  obstacle.^  In  such  cases  the  effect  of 
the  combined  labour  could  either  not  be  produced  at  all  by 
isolated  individual  labour,  or  it  could  only  be  produced  by  a 
great  expenditure  of  time,  or  on  a  very  dwarfed  scale.  Not 
only  have  we  here  an  increase  in  the  productive  power  of  the 

1  "Concours  de  forces."      (Destutt  de  Tracy,  1.  c,  p.  78.) 

'  "There  are  numerous  operations  of  so  simple  a  kind  as  not  to  admit  a  division 
into  parts,  which  cannot  be  performed  without  the  co-operation  of  many  pairs  of 
hands.  I  would  instance  the  lifting  of  a  large  tree  on  to  a  wain  .  .  .  every- 
thing, in  short,  which  cannot  be  done  unless  a  great  many  pairs  of  hands  help  each 
other  in  the  same  undivided  employment  and  at  the  same  time"  (E.  G.  Wakefield: 
"A  View  of  the  Art  of  Colonisation."     London:   1849,  p.  168). 


358  Capitalist  Production. 

individual,  by  means  of  co-operation,  but  the  creation  of  a  new 
power,  namely,  the  collective  power  of  masses.^ 

Apart  from  the  new  power  that  arises  from  the  fusion  of 
many  forces  into  one  single  force,  mere  social  contact  begets  in 
most  industries  an  emulation  and  a  stimulation  of  the  animal 
spirits  that  heighten  the  efficiency  of  each  individual  workman. 
Hence  it  is  that  a  dozen  persons  working  together  will,  in 
their  collective  working-day  of  144  hours,  produce  far  more 
than  twelve  isolated  men  each  working  12  hours,  or  than  one 
man  who  works  twelve  days  in  succession.^  The  reason  of 
this  is  that  a  man  is,  if  not  as  Aristotle  contends,  a  political,^ 
at  all  events  a  social  animal. 

Although  a  number  of  man  may  be  occupied  together  at  the 
same  time  on  the  same,  or  the  same  kind  of  work,  yet  the 
labour  of  each,  as  a  part  of  the  collective  labour,  may  corres- 
pond to  a  distinct  phase  of  the  labour-process,  through  all 
whose  phases,  in  consequence  of  co-operation,  the  subject  of 
their  labour  passes  with  greater  speed.  For  instance,  if  a 
dozen  masons  place  themselves  in  a  row,  so  as  to  pass  stones 
from  the  foot  of  a  ladder  to  its  summit,  each  of  them  does  the 
same  thing;  nevertheless,  their  separate  acts  form  connected 
parts  of  one  total  operation ;  they  are  particular  phases,  which 
must  be  gone  through  by  each  stone;  and  the  stones  are  thus 
carried  up  quicker  by  the  24  hands  of  the  row  of  men  than 
they  could  be  if  each  man  went  separately  up  and  down  the 

•  "As  one  man  cannot,  and  ten  men  must  strain  to  lift  a  tun  of  weight,  yet  100 
men  can  do  it  only  by  the  strength  of  a  finger  of  each  of  them."  (John  Sellers: 
"Proposals  for  raising  a  College  of  Industry."     London,  1696,  p.  21.) 

•  "There  is  also"  (when  the  same  number  of  men  are  employed  by  one  farmer  on 
300  acres,  instead  of  by  ten  farmers  with  30  acres  a  piece)  "an  advantage  in  the  pro- 
portion of  servants,  which  will  not  so  easily  be  understood  but  by  practical  men; 
for  it  is  natural  to  say,, as  1  is  to  4,  so  are  3:  to  12;  but  this  will  not  hold  good  in 
practice;  for  in  harvest  time  and  many  other  operations  which  require  that  kind  of 
despatch  by  the  throwing  many  hands  together,  the  work  is  better  and  more  expedi- 
tiously done;-  f.  i.  in  harvest,  2  drivers,  2  loaders,  2  pitchers,  2  rakers,  and  the  rest 
at  the  rick,  or  in  the  barn,  will  despatch  double  the  work  that  the  same  number  of 
hands  would  do  if  divided  into  different  gangs  on  different  farms."  ("An  Inquiry 
into  the  connection  between  the  present  Price  of  Provisions  and  the  Size  of  Farms." 
By  a   Farmer.     London,    1773,   pp.   7,   8.) 

•  Strictly,  Aristotle's  definition  is  that  man  is  by  nature  a  town-citizen.  This  is 
quite  as  characteristic  of  ancient  classical  society  as  Franklin's  definition  of  man,  as 
a  tool-making  animal,    is   characteristic   of  Yankeedom. 


Co-Operation.  359 

ladder  with  his  burden.^  The  object  is  carried  over  the  same 
distance  in  a  shorter  time.  Again,  a  combination  of  labour 
occurs  whenever  a  building,  for  instance,  is  taken  in  hand  on 
different  sides  simultaneously;  although  here  also  the  co- 
operating masons  are  doing  the  same,  or  the  same  kind  of 
work.  The  12  masons,  in  their  collective  working  day  of  144 
hours,  make  much  more  progress  with  the  building  than  one 
mason  could  make  working  for  12  days,  or  144  hours.  The 
reason  is,  that  a  body  of  men  working  in  concert  has  hands 
and  eyes  both  before  and  behind,  and  is,  to  a  certain  degree, 
omni-present.  The  various  parts  of  the  work  progress  simul- 
taneously. 

In  the  above  instances  we  have  laid  stress  upon  the  point 
that  the  men  do  the  same^  or  the  same  kind  of  work,  because 
this,  the  most  simple  form  of  labour  in  common,  plays  a  great 
part  in  co-operation,  even  in  its  most  fully  developed  stage. 
If  the  work  be  complicated,  then  the  mere  number  of  the  men 
who  co-operate  allows  of  the  various  operations  being  appor- 
tioned to  different  hands,  and,  consequently,  of  being  carried 
on  simultaneously.  The  time  necessary  for  the  completion  of 
the  whole  work  is  thereby  shortened.^ 

In  many  industries,  there  are  critical  periods,  determined  by 
the  nature  of  the  process,  during  which  certain  definite  results 
must  be  obtained.  For  instance,  if  a  flock  of  sheep  has  to  be 
shorn,  or  a  field  of  wheat  to  be  cut  and  harvested,  the  quantity 
and  quality  of  the  product  depends  on  the  work  being  begun 
and  ended  within  a  certain  time.  In  these  cases,  the  time 
that  ought  to  be  taken  by  the  process  is  prescribed,  just  as  it 

*  On  doit  encore  reniarquer  que  cette  division  partielle  de  travail  peut  se  faire 
quand  meme  les  ouvriers  sont  occupes  d'une  meme  besogne.  Des  magons  par  ex- 
emple,  occupes  a  faire  passer  de  mains  en  mains  des  briques  a  un  echafaudage  su- 
perieur,  font  tous  la  meme  besogne,  et  pourtant  il  existe  parmi  eux  une  espece  de 
division  de  travail,  qui  consiste  en  ce  que  chacun  d'eux  fait  passer  la  brique  par  un 
espace  donne,  et  que  tous  ensemble  la  font  parvenir  beaucoup  plus  promptement  a 
I'endroit  marque  qu'ils  ne  le  feraient  si  chacun  d'eux  portait  sa  brique  separement 
jusqu  'a  I'echafaudage  superieur,"  (F.  Skarbek:  "Theorie  des  richesses  sociales." 
Paris,   1829.   t.    I.   pp.   97,   98.) 

*  "Est-il  question  d'executer  un  travail  complique,  plusieurs  choses  doivent  etre 
faites  simultancment.  L'un  en  fait  une  pendant  que  I'autre  en  fait  une  autre,  et 
tous  contribuent  a  reffet  qu'un  seul  homme  n'aurait  pu  produire.  L'un  rame  pendant 
que  I'autre  tient  le  gouvernail,  et  qu'un  troisieme  jette  le  filet  ou  harponne  le  poisson, 
et  la  pechc  a  un  succes  impossible  sans  ce  concours."     (Destutt  de  Tracy,  1.  c.) 


360  Capitalist  Production. 

is  in  herring  fishing.  A  single  person  cannot  carve  a  worlcing 
day  of  more  than,  say  12  hours,  out  of  the  natural  day,  but  100 
men  co-operating  extend  the  working  day  to  1,200  hours. 
The  shortness  of  the  time  allowed  for  the  work  is  compensated 
for  by  the  large  mass  of  labour  thrown  upon  the  field  of  pro- 
duction at  the  decisive  moment.  The  completion  of  the  task 
within  the  proper  time  depends  on  the  simultaneous  applica- 
tion of  numerous  combined  working  days ;  the  amount  of  use- 
ful effect  depends  on  the  number  of  labourers;  this  number, 
however,  is  always  smaller  than  the  number  of  isolated  la- 
bourers required  to  do  the  same  amount  of  work  in  the  same 
period.^  It  is  owing  to  the  absence  of  this  kind  of  co-opera- 
tion that,  in  the  western  part  of  the  United  States,  quantities 
of  com,  and  in  those  parts  of  East  India  where  English  rule 
has  destroyed  the  old  communities,  quantities  of  cotton,  are 
yearly  wasted.^ 

On  the  one  hand,  co-operation  allows  of  the  work  being  car- 
ried on  over  an  extended  space ;  it  is  consequently  imperatively 
called  for  in  certain  undertakings,  such  as  draining,  coustruct- 
ing  dykes,  irrigation  works,  and  the  making  of  canals,  roads 
and  railways.  On  the  other  hand,  while  extending  the  scale 
of  production,  it  renders  possible  a  relative  contraction  of  the 
arena.  This  contraction  of  arena  simultaneous  with,  and  aris- 
ing from,  extension  of  scale,  whereby  a  numbet-  of  useless  ex- 
penses are  cut  down,  is  owing  to  the  conglomeration  of  labour- 
ers, to  the  aggregation  of  various  processes,  and  to  the  con- 
centration of  the  means  of  production.^ 

*  "The  doing  of  it  (agricultural  work)  at  the  critical  juncture  is  of  so  much  the 
greater  consequence."  ("An  Inquiry  into  the  Connection  between  the  Present  Price," 
&c.,  p.  9.)  "In  agriculture,  there  is  no  more  important  factor  than  that  of  time." 
(Liebig:     "Ueber  Theorie  und  Praxis  in  der  Landwirthschaft."     1856.     p.   23.) 

*  "The  next  evil  is  one  which  one  would  scarcely  expect  to  find  in  a  country  which 
■  exports   more  labour   than   any   other  in   the  world,   with   the  exception,   perhaps,   of 

China  and  England — the  impossibility  of  procuring  a  sufficient  number  of  hands  to 
clean  the  cotton.  The  consequence  of  this  is  that  large  quantities  of  the  crop  are 
left  unpicked,  while  another  portion  is  gathered  from  the  ground  when  it  has  fallen, 
and  is  of  course  discoloured  and  partially  rotted,  so  that  for  want  of  labour  at  the 
proper  season  the  cultivator  is  actually  forced  to  submit  to  the  loss  of  a  large  part 
of  that  crop  for  which  England  is  so  anxiously  looking."  (Bengal  Hurkaru.  Bi- 
Monthly  Overland  Summary  of  News,  22nd  July,   1861.) 

*  In  the  progress  of  culture  "all,  and  perhaps  more  than  all,  the  capital  and  labour 
which  once  loosely  occupied  600  acres,  are  now  concentrated  for  the  more  complete 
tillage  of  100."     Although  "relatively  to  the  amount  of  capital  and  labour  employed. 


Co-Operation.  361 

The  combined  working  day  produces,  relatively  to  an  equal 
sum  of  isolated  working-days,  a  greater  quantity  of  use-values, 
and,  consequently,  diminishes  the  labour-time  necessary  for  the 
production  of  a  given  useful  effect.  Whether  the  combined 
working-day,  in  a  given  case,  acquires  this  increased  produc- 
tive power,  because  it  heightens  the  mechanical  force  of  labour, 
or  extends  its  sphere  of  action  over  a  greater  space,  or  con- 
tracts the  field  of  production  relatively  to  the  scale  of  produc- 
tion, or  at  the  critical  moment  sets  large  masses  of  labour  to 
work,  or  excites  emulation  between  individuals  and  raises  their 
animal  spirits,  or  impresses  on  the  similar  operations  carried 
on  by  a  number  of  men  the  stamp  of  continuity  and  many- 
sidedness,  or  performs  simultaneously  different  operations,  or 
economises  the  means  of  production  by  use  in  common,  or  lends 
to  individual  labour  the  character  of  average  social  labour — 
which  ever  of  these  be  the  cause  of  the  increase,  the  special 
productive  power  of  the  combined  working  day  is,  under  all 
circumstances,  the  social  productive  power  of  labour,  or  the 
productive  power  of  social  labour.  This  power  is  due  to  co- 
operation itself.  When  the  labourer  co-operates  systematic- 
ally with  others,  he  strips  off  the  fetters  of  his  individuality, 
and  develops  the  capabilities  of  his  species.^ 

As  a  general  rule,  labourers  cannot  co-operate  without  being 
brought  together :  their  assemblage  in  one  place  is  a  necessary 
condition  of  their  co-operation.  Hence  wage  labourers  cannot 
co-operate,  unless  they  are  employed  simultaneously  by  the 
same  capital,  the  same  capitalist,  and  unless  therefore  their 
labour-powers  are  bought  simultaneously  by  him.  The  total 
value  of  these  labour-powers,  or  the  amount  of  the  wages  of 
these  labourers  for  a  day,  or  a  week,  as  the  case  may  be,  must 
be  ready  in  the  pocket  of  the  capitalist,  before  the  workmen 
are  assembled  for  the  process  of  production.     The  payment  of 

space  is  concentrated,  it  is  an  enlarged  sphere  of  production,  as  compared  to  the 
sphere  of  production  formerly  occupied  or  worked  upon  by  one  single  independent 
agent  of  production."  (R.  Jones:  "An  Essay  on  the  Distribution  of  Wealth,"  part 
I.     On   Rent.     London,  1831,   p.    191.) 

^  "La  forza  di  ciascuno  uomo  e  minima,  ma  la  ritinione  delle  minime  forze  forma 
una  forza  totale  maggiore  anche  della  somma  delle  forze  medesime  fino  a  che  le  forze 
per  essere  riunite  possono  diminuere  il  tempo  ed  accrescere  lo  spazio  della  loro 
azione."     (G.  R.  Carli,  Note  to  P.  Verri,  1.  c.  t.,  xv.  p.  196.) 


362  Capitalist  Production. 

300  workmen  at  once,  though  only  for  one  day,  requires  a 
greater  outlay  of  capital,  than  does  the  payment  of  a  smaller 
number  of  men,  week  by  week,  during  a  whole  year.  Henoe 
the  number  of  the  labourers  that  co-operate,  or  the  scale  of 
co-operation,  depends,  in  the  first  instance,  on  the  amount  of 
capital  that  the  individual  capitalist  can  spare  for  the  purchase 
of  labour-power;  in  other  words,  on  the  extent  to  which  a 
single  capitalist  has  command  over  the  means  of  subsistence  of 
a  number  of  labourers. 

And  as  with  the  variable,  so  it  is  with  the  constant  capital. 
For  example,  the  outlay  on  raw  material  is  30  times  as  great, 
for  the  capitalist  who  employs  300  men,  as  it  is  for  each  of 
the  30  capitalists  who  employ  10  men.  The  value  and  quan- 
tity of  the  instruments  of  labour  used  in  common  do  not,  it  is 
true,  increase  at  the  same  rate  as  the  number  of  workmen,  but 
they  do  increase  very  considerably.  Hence,  concentration  of 
large  masses  of  the  means  of  production  in  the  hands  of  indi- 
vidual capitalists,  is  a  material  condition  for  the  co-operation 
of  wage-labourers,  and  the  extent  of  the  co-operation  or  the 
scale  of  production,  depends  on  the  extent  of  this  concentra- 
tion. 

We  saw  in  a  former  chapter,  that  a  certain  minimum  amount 
of  capital  was  necessary,  in  order  that  the  number  of  labourers 
simultaneously  employed,  and,  consequently,  the  amount  of 
surplus-value  produced,  might  suffice  to  liberate  the  employer 
himself  from  manual  labour,  to  convert  him  from  a  small 
master  into  a  capitalist,  and  thus  formally  to  establish  capital- 
ist production.  We  now  see  that  a  certain  minimum  amount 
is  a  necessary  condition  for  the  conversion  of  numerous  iso- 
lated and  independent  processes  into  one  combined  social 
process. 

We  also  saw  that  at  first,  the  subjection  of  labour  to  capital 
was  only  a  formal  result  of  the  fact,  that  the  labourer,  instead 
of  working  for  himself,  works  for  and  consequently  under  the 
capitalist.  By  the  co-operation  of  numerous  wage-labourers, 
the  sway  of  capital  developes  into  a  requisite  for  carrying  on 
the  labour-process  itself,  into  a  real  requisite  of  production! 
That  a  capitalist  should  command  on  the  field  of  production, 


Co-Operation.  363 

is  now  as  indispensable  as  that  a  general  should  command  on 
the  field  of  battle. 

All  combined  labour  on  a  large  scale  requires,  more  or  less, 
a  directing  authority,  in  order  to  secure  the  harmonious  work- 
ing of  the  individual  activities,  and  to  perform  the  general 
functions  that  have  their  origin  in  the  action  of  the  combined 
organism,  as  distinguished  from  the  action  of  its  separate  or- 
gans. A  single  violin  player  is  his  own  conductor;  an  orches- 
tra requires  a  separate  one.  The  work  of  directing,  superin- 
tending, and  adjusting,  becomes  one  of  the  functions  of  capital, 
from  the  moment  that  the  labour  under  the  control  of  capital, 
becomes  co-operative.  Once  a  function  of  capital,  it  acquires 
special  characteristics. 

The  directing  motive^  the  end  and  aim  of  capitalist  produc- 
tion, is  to  extract  the  greatest  possible  amount  of  surplus- 
value,^  and  consequently  to  exploit  labour-power  to  the  great- 
est possible  extent.  As  the  number  of  the  co-operating  labour- 
ers increases,  so  too  does  their  resistance  to  the  domination  of 
capital,  and  with  it,  the  necessity  for  capital  to  overcome  this 
resistance  by  counter-pressure.  The  control  exercised  by  the 
capitalist  is  not  only  a  special  function,  due  to  the  nature  of 
the  social  labour-process,  and  peculiar  to  that  process,  but  it  is, 
at  the  same  time,  a  function  of  the  exploitation  of  a  social 
labour-process,  and  is  consequently  rooted  in  the  unavoidable 
antagonism  between  the  exploiter  and  the  living  and  labouring 
raw  material  he  exploits. 

Again,  in  proportion  to  the  increasing  mass  of  the  means  of 
production,  now  no  longer  the  property  of  the  labourer,  but 
of  the  capitalist,  the  necessity  increases  for  some  effective 
control  over  the  proper  application  of  those  means.^     More- 

■•  "Profits  ...  is  the  sole  end  of  trade."  (J.  Vanderlint,  1.  c.,  p.  11.) 
^  That  Philistine  paper,  the  Spectator,  states  that  after  the  introduction  of  a 
sort  of  partnership  between  capitalist  and  workmen  in  the  "VVirework  Company  of 
Manchester,"  "the  first  result  was  a  sudden  decrease  in  waste,  the  men  not  seeing 
why  they  should  waste  their  own  property  any  more  than  any  other  master's,  and 
waste  is,  perhaps,  next  to  bad  debts,  the  greatest  source  of  manufacturing  loss." 
The  same  paper  finds  that  the  main  defect  in  the  Rochdale  co-operative  experiments 
is  this:  "They  showed  that  associations  of  workmen  could  manage  shops,  mills, 
and  almost  all  forms  of  industry  with  success,  and  they  immediately  improved 
the  condition  of  the  men;  but  then  they  did  not  leave  a  clear  place  for  masters." 
Quelle  horreur! 


364  Capitalist  Production. 

over,  the  co-operation  of  wage  labourers  is  entirely  brought 
about  by  the  capital  that  employs  them.  Their  union  into  one 
single  productive  body  and  the  establishment  of  a  connexion 
between  their  individual  functions,  are  matters  foreign  and 
external  to  them,  are  not  their  own  act,  but  the  act  of  the 
capital  that  brings  and  keeps  them  together.  Hence  the  con- 
nexion existing  between  their  various  labours  appears  to  them, 
ideally,  in  the  shape  of  a  preconceived  plan  of  the  capitalist, 
and  practically  in  the  shape  of  the  authority  of  the  same  capi- 
talist, in  the  shape  of  the  powerful  will  of  another,  who  sub- 
jects their  activity  to  his  aims.  If,  then,  the  control  of  the 
capitalist  is  in  substance  twofold  by  reason  of  the  twofold 
nature  of  the  process  of  production  itself, — ^which,  on  the  one 
hand,  is  a  social  process  for  producing  use-values,  on  the  other, 
a  process  for  creating  surplus-value — in  form  that  control  is 
despotic.  As  co-operation  extends  its  scale,  this  despotism 
takes  forms  peculiar  to  itself.  Just  as  at  first  the  capitalist 
is  relieved  from  actual  labour  so  soon  as  his  capital  has  reached 
that  minimum  amount  with  which  capitalist  production,  as 
such  begins,  so  now,  he  hands  over  the  work  of  direct  and  con- 
stant supervision  of  the  individual  workmen,  and  groups  of 
workmen,  to  a  special  kind  of  wage  labourer.  An  industrial 
army  of  workmen,  under  the  command  of  a  capitalist,  requires, 
like  a  real  army,  officers  (managers),  and  sergeants  (foremen, 
overlookers),  who,  while  the  work  is  being  done,  command  in 
the  name  of  the  capitalist.  The  work  of  supervision  becomes 
their  established  and  exclusive  function.  When  comparing 
the  mode  of  production  of  isolated  peasants  and  artizans  with 
production  by  slave  labour  the  political  economist  counts  this 
•  labour  of  superintendence  among  the  faux  frais  of  production.^ 
But,  when  considering  the  capitalist  mode  of  production,  he, 
on  the  contrary,  treats  the  work  of  control  made  necessary  by 
the  co-operative  character  of  the  labour  process  as  identical 
with  the  different  work  of  control,  necessitated  by  the  capitalist 

•  Professor  Cairns,  after  stating  that  the  superintendence  of  labour  is  a  leading 
feature  of  production  by  slaves  in  the  Southern  States  of  North  America,  continues: 
"The  peasant  proprietor  (of  the  North),  appropriating  the  whole  produce  of  his  toil, 
needs  no  other  stimulus  to  exertion.  Superintendence  is  here  completely  dispensed 
with."     (Caimcs,  1,  c,  pp.   48,   49.) 


Co-Operation.  •  365 

character  of  tliat  process  and  tlic  antagonism  of  interests  be- 
tween capitalist  and  labourer.^  It  is  not  because  he  is  a  leader 
of  industry  that  a  man  is  a  capitalist;  on  the  contrary,  he  is  a 
leader  of  industry  because  he  is  a  capitalist.  The  leadership 
of  industry  is  an  attribute  of  capital,  just  as  in  feudal  times 
the  functions  of  general  and  judge  were  attributes  of  landed 
property.^ 

The  labourer  is  the  owner  of  his  labour-power  until  he  has 
done  bargaining  for  its  sale  with  the  capitalist ;  and  he  can 
sell  no  more  than  what  he  has — i.e.^  his  individual,  isolated 
labour-power.  This  state  of  things  is  in  no  way  altered  by 
the  fact  that  the  capitalist,  instead  of  buying  the  labour-power 
of  one  man,  buys  that  of  100,  and  enters  into  separate  con- 
tracts with  100  unconnected  men  instead  of  with  one.  He 
is  at  liberty  to  set  the  100  men  to  work,  without  letting  them 
co-operate.  He  pays  them  the  value  of  100  independent 
labour-powers,  but  he  does  not  pay  for  the  combined  labour- 
powder  of  the  hundred.  Being  independent  of  each  other,  the 
labourers  are  isolated  persons,  who  enter  into  relations  with 
the  capitalist,  but  not  with  one  another.  This  co-operation 
begins  only  with  the  labour  process,  but  they  have  then  ceased 
to  belong  to  themselves.  On  entering  that  process,  they  be- 
come incorporated  with  capital.  As  co-operators,  as  members 
of  a  working  organism,  they  are  but  special  modes  of  existence 
of  capital.  Hence,  the  productive  power  developed  by  the 
labourer  when  working  in  co-operation,  is  the  productive  power 
of  capital.  This  power  is  developed  gratuitously,  whenever 
the  workmen  are  placed  under  given  conditions,  and  it  is  capi- 
tal that  places  them  under  such  conditions.  Because  this 
power  costs  capital  nothing,  and  because,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  labourer  himself  does  not  develop  it  before  his  labour 
belongs  to  capital,  it  appears  as  a  power  with  which  capital 

*  Sir  James  Steuart,  a  writer  altogether  remarkable  for  his  quick  eye  for  the 
characteristic  social  distinctions  between  different  modes  of  production,  says:  "Why 
do  large  undertakings  in  the  manufacturing  way  ruin  private  industry,  but  by  coming 
nearer  to  the  simplicity  of  slaves?"  ("Prin.  of  Pol.  Econ.,"  London,  1767,  v.  I.,  p. 
167,  168.) 

*  Auguste  Comte  and  his  school  might  therefore  have  shown  that  feudal  lords  are 
an  eternal  necessity  in  the  same  way  that  they  have  done  in  the  case  of  the  lords 
of  capital. 


366  Capitalist  Production. 

is  endowed  by  Nature — a  productive  power  that  is  immanent 
in  capital. 

The  colossal  effects  of  simple  co-operation  are  to  be  seen  in 
the  gigantic  structures  of  the  ancient  Asiatics,  Egj'ptians, 
Etruscans,  &c.  "It  has  happened  in  times  past  that  these 
Oriental  States,  after  supplying  the  expenses  of  their  civil  and 
military  establishments,  have  found  themselves  in  possession 
of  a  surplus  which  they  could  apply  to  Avorks  of  magnificence 
or  utility,  and  in  the  construction  of  these  their  command  over 
the  hands  and  arms  of  almost  the  entire  non-agricultural 
population  has  produced  stupendous  monuments  which  still 
indicate  their  power.  The  teeming  valley  of  the  Nile  .  .  . 
produced  food  for  a  swarming  non-agricultural  population,  and 
this  food,  belonging  to  the  monarch  and  the  priesthood,  afford- 
ed the  means  of  erecting  the  mighty  monuments  which  filled 
the  land.  ...  In  moving  the  colossal  statues  and  vast  masses 
of  which  the  transport  creates  wonder,  human  labour  almost 
alone,  was  prodigally  used.  .  .  .  The  number  of  the  labourers 
and  the  concentration  of  their  efforts  sufficed.  We  see  mighty 
coral  reefs  rising  from  the  depths  of  the  ocean  into  islands  and 
firm  land,  yet  each  individual  depositor  is  puny,  weak,  and 
contemptible.  The  non-agricultural  labourers  of  an  Asiatic 
monarchy  have  little  but  their  individual  bodily  exertions  to 
bring  to  the  task,  but  their  number  is  their  strength,  and  the 
power  of  directing  these  masses  gave  rise  to  the  palaces  and 
temples,  the  pyramids,  and  the  armies  of  gigantic  statues  of 
which  the  remains  astonish  and  perplex  us.  It  is  that  con- 
finement of  the  revenues  which  feed  them,  to  one  or  a  few 
hands,  which  makes  such  undertakings  possible."^  This  power 
of  Asiatic  and  Egyptian  kings,  Etruscan  theocrats,  &c.,  has  in 
modern  society  been  transferred  to  the  capitalist,  whether  he 
be  an  isolated,  or  as  in  joint  stock  companies,  a  collective 
capitalist. 

Co-operation,  such  as  we  find  it  at  the  dawn  of  human  de- 
velopment, among  races  who  live  by  the  chase, ^  or  say,  in 

*  R.  Jones.  "Textbook  of  Lectures,"  &c.,  pp.  77,  78.  The  ancient  Assyrian, 
Egyptian,  and  other  collections  in  London,  and  in  other  European  capitals,  make  us 
eye-witnesses  of  the  modes  of  carrying  on  that  co-operative  labour. 

»  Linguct  is  probably   right,  when  in   his   "Theorie  des  Lois  Civiles,"   he  declarea 


Co-Operation.  367 

the  agriculture  of  Indian  communities,  is  based,  on  the  one 
hand,  on  ownership  in  common  of  the  means  of  production, 
and  on  the  other  hand,  on  the  fact,  that  in  those  cases,  each 
individual  has  no  more  torn  himself  oif  from  the  navel-string 
of  his  tribe  or  community,  than  each  bee  has  freed  itself  from 
connexion  with  the  hive.  Such  co-operation  is  distinguished 
from  capitalistic  co-operation  by  both  of  the  above  characteris- 
tics. The  sporadic  application  of  co-operation  on  a  large  scale 
in  ancient  times,  in  the  middle  ages,  and  in  modern  colonies, 
reposes  on  relations  of  dominion  and  servitude,  principally  on 
slavery.  The  capitalistic  form,  on  the  contrary,  presupposes 
from  first  to  last,  the  free  wage  labourer,  who  sells  his  labour- 
power  to  capital.  Historically,  however,  this  form  is  devel- 
oped in  opposition  to  peasant  agriculture  and  to  the  carrying 
on  of  independent  handicrafts  whether  in  guilds  or  not.^  From 
the  standpoint  of  these,  capitalistic  co-operation  does  not  mani- 
fest itself  as  a  particular  historical  form  of  co-operation,  but 
co-operation  itself  appears  to  be  a  historical  form  peculiar  to, 
and  specifically  distinguishing,  the  capitalist  process  of  pro- 
duction. 

Just  as  the  social  productive  power  of  labour  that  is  de- 
veloped by  co-operation,  appears  to  he  the  productive  power 
of  capital,  so  co-operation  itself,  contrasted  with  the  process  of 
production  carried  on  by  isolated  independent  labourers,  or 
even  by  small  employers,  appears  to  be  a  specific  form  of  the 
capitalist  process  of  production.  It  is  the  first  change  experi- 
enced by  the  actual  labour-process,  when  subjected  to  capital. 
This  change  takes  place  spontaneously.  The  simultaneous 
employment  of  a  large  number  of  wage-labourers,  in  one  and 
the  same  process,  which  is  a  necessary  condition  of  this  change, 
also  forms  the  starting  .point  of  capitalist  production.  This 
point  coincides  with  the  birth  of  capital  itself.     If  then,  on  the 

hunting  to  be  the  first  form  of  co-operation,  and  man-hunting  (war)  one  of  the 
earliest  forms  of  hunting. 

^  Peasant  agriculture  on  a  small  scale,  and  the  carrying  on  of  independent  handi- 
crafts, which  together  form  the  basis  of  the  feudal  mode  of  production,  and  after 
the  dissolution  of  that  system,  continue  side  by  side  with  the  capitalist  mode,  also 
form  the  economic  foundation  of  the  classical  communities  at  their  best,  after  the 
primitive  form  of  ownership  of  land  in  common  had  disappeared,  and  before  slavery 
had  seized  on  production  in  earnest. 


368  Capitalist  Production. 

one  hand,  the  capitalist  mode  of  production  presents  itself  to 
us  historically,  as  a  necessary  condition  to  the  transformation 
of  the  labour-process  into  a  social  process,  so,  on  the  other  hand, 
this  social  form  of  the  labour-process  presents  itself,  as  a 
method  employed  by  capital  for  the  more  profitable  exploita- 
tion of  labour,  by  increasing  that  labour's  productiveness. 

In  the  elementary  form,  under  which  we  have  hitherto 
viewed  it,  co-operation  is  a  necessary  concomitant  of  all  pro- 
duction on  a  large  scale,  but  it  does  not,  in  itself,  represent 
a  fixed  form  characteristic  of  a  particular  epoch  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  capitalist  mode  of  production.  At  the  most  it 
appears  to  do  so,  and  that  only  approximately,  in  the  handi- 
craft-like beginnings  of  manufacture,^  and  in  that  kind  of 
agriculture  on  a  large  scale,  which  corresponds  to  the  epoch  of 
manufacture,  and  is  distinguished  from  peasant  agriculture, 
mainly  by  the  number  .of  the  labourers  simultaneously  em- 
ployed, and  by  the  mass  of  the  means  of  production  con- 
centrated for  their  use.  Simple  co-operation  is  always  the 
prevailing  form,  in  those  branches  of  .  production  in  which, 
capital  operates  on  a  large  scale,  and  division  of  labour  and 
machinery  play  but  a  subordinate  part. 

Co-operation  ever  constitutes  the  fundamental  form  of  the 
capitalist  mode  of  production;  nevertheless,  the  elementary 
form  of  co-operation  continues  to  subsist  as  a  particular  form 
of  capitalist  production  side  by  side  with  the  more  developed 
forms  of  that  mode  of  production. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

DIVISION  OP  LABOUR  AND  MANUFACTURE. 
SECTION    1. TWOFOLD   OEIGIN    OF   MANUFACTUKB. 

That  co-operation  which  is  based  on  division  of  labour,  as- 
sumes its  typical  form  in  the  manufacture,  and  is  the  prevalent 

'  "Whether  the  united  skill,  industry,  and  emulation  of  many  together  on  the 
same  work  be  not  the  way  to  advance  it?  And  whether  it  had  been  otherwise 
possible  for  England,  to  have  carried  on  her  Woollen  Manufacture  to  so  great  a  per- 
fection?"    (Berkeley.     "The  Querist."     London,  1760,  p.  66,  par.  621.) 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  369 

characteristic  form  of  the  capitalist  process  of  production 
throughout  the  manufacturing  period  properly  so  called.  That 
period,  roughly  speaking,  extends  from  the  middle  of  the  16th 
to  the  last  third  of  the  18th  century. 

Manufacture  takes  its  rise  in  two  ways: — 

(1)  By  the  assemblage,  in  one  workshop  under  the  control 
of  a  single  capitalist,  of  labourers  belonging  to  various  inde- 
pendent handicrafts,  but  through  whose  hands  a  given  article 
must  pass  on  its  way  to  completion.  A  carriage,  for  example, 
was  formerly  the  product  of  the  labour  of  a  great  number  of 
independent  artificers,  such  as  wheelwrights,  harness-makers, 
tailors,  locksmiths,  upholsterers,  turners,  fringe-makers,  gla- 
ziers, painters,  polishers,  gilders,  &c.  In  the  manufacture  of 
carriages,  however,  all  these  different  artificers  are  assembled 
in  one  building,  where  they  work  into  one  another's  hands. 
It  is  true  that  a  carriage  cannot  be  gilt  before  it  has  been  made. 
But  if  a  number  of  carriages  are  being  made  simultaneously, 
some  may  be  in  the  hands  of  the  gilders  while  others  are  going 
through  an  earlier  process.  So  far,  we  are  still  in  the  domain 
of  simple  co-operation,  which  finds  its  materials  ready  to  hand 
in  the  shape  of  men  and  things.  But  very  soon  an  important 
change  takes  place.  The  tailor,  the  locksmith,  and  the  other 
artificers,  being  now  exclusively  occupied  in  carriage-making, 
each  gradually  loses,  through  want  of  practice,  the  ability  to 
carry  on,  to  its  full  extent,  his  old  handicraft.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  his  activity  now  confined  in  one  groove,  assumes 
the  form  best  adapted  to  the  narrowed  sphere  of  action.  At 
first,  carriage  manufacture  is  a  combination  of  various  inde- 
pendent handicrafts.  By  degrees,  it  becomes  the  splitting  up 
of  carriage  making  into  its  various  detail  processes,  each  of 
which  crystallizes  into  the  exclusive  function  of  a  particular 
workman,  the  manufacture,  as  a  whole,  being  carried  on  by 
the  men  in  conjunction.  In  the  same  way,  cloth  manufacture, 
as  also  a  whole  series  of  other  manufactures,  arose  by  com- 
bining different  handicrafts  together  under  the  control  of  a 
single  capitalist.* 

*  To  give  a  more  modern  instance:     The  silk  spinning  and  weaving  of  Lyons  and 
Nimes   "est  toute  patriarcale;   elle  emploie   beaucoup   de   femmes   et   d'enfants,   mais 

X 


270  Capitalist  Production. 

(2.)  Manufacture  also  arises  in  a  way  exactly  the  reverse  of 
this — ^namely,  hy  one  capitalist  employing  simultaneously  in 
one  workshop  a  number  of  artificers,  who  all  do  the  same,  or 
the  same  kind  of  work,  such  as  making  paper,  type,  or  needles. 
This  is  co-operation  in  its  most  elementary  form.  Each  of 
these  artificers  (with  the  help,  perhaps,  of  one  or  two  appren- 
tices), makes  the  entire  commodity,  and  he  consequently  per- 
forms in  succession  all  the  operations  necessary  for  its  produc- 
tion. He  still  works  in  his  old  handicraft-like  way.  But 
very  soon  external  circumstances  cause  a  different  use  to  be 
made  of  the  concentration  of  the  workmen  on  one  spot,  and 
of  the  simultaneousness  of  their  work.  An  increased  quantity 
of  the  article  has  perhaps  to  be  delivered  within  a  given  time. 
The  work  is  therefore  re-distributed.  Instead  of  each  man 
being  allowed  to  perform  all  the  various  operations  in  succes- 
sion, these  operations  are  changed  into  disconnected,  isolated 
ones,  carried  on  side  by  side;  each  is  assigned  to  a  different 
artificer,  and  the  whole  of  them  together  are  performed  simul- 
taneously by  the  co-operating  workmen.  This  accidental  re- 
partition gets  repeated,  developes  advantages  of  its  own,  and 
gradually  ossifies  into  a  systematic  division  of  labour.  The 
commodity,  from  being  the  individual  product  of  an  inde- 
pendent artificer,  becomes  the  social  product  of  a  union  of 
artificers,  each  of  whom  performs  one,  and  only  one,  of  the 
constituent  partial  operations.  The  same  operations  which,  in 
the  case  of  a  papermaker  belonging  to  a  German  Guild,  merged 
one  into  the  other  as  the  successive  acta  of  one  artificer,  became 
in  the  Dutch  paper  manufacture  so  many  partial  operations 
carried  on  side  by  side  by  numerous  co-operating  labourers. 
The  needlemaker  of  the  Nuremberg  Guild  was  the  comer- 

sans  les  epuiser  ni  les  corrompre;  elle  les  laisse  dans  leur  belles  vallees  de  la  Drome, 
du  Var,  de  I'lsere,  de  Vauduse,  pour  y  elever  des  vers  et  devider  leurs  cocons;  jamais 
elle  n'entrc  dans  une  veritable  fabrique.  Pour  etre  aussi  bien  observe  .  .  .  le 
principe  de  la  division  du  travail  s'y  revet  d'un  caractere  special.  U  y  a  bien  des 
devideuses,  des  moulineurs,  des  teinturiers,  des  encolleurs,  puis  des  tisserands;  mais 
ils  ne  sont  pas  reunis  dans  un  meme  etablissement,  ne  dependent  pas  d'un  meme 
maitre;  tous  ils  sont  independants."  (A.  Blanqui:  "Cours  d'Econ.  Industrielle." 
Recueilli  par  A.  Blaise.  Paris,  1838-39,  pp.  79).  Since  Blanqui  wrote  this,  the 
various  independent  labourers  have,  to  some  extent,  been  united  in  factories.  [And 
since  Marx  wrote  the  above,  the  powerloom  has  invaded  these  factories,  and  is  now 
— 1886 — ^rapidly  superseding  the  handloom.     Ed.] 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  371 

stone  on  "whieli  the  English  needle  manufacture  was  raised. 
But  while  in  Nuremberg  that  single  artificer  performed  a  series 
of  perhaps  20  operations  one  after  another,  in  England  it  was 
not  long  before  there  were  20  needlemakers  side  by  side,  each 
performing  one  alone  of  those  20  operations;  and  in  conse- 
quence of  further  experience,  each  of  those  20  operations  was 
again  split  up,  isolated,  and  made  the  exclusive  function  of  a 
separate  workman. 

The  mode  in  which  manufacture  arises,  its  growth  out  of 
handicrafts,  is  therefore  twofold.  On  the  one  hand,  it  arises 
from  the  union  of  various  independent  handicrafts,  which  be- 
come stripped  of  their  independence  and  specialised  to  such  an 
extent  as  to  be  reduced  to  mere  supplementary  partial  processes 
in  the  production  of  one  particular  commodity.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  arises  from  the  co-operation  of  artificers  of  one  handi- 
craft; it  splits  up  that  particular  handicraft  into  its  various 
detail  operations,  isolating,  and  making  these  operations  inde- 
pendent of  one  another  up  to  the  point  where  each  becomes  the 
exclusive  function  of  a  particular  labourer.  On  the  one  hand, 
therefore,  manufacture  either  introduces  division  of  labour 
into  a  process  of  production,  or  further  developes  that  divi- 
sion ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  unites  together  handicrafts  that 
were  formerly  separate.  But  whatever  may  have  been  its  par- 
ticular starting  point,  its  final  form  is  invariably  the  same — a 
productive  mechanism  whose  parts  are  human  beings. 

For  a  proper  understanding  of  the  division  of  labour  in 
manufacture,  it  is  essential  that  the  following  points  be  firmly 
grasped.  Eirst,  the  decomposition  of  a  process  of  production 
into  its  various  successive  steps  coincides,  here,  strictly  with 
the  resolution  of  a  handicraft  into  its  successive  manual  opera- 
tions. Whether  complex  or  simple,  each  operation  has  to  be 
done  by  hand,  retains  the  character  of  a  handicraft,  and  is 
therefore  dependent  on  the  strength,  skill,  quickness,  and  sure- 
ness,  of  the  individual  workman  in  handling  his  tools.  The 
handicraft  continues  to  be  the  basis.  This  narrow  technical 
basis  excludes  a  really  scientific  analysis  of  any  definite  process 
of  industrial  production,  since  it  is  still  a  condition  that  each 
detail  process  gone  through  by  the  product  must  be  capable  of 


yjQ  Capitalist  Production. 

being  done  by  hand  and  of  forming,  in  its  way,  a  separate 
handicraft.  It  is  just  because  handicraft  skill  continues,  in 
this  way,  to  be  the  foundation  of  the  process  of  production, 
that  each  workman  becomes  exclusively  assigned  to  a  partial 
function,  and  that  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  his  labour-power  is 
turned  into  the  organ  of  this  detail  function. 

Secondly,  this  division  of  labour  is  a  particular  sort  of  co- 
operation, and  many  of  its  disadvantages  spring  from  the 
general  character  of  co-operation,  and  not  from  this  particular 
form  of  it. 

SECTION    2. THE    DETAIL    LABOTJIIEIE,    AND    HIS    IMPLEMENTS. 

If  we  now  go  more  into  detail,  it  is,  in  the  first  place,  clear 
that  a  labourer  who  all  his  life  performs  one  and  the  same 
simple  operation,  converts  his  whole  body  into  the  automatic, 
specialised  implement  of  that  operation.  Consequently,  he 
takes  less  time  in  doing  it,  than  the  artificer  who  performs  a 
whole  series  of  operations  in  succession.  But  the  collective 
labourer,  who  constitutes  the  living  mechanism  of  manufacture, 
is  made  up  solely  of  such  specialised  detail  labourers.  Hence, 
in  comparison  with  the  independent  handicraft,  more  is  pro- 
duced in  a  given  time,  or  the  productive  power  of  labour  is 
increased.*  Moreover,  when  once  this  fractional  work  is  es- 
tablished as  the  exclusive  function  of  one  person,  the  methods 
it  employs  become  perfected.  The  workman's  continued  repe- 
tition of  the  same  simple  act,  and  the  concentration  of  his 
attention  on  it,  teach  him  by  experience  how  to  attain  the 
desired  effect  with  the  minimum  of  exertion.  But  since  there 
are  always  several  generations  of  labourers  living  at  one  time, 
and  working  together  at  the  manufacture  of  a  given  article, 
the  technical  skill,  the  tricks  of  the  trade  thus  acquired,  be- 
come established,  and  are  accumulated  and  handed  down.^ 
Manufacture,  in  fact,  produces  the  skill  of  the  detail  labourer, 

•  "The  more  any  manufacture  of  much  variety  shall  be  distributed  and  assigned 
to  different  artists,  the  same  must  needs  be  better  done  and  with  greater  expedition, 
with  less  loss  of  time  and  labour."  ("The  Advantages  of  the  East  India  Trade," 
Lond.,   1720.  p.   71.) 

*  "Easy  labour  is  transmitted  skill."     (Th.   Hodgsldn,  1.  c.  p.  126.) 


Division  of  Labour  and  Mcmufacture.  373 

by  reproducing,  and  systematically  driving  to  an  extreme 
within  the  workshop,  the  naturally  developed  differentiation 
of  trades,  which  it  found  ready  to  hand  in  society  at  large. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  conversion  of  fractional  work  into  the 
life-calling  of  one  man,  corresponds  to  the  tendency  shown  by 
earlier  societies,  to  make  trades  hereditary;  either  to  petrify 
them  into  castes,  or  whenever  definite  historical  conditions 
beget  in  the  individual  a  tendency  to  vary  in  a  manner  incom- 
patible with  the  nature  of  castes,  to  ossify  them  into  guilds. 
Castes  and  guilds  arise  from  the  action  of  the  same  natural 
law,  that  regulates  the  differentiation  of  plants  and  animals 
into  species  and  varieties,  except  that,  when  a  certain  degree 
of  development  has  been  reached,  the  heredity  of  castes  and 
the  exclusiveness  of  guilds  are  ordained  as  a  law  of  society.* 
"The  muslins  of  Dakka  in  fineness,  the  calicoes  and  other  piece 
goods  of  Coromandel  in  brilliant  and  durable  colours,  have 
never  been  surpassed.  Yet  they  are  produced  vdthout  capital, 
machinery,  division  of  labour,  or  any  of  those  means  which 
give  such  facilities  to  the  manufacturing  interest  of  Europe. 
The  weaver  is  merely  a  detached  individual,  working  a  web 
when  ordered  of  a  customer,  and  with  a  loom  of  the  rudest 
construction,  consisting  sometimes  of  a  few  branches  or  bars  of 
wood,  put  roughly  together.  There  is  even  no  expedient  for 
rolling  up  the  warp ;  the  loom  must  therefore  be  kept  stretched 
to  its  full  length,  and  becomes  so  inconveniently  large,  that  it 
cannot  be  contained  within  the  hut  of  the  manufacturer,  who 
is  therefore  compelled  to  ply  his  trade  in  the  open  air,  where 
it  is  interrupted  by  every  vicissitude  of  the  weather."^  It  is 
only  the  special  skill  accumulated  from  generation  to  genera- 

*  "The  arts  also  have  ...  in  Egypt  reached  the  requisite  degree  of  perfection. 
For  it  is  the  only  country  where  artificers  may  not  in  any  way  meddle  with  the 
affairs  of  another  class  of  citizens,  but  must  follow  that  calling  alone  which  by 
law  is  hereditary  in  the^r  clan  ...  In  other  countries  it  is  found  that  trades- 
men divide  their  attention  between  too  many  objects.  At  one  time  they  try  agri- 
culture, at  another  they  take  to  commerce,  at  another  they  busy  themselves  with  two 
or  three  occupations  at  once.  In  free  countries,  they  mostly  frequent  the  assemblies 
of  the  people.  ...  In  Egypt,  on  the  contrary,  every  artificer  is  severely  pun- 
ished if  he  meddles  with  affairs  of  State,  or  carries  on  several  trades  at  once.  Thus 
there  is  nothing  to  disturb  their  application  to  their  calling.  •  .  .  Moreover,  since 
they  inherit  from  their  forefathers  numerous  rules,  they  are  eager  to  discover  fresh 
advantages."     (Diodorus   Siculus:     Bibl.   Hist.  1.    1.   c.    74.) 

^  Historical   and   descriptive    account   of    Brit.    India,   &c.,    by  Hugh  Murray   and 


374  Capitalist  Production. 

tion,  and  transmitted  from  father  to  son,  that  gives  to  the 
Hindoo,  as  it  does  to  the  spider,  this  proficiency.  And  yet  the 
work  of  such  a  Hindoo  weaver  is  very  complicated,  compared 
with  that  of  a  manufacturing  labourer. 

An  artificer,  who  performs  one  after  another  the  various 
fractional  operations  in  the  production  of  a  finished  article, 
must  at  one  time  change  his  place,  at  another  his  tools.  The 
transition  from  one  operation  to  another  interrupts  the  flow 
of  his  labour,  and  creates,  so  to  say,  gaps  in  his  working  day. 
These  gaps  close  up  so  soon  as  he  is  tied  to  one  and  the  same 
operation  all  day  long;  they  vanish  in  proportion  as  the 
changes  in  his  work  diminish.  The  resulting  increased  pro- 
ductive power  is  owing  either  to  an  increased  expenditure  of 
labour-power  in  a  given  time — i.e.,  to  increased  intensity  of 
labour — or  to  a  decrease  in  the  amount  of  labour-power  un- 
productively  consumed.  The  extra  expenditure  of  power,  de- 
manded by  every  transition  from  rest  to  motion,  is  made  up 
for  by  prolonging  the  duration  of  the  normal  velocity  when 
once  acquired.  On  the  other  hand,  constant  labour  of  one 
uniform  kind  disturbs  the  intensity  and  flow  of  a  man's  animal 
spirits,  which  find  recreation  and  delight  in  mere  change  of 
activity. 

The  productiveness  of  labour  depends  not  only  on  the  pro- 
ficiency of  the  workman,  but  on  the  perfection  of  his  tools. 
Tools  of  the  same  kind,  such  as  knives,  drills,  gimlets,  ham- 
mers, &c.  may  be  employed  in  different  processes;  and  the 
same  tool  may  serve  various  purposes  in  a  single  process.  But 
so  soon  as  the  different  operations  of  a  labour-process  are  dis- 
connected the  one  from  the  other,  and  each  fractional  operation 
acquires  in  the  hands  of  the  detail  labourer  a  suitable  and 
peculiar  form,  alterations  become  necessary  in  the  implements 
that  previously  served  more  than  one  purpose.  The  direction 
taken  by  this  change  is  determined  by  the  difficulties  ex- 
perienced in  consequence  of  the  unchanged  form  of  the  imple- 
ment.    Manufacture  is  characterized  by  the  differentiation  of 

James  Wilson,  &c.,  Edinburgh  1832.  v.  11.  p.  449.  The  Indian  loom  is  upright,  i.  e., 
the  warp  is  stretched  vertically. 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  375 

the  instruments  of  labour — a  differentiation  whereby  imple- 
ments of  a  given  sort  acquire  fixed  shapes,  adapted  to  each 
particular  application,  and  by  the  specialisation  of  those  in- 
struments, giving  to  each  special  instrument  its  full  play  only 
in  the  hands  of  a  specific  detail  labourer.  In  Birmingham 
alone  500  varieties  of  hammers  are  produced,  and  not  only  is 
each  adapted  to  one  particular  process,  but  several  varieties 
often  serve  exclusively  for  the  different  operations  in  one  and 
the  same  process.  The  manufacturing  period  simplifies,  im- 
proves, and  multiplies  the  implem.ents  of  labour,  by  adapting 
them  to  the  exclusively  special  functions  of  each  detail  la- 
bourer.^ It  thus  creates  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  material 
conditions  for  the  existence  of  machinery,  which  consists  of  a 
combination  of  simple  instruments. 

The  detail  labourer  and  his  implements  are  the  simplest 
elements  of  manufacture.  Let  us  now  turn  to  its  aspect  as  a 
whole. 

SECTION  3. THE  TWO  FUNDAMENTAL  FORMS  OF  MANUFAC- 
TURE I  HETEROGENEOUS  MANUFACTURE,  SERIAT.  MANUFAC- 
TTJBE. 

The  organisation  of  manufacture  has  two  fundamental 
forms,  which,  in  spite  of  occasional  blending,  are  essentially 
different  in  kind,  and,  moreover,  play  very  distinct  parts  in  the 
subsequent  transformation  of  manufacture  into  modern  indus- 
try carried  on  by  machinery.  This  double  character  arises 
from  the  nature  of  the  article  produced.  This  article  either 
results  from  the  mere  mechanical  fitting  together  of  partial 
products  made  independently,  or  owes  its  completed  shape  to 
a  series  of  connected  processes  and  manipulations. 

A  locomotive,  for  instance,  consists  of  more  than  5000  inde- 
pendent parts.     It  cannot,  however,  serve  as  an  example  of 

*  Darwin  in  his  epoch-making  work  on  the  origin  of  species,  remarks,  with  refer- 
ence to  the  natural  organs  of  plants  and  animals,  "So  long  as  one  and  the  same 
organ  has  different  kinds  of  work  to  perform,  a  ground  for  its  changeability  may 
possibly  be  found  in  this,  that  natural  selection  preserves  or  suppresses  each  small 
variation  of  form  less  carefully  than  if  that  organ  were  destined  for  one  special 
purpose  alone.  Thus,  knives  that  are  adapted  to  cut  all  sorts  of  things,  may,  on  the 
whole,  be  of  one  shape;  hut  an  implement  destined  to  be  used  exclusively  in  one 
way   must  have   a  different   shape  for  every  different  use." 


T^'jd  Capitalist  Production. 

the  first  kind  of  genuine  manufacture,  for  it  is  a  structure 
produced  by  modern  mechanical  industry.     But  a  watch  can ; 
and  William  Petty  used  it  to  illustrate  the  division  of  labour 
in  manufacture.     Formerly  the  individual  work  of  a  Nurem- 
berg artificer,  the  watch  has  been  transformed  into  the  social 
product  of  an  immense  number  of  detail  labourers,  such  as 
mainspring  makers,  dial  makers,  spiral  spring  makers,  jewelled 
hole  makers,  ruby  lever  makers,  hand  makers,  case  makers, 
screw  makers,  gilders,  with  numerous  sub-divisions,  such  as 
wheel  makers  (brass  and  steel  separate),  pin  makers,  movement 
makers,  acheveur  de  pignon   (fixes  the  wheels  on  tlie  axles, 
polishes  the  facets,  &c.),  pivot  makers,  planteur  de  finissagc 
(puts  the  wheels  and  springs  in  the  works),  finisseur  de  barillet 
(cuts  teeth  in  the  wheels,  makes  the  holes  of  the  right  size, 
&c.),  escapement  makers,  cylinder  makers  for  cylinder  escape- 
ment, escapement  wheel  makers,  balance  wheel  makers,  ra- 
quette    makers    (apparatus   for   regulating   the    watch),    the 
planteur  d'echappement  (escapement  maker  proper)  ;  then  the 
repasseur  de  barrillet  (finishes  the  box  for  the  spring,  &c.), 
steel  polishers,  wheel  polishers,  screw  polishers,  figure  painters, 
dial  enamellers  (melt  the  enamel  on  the  copper),  fabricant  de 
pendants  (makes  the  ring  by  which  the  case  is  hung),  finisseur 
de  charniere  (puts  the  brass  hinge  in  the  cover,  &c.)  faiseur 
de  secret  (puts  in  the  springs  that  open  the  case),  graveur, 
ciseleur,  polisseur  de  boite,  &c.,  &c.,  and  last  of  all  the  re- 
passeur, who  fits  together  the  whole  watch  and  hands  it  over  in 
a  going  state.     Only  a  few  parts  of  the  watch  pass  through 
several  hands;  and  all  these  membra  disjecta  come  together  for 
the  first  time  in  the  hand  that  binds  them  into  one  mechanical 
whole.     This  external  relation  between  the  finished  product, 
and  its  various  and  diverse  elements  makes  it,  as  well  in  this 
case  as  in  the  case  of  all  similar  finished  articles,  a  matter  of 
chance  whether  the  detail  labourers  are  brought  together  in 
one  workshop  or  not.     The  detail  operations  may  further  be 
carried  on  like  so  many  independent  handicrafts,  as  they  are 
in  the  Cantons  of  Vaud  and  Neufchatel ;  while  in  Geneva  there 
exist  large  watch  manufactories  where  the  detail  labourers 
directly  co-operate  under  the  control  of  a  single  capitalist. 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  377 

And  even  in  the  latter  ease  the  dial,  the  springs,  and  the  case, 
are  seldom  made  in  the  factory  itself.  To  carry  on  the  trade 
as  a  manufacture,  with  concentration  of  workmen,  is,  in  the 
watch  trade,  profitable  only  under  exceptional  conditions,  be- 
cause competition  is  greater  between  the  labourers  who  desire 
to  work  at  home,  and  because  the  splitting  up  of  the  work 
into  a  number  of  heterogeneous  processes,  permits  but  little 
use  of  the  instruments  of  labour  in  common,  and  the  capitalist, 
by  scattering  the  work,  saves  the  outlay  on  workshops,  &c.^ 
Nevertheless  the  position  of  this  detail  labourer  who,  though 
he  works  at  home,  does  so  for  a  capitalist  (manufacturer, 
etablisseur),  is  very  different  from  that  of  the  independent 
artificer,  who  works  for  his  own  customers.^ 

The  second  kind  of  manufacture,  its  perfected  form,  pro- 
duces articles  that  go  through  connected  phases  of  develop- 
ment, through  a  series  of  processes  step  by  step,  like  the  wire 
in  the  manufacture  of  needles,  which  passes  through  the  hands 
of  72  and  sometimes  even  92  different  detail  workmen. 

In  so  far  as  such  a  manufacture,  when  first  started,  com- 
bines scattered  handicrafts,  it  lessens  the  space  by  which  the 
various  phases  of  production  are  separated  from  each  other. 
The  time  taken  in  passing  from  one  stage  to  another  is 
shortened,  so  is  the  labour  that  effectuates  this  passage.^  In 
comparison  with  a  handicraft,  productive  power  is  gained,  and 

'  In  the  year  1854  Geneva  produced  80,000  watches,  which  is  not  one-fifth  of  the 
production  in  the  Canton  of  Neufchatel.  La  Chaux-de-Fond  alone,  which  we  may 
look  upon  as  a  huge  watch  manufactory,  produces  yearly  twice  as  many  as  Geneva. 
From  1850-61  Geneva  produced  750,000  watches.  See  "Report  from  Geneva  on  the 
Watch  Trade"  in  "Reports  by  H.  M.'s  Secretaries  of  Embassy  and  Legation  on  the 
Manufactures,  Commerce,  &c.,  No.  6,  1863."  The  want  of  connexion  alone,  between 
the  processes  into  which  the  production  of  articles  that  merely  consist  of  parts  fitted 
together  is  split  up,  makes  it  very  difficult  to  convert  such  a  manufacture  into  a 
branch  of  modern  industry  carried  on  by  machinery;  but  in  the  case  of  a  watch  there 
are  two  other  impediments  in  addition,  the  minuteness  and  delicacy  of  its  parts,  and 
its  character  as  an  article  of  luxury.  Hence  their  variety,  which  is  such,  that  in  the 
best  London  houses  scarcely  a  dozen  watches  are  made  alike  in  the  course,  of  a  year. 
The  watch  manufactory  of  Messrs.  Vacheron  &  Constantin,  in  which  machinery  has 
been  employed  with  success,  produces  at  the  most  three  or  four  different  varieties  of 
size   and    form. 

*  In  watchmaking,  that  classical  example  of  heterogeneous  manufacture,  we  may 
study  with  great  accuracy  the  above  mentioned  differentiation  and  specialisation  of 
the  instruments  of  labour  caused   by  the  sub-division   of   handicrafts. 

*  "In  so  close  a  cohabitation  of  the  people,  the  carriage  must  needs  be  less." 
("The   Advantages  of   the   East   India   Trade,"   p.    106.) 


3/8  Capitalist  Production. 

this  gain  is  owing  to  the  general  co-operative  character  of 
manufacture.  On  the  other  hand,  division  of  labour,  which  is 
the  distinguishing  principle  of  manufacture,  requires  the  isola- 
tion of  the  various  stages  of  production  and  their  independ- 
ence of  each  other.  The  establishment  and  maintenance  of  a 
connexion  between  the  isolated  functions  necessitates  the  in- 
cessant transport  of  the  article  from  one  hand  to  another,  and 
from  one  process  to  another.  From  the  standpoint  of  modem 
mechanical  industry,  this  necessity  stands  forth  as  a  character- 
istic and  costly  disadvantage,  and  one  that  is  immanent  in  the 
principle  of  manufacture.^ 

If  we  confine  our  attention  to  some  particular  lot  of  raw 
materials,  of  rags,  for  instance,  in  paper  manufacture,  or  of 
wire  in  needle  manufacture,  we  perceive  that  it  passes  in 
succession  through  a  series  of  stages  in  the  hands  of  the 
various  detail  workmen  until  completion.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  we  look  at  the  workshop  as  a  whole,  we  see  the  raw  material 
in  all  the  stages  of  its  production  at  the  same  time.  The  col- 
lective labourer,  with  one  set  of  his  many  hands  armed  with 
one  kind  of  tools,  draws  the  wire,  with  another  set,  armed 
with  different  tools,  he,  at  the  same  time,  straightens  it,  with 
another,  he  cuts  it,  with  another  points  it  and  so  on.  The 
different  detail  processes  which  were  successive  in  time,  have 
become  simultaneous,  go  on  side  by  side  in  space.  Hence, 
production  of  greater  quantum  of  finished  commodities  in  a 
given  time.2  This  simultaneity,  it  is  true,  is  due  to  the 
general  co-operative  form  of  the  process  as  a  whole;  but 
Manufacture  not  only  finds  the  conditions  for  co-operation 
really  to  hand,  it  also,  to  some  extent,  creates  them  by  the 
sub-division   of  handicraft  labour.     On  the  other   hand,    it 

*  "The  isolation  of  the  different  stages  of  manufacture,  consequent  upon  the  em- 
ployment of  manual  labour,  adds  immensely  to  the  cost  of  production,  the  loss 
mainly  arising  from  the  mere  removals  from  one  process  to  another."  ("The  In- 
dustry of  Nations."     Lond.,  1856.     Part  II.,  p.  200.) 

*  "It  (the  division  of  labour)  produces  also  an  economy  of  time  by  separating  the 
work  into  its  different  branches,  all  of  which  may  be  carried  on  into  execution  at 
the  same  moment.  ...  By  carrying  on  all  the  different  processes  at  ,once,  which 
an  individual  must  have  executed  separately,  it  becomes  possible  to  produce  a  multi- 
tude of  pins  completely  finished  in  the  same  time  as  a  single  pin  might  have  been 
either  cut  or  pointed."     (Dugald  Stewart,  1.  c,  p.  319.) 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  379 

accomplishes  this  social  organisation  of  the  labour-process  only 
by  riveting  each  labourer  to  a  single  fractional  detail. 

Since  the  fractional  product  of  each  detail  labourer  is,  at  the 
same  time,  only  a  particular  stage  in  the  development  of  one 
and  the  same  finished  article,  each  labourer,  or  each  group  of 
labourers,  prepares  the  rav^^  material  for  another  labourer  or 
group.  The  result  of  the  labour  of  the  one  is  the  starting 
point  for  the  labour  of  the  other.  The  workman  therefore 
gives  occupation  directly  to  the  other.  The  labour-time 
necessary  in  each  partial  process,  for  attaining  the  desired 
effect,  is  learnt  by  experience ;  and  the  mechanism  of  Manu- 
facture, as  a  whole,  is  based  on  the  assumption  that  a  given 
result  will  be  obtained  in  a  given  time.  It  is  only  on  this 
assumption  that  the  various  supplementary  labour-processes 
can  proceed  uninterruptedly,  simultaneously,  and  side  by  side. 
It  is  clear  that  this  direct  dependence  of  the  operations,  and 
therefore  of  the  labourers,  on  each  other,  compels  each  one  of 
them  to  spend  on  his  work  no  more  than  the  necessary  time, 
and  thus  a  continuity,  uniformity,  regularity,  order,  ^  and  even 
intensity  of  labour,  of  quite  a  different  kind,  is  begotten  than 
is  to  be  found  in  an  independent  handicraft  or  even  in  simple 
co-operation.  The  rule  that  the  labour-time  expended  on  a 
commodity  should  not  exceed  that  which  is  socially  necessary 
for  its  production,  appears,  in  the  production  of  commodities 
generally,  to  be  established  by  the  mere  effect  of  competition ; 
since,  to  express  ourselves  superficially,  each  single  producer 
is  obliged  to  sell  his  commodity  at  its  market  price.  In 
Manufacture,  on  the  contrary,  the  turning  out  of  a  given 
quantum  of  product  in  a  given  time  is  a  technical  law  of  the 
process  of  production  itself.^ 

Different  operations  take,  however,  unequal  periods,  and 
yield  therefore,  in  equal  times  unequal  quantities  of  fractional 
products.     If,  therefore,  the  same  labourer  has,  day  after  day, 

^  "The  more  variety  of  artists  to  every  manufacture  .  .  .  the  greater  the  order 
and  regularity  of  every  work,  the  same  must  needs  be  done  in  less  time,  the  labour 
must   be   less."      ("The  .Advantages,"   &c.,   p.   GS.) 

^  Nevertheless,  the  manufacturing  system,  in  many  branches  of  industry,  attains 
this  result  but  very  imperfectly,  because  it  knows  not  how  to  control  with  certainty 
the  general  chemical  and  physical  conditions   of  the  process  of  production. 


380  Capitalist  Production. 

to  perform  the  same  operation,  there  must  be  a  different  num- 
ber of  labourers  for  each  operation ;  for  instance,  in  type  manu- 
facture, there  are  four  founders  and  two  breakers  to  one  rub- 
ber: the  founder  casts  2,000  type  an  hour,  the  breaker  breaks 
up  4,000,  and  the  rubber  polishes  8,000.  Here  we  have  again 
the  principle  of  co-operation  in  its  simplest  form,  the  simulta- 
neous employment  of  many  doing  the  same  thing;  only  now, 
this  principle  is  the  expression  of  an  "organic  relation.  The 
division  of  labour,  as  carried  out  in  the  Manufacture,  not  only 
simplifies  and  multiplies  the  qualitatively  different  parts  of  the 
social  collective  labourer,  but  also  creates  a  fixed  mathematical 
relation  or  ratio  which  regulates  the  qualitative  extent  of  those 
parts — i.e.,  the  relative  number  of  labourers,  or  the  relative 
size  of  the  group  of  labourers,  for  each  detail  operation.  It  de- 
velopes,  along  with  the  qualitative  sub-division  of  the  social 
labour  process,  a  quantitative  rule  and  proportionality  for  that 
process. 

When  once  the  most  fitting  proportion  has  been  experi- 
mentally established  for  the  numbers  of  the  detail  labourers  in 
the  various  groups  when  producing  on  a  given  scale,  that  scale 
can  be  extended  only  by  employing  a  multiple  of  each  particu- 
lar group.  ^  There  is  this  to  boot,  that  the  same  individual  can 
do  certain  kinds  of  work  just  as  well  on  a  large  as  on  a  small 
scale ;  for  instance,  the  labour  of  superintendence,  the  carriage 
of  the  fractional  product  from  one  stage  to  the  next,  &c.  The 
isolation  of  such  functions,  their  allotment  to  a  particular 
labourer,  does  not  become  advantageous  till  after  an  increase 
in  the  number  of  labourers  employed ;  but  this  increase  must 
affect  every  group  proportionally. 

The  isolated  group  of  labourers  to  whom  any  particular 
detail  function  is  assigned,  is  made  up  of  homogeneous  ele- 
ments, and  is  one  of  the  constituent  parts  of  the  total 
mechanism.     In  many  manufactures,  however,  the  group  itself 

*  "When  (from  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  produce  of  each  manufactory),  the  num- 
bar  of  processes  into  which  it  is  most  advantageous  to  divide  it  is  ascertained,  as 
well  as  the  number  of  individuals  to  be  employed,  then  all  other  manufactories  which 
do  not  employ  a  direct  multiple  of  this  number  will  produce  the  article  at  a  greater 
cost.  .  .  .  Hence  arises  one  of  the  causes  of  the  great  size  of  manufacturing 
establishments."  (C.  Babbage.  "On  the  Economy  of  Machinery,"  1st  ed.  London, 
1832.     Ch.   xxi.,   p.   172-173.) 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  381 

is  an  organised  bodj  of  labour,  the  total  mechanism  being  a 
repetition  or  multiplication  of  these  elementary  organisms. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  manufacture  of  glass  bottles.  It  may 
be  resolved  into  three  essentially  different  stages.  First,  the 
preliminary  stage,  consisting  of  the  preparation  of  the  com- 
ponents of  the  glass,  mixing  the  sand  and  lime,  &c.,  and  melt- 
ing them  into  a  fluid  mass  of  glass.  ^  Various  detail  labourers 
are  employed  in  this  first  stage,  and  also  in  the  final  one  of  re- 
moving the  bottles  from  the  drying  furnace,  sorting  and  pack- 
ing them,  &c.  In  the  middle^  between  these  two  stages,  comes 
the  glass  melting  proper,  the  manipulation  of  the  fluid  mass. 
At  each  mouth  of  the  furnace,  there  works  a  group,  called  "the 
•hole,"  consisting  of  one  bottlemaker  or  finisher,  one  blower, 
one  gatherer,  one  putter-up  or  whetter-off,  and  one  taker-in. 
These  five  detail  workers  are  so  many  special  organs  of  a  single 
working  organism  that  acts  only  as  a  whole,  and  therefore  can 
operate  only  by  the  direct  co-operation  of  the  whole  five.  The 
whole  body  is  paralysed  if  but  one  of  its  members  be  wanting. 
But  a  glass  furnace  has  several  openings  (in  England  from  4 
to  6),  each  of  which  contains  an  earthenware  melting-pot  full 
of  molten  glass,  and  employs  a  similar  five-membered  group  of 
workers.  The  organisation  of  each  group  is  based  on  division 
of  labour,  but  the  bond  between  the  different  groups  is  simple 
co-operation,  which,  by  using  in  common  one  of  the  means  of 
production  the  furnace,  causes  it  to  be  more  economically  con- 
sumed. Such  a  furnace,  with  its  4-6  groups,  constitutes  a 
glass  house;  and  a  glass  manufactory  comprises  a  number  of 
such  glass  houses,  together  with  the  apparatus  and  workmen 
requisite  for  the  preparatory  and  final  stages. 

Finally,  just  as  Manufacture  arises  in  part  from  the  com- 
bination of  various  handicrafts,  so,  too,  it  developes  into  a  com- 
bination of  various  manufactures.  The  larger  English  glass 
manufacturers,  for  instance,  make  their  own  earthenware 
melting-pots,  because,  on  the  quality  of  these  depends,  to  a 
great  extent,  the  success  or  failure  of  the  process.     The  manu- 

*  In  England,  the  melting-furnace  is  distinct  from  the  glass-furnace  in  which  the 
glass  is  manipulated.  In  Belgium,  one  and  the  same  furnace  serves  for  both 
processes. 


382  Capitalist  Production. 

facture  of  one  of  the  means  of  production  is  here  united  with 
that  of  the  product.  On  the  other  hand,  the  manufacture  of 
the  product  may  be  united  with  other  manufactures,  of  which 
that  product  is  the  raw  material,  or  with  the  products  of  which 
it  is  itself  subsequently  mixed.  Thus,  we  find  the  manufac- 
ture of  flint  glass  combined  with  that  of  glass  cutting  and  brass 
founding;  the  latter  for  the  metal  settings  of  various  articles 
of  glass.  The  various  manufactures  so  combined  form  more  or 
less  separate  departments  of  a  larger  manufacture,  but  are  at 
the  same  time  independent  processes,  each  with  its  own 
division  of  labour.  In  spite  of  the  many  advantages  offered  by 
this  combination  of  manufactures,  it  never  grows  into  a  com- 
plete technical  system  on  its  own  foundation.  That  happens 
only  on  its  transformation  into  an  industry  carried  on  by  ma- 
chinery. 

Early  in  the  manufacturing  period,  the  principle  of  lessen- 
ing the  necessary  labour-time  in  the  production  of  commodi- 
ties,^ was  accepted  and  formulated:  and  the  use  of  machines, 
especially  for  certain  simple  first  processes  that  have  to  be  con- 
ducted on  a  very  large  scale,  and  with  the  application  of  great 
force,  sprang  up  here  and  there.  Thus,  at  an  early  period  in 
paper  manufacture,  the  tearing  up  of  the  rags  was  done  by 
paper  mills;  and  in  metal  works,  the  pounding  of  the  ores 
was  effected  by  stamping  mills.^  The  Roman  Empire  had 
handed  down  the  elementary  form  of  all  machinery  in  the 
water-wheel.* 

The  handicraft  period  bequeathed  to  us  the  great  inventions 
of  the  compass,  of  gunpowder,  of  type-printing,  and  of  the 
automatic  clock.  But,  on  the  whole,  machinery  played  that 
subordinate  part  which  Adam  Smith  assigns  to  it  in  compari- 
sion  with  division  of  labour.'*     The  sporadic  use  of  machinery 

*  This  can  be  seen  from  W.  Petty,  John  Beliefs,  Andrew  Yarranton,  "The  Ad- 
vantages of  the  East  India  Trade,"  and  J.  Vanderlint,  not  to  mention  others. 

^  Towards  the  end  of  the  16th  century,  mortars  and  sieves  were  still  used  in  France 
for  pounding  and   washing  ores. 

'  The  whole  history  of  the  development  of  machinery  can  be  traced  in  the  history 
of  the  corn  mill.  The  factory  in  England  is  still  a  "mill."  In  German  technological 
works  of  the  first  decade  of  this  century,  the  term  "Muhle"  is  still  found  in  use, 
not  only  for  all  machinery  driven  by  the  forces  of  Nature,  but  also  for  all  manu- 
factures where   apparatus  in   the  nature  of  machinery   is   applied. 

*  As  will  be  seen  more  in  detail  in  "Theories  of  Surplus-Value,"  Adam  Smith  has 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  383 

ill  the  iTtli  century  was  of  the  greatest  importance,  because  it 
supplied  the  great  mathematicians  of  that  time  with  a  practical 
basis  and  stimulant  to  the  creation  of  the  science  of  mechanics. 
The  collective  labourer,  formed  by  the  combination  of  a 
number  of  detail  labourers,  is  the  machinery  specially  char- 
acteristic of  the  manufacturing  period.  The  various  opera- 
tions that  are  performed  in  turns  by  the  producer  of  a  com- 
modity, and  coalesce  one  with  another  during  the  progress  of 
production,  lay  claim  to  him  in  various  ways.  In  one  opera- 
tion he  must  exert  more  strength,  in  another  more  skill,  in  an- 
other more  attention ;  and  the  sr.me  individual  does  not  possess 
all  these  qualities  in  an  equal  degree.  After  Manufacture  has 
once  separated,  made  independent,  and  isolated  the  various 
operations,  the  labourers  are  divided,  classified,  and  grouped 
according  to  their  predominating  qualities.  If  their  natural 
endowments  are,  on  the  one  hand,  the  foundation  on  which 
the  division  of  labour  is  built  up,  on  the  other  hand.  Manu- 
facture, once  introduced,  developes  in  them  new  powers  that 
are  by  nature  fitted  only  for  limited  and  special  functions. 
The  collective  labourer  now  possesses,  in  an  equal  degree  of 
excellence,  all  the  qualities  requisite  for  production,  and  ex- 
pends them  in  the  most  economical  manner,  by  exclusively 
employing  all  his  organs,  consisting  of  particular  labourers,  or 
groups  of  labourers,  in  performing  their  special  functions.^ 
The  one-sidedness  and  the  deficiencies  of  the  detail  labourer 
become  perfections  when  he  is  a  part  of  the  collective  labourer.^ 
The  habit  of  doing  only  one  thing  converts  him  into  a  never 

not  established  a  single  new  proposition  relating  to  division  of  labour.  What,  how- 
ever, characterises  him  as  the  political  economist  par  excellence  of  the  period  of 
Manufacture,  is  the  stress  he  lays  on  division  of  labour.  The  subordinate  part  which 
he  assigns  to  machinery  gave  occasion  in  the  early  days  of  modern  mechanical  in- 
dustry to  the  polemic  of  Lauderdale,  and,  at  a  later  period,  to  that  of  Ure.  A.  Smith 
also  confounds  differentiation  of  the  instruments  of  labour,  in  which  the  detail 
labourers  themselves  took  an  active  part,  with  the  invention  of  machinery;  in  this 
latter,  it  is  not  the  workmen  in  manufactories,  but  learned  men,  handicraftsmen, 
and  even  peasants   (Brindley),  who  play  a  part. 

'  "The  master  manufacturer,  by  dividing  the  work  to  be  executed  into  different 
processes,  each  requiring  different  degrees  of  skill  or  of  force,  can  purchase  exactly 
that  precise  quantity  of  both  which  is  necessary  for  each  process;  whereas,  if  the 
whole  work  were  executed  by  one  workman,  that  person  must  possess  sufficient  skill 
to  perform  the  most  difficult,  and  sufficient  strength  to  execute  the  most  laborious  of 
the  operations  into  which  the  article  is  divided."      (Ch.   Babbage.  1.  c.,  ch.  xviii.) 

^  For  instance,  abnormal  development  of  some  muscles,  curvature  of  bones,  &c. 


384  Capitalist  Production. 

failing  instrument,  while  his  connexion  with  the  whole  me- 
chanism compels  him  to  work  with  the  regularity  of  the  parts 
of  a  machine.^ 

Since  the  collective  labourer  has  functions,  both  simple  and 
complex,  both  high  and  low,  his  members,  the  individual 
labour-powers,  require  different  degrees  of  training,  and  must 
therefore  have  different  values.  Manufacture,  therefore,  de- 
vclopes  a  hierarchy  of  labour-powers,  to  which  there  corres- 
ponds a  scale  of  wages.  If,  on  the  one  hand,  the  individual 
laborers  are  appropriated  and  annexed  for  life  by  a  limited 
function;  on  the  other  hand,  the  various  operations  of  the 
hierarchy  are  parcelled  out  among  the  laboures  according  to 
both  their  natural  and  their  acquired  capabilities.^  Every 
process  of  production,  however,  requires  certain  simple  manip- 
ulations, which  every  man  is  capable  of  doing.  They  too  are 
now  severed  from  their  connexion  with  more  pregnant  mo- 
ments of  activity,  and  ossified  into  exclusive  functions  of  spec- 
ially appointed  labourers.  Hence,  Manufacture  begets,  in  every 
handicraft  that  it  seizes  upon,  a  class  of  so-called  unskilled 
labourers,  a  class  which  handicraft  industry  strictly  excluded. 
If  it  developes  a  one-sided  specialty  into  a  perfection,  at  the 
expense  of  the  whole  of  a  man's  working  capacity,  it  also 
begins  to  make  a  specialty  of  the  absence  of  all  development. 
Alongside  of  the  hierarchic  gradation  there  steps  the  sim- 
ple separation  of  the  labourers  into  skilled  and  unskilled. 
For  the  latter,  the  cost  of  apprenticeship  vanishes;  for  the 
former,   it  diminishes,  compared  with  that  of  artificers,   in 

*■  The  question  put  by  one  of  the  Inquiry  Commissioners,  How  the  young  persons 
are  kept  steadily  to  their  work,  is  very  correctly  answered  by  Mr.  Wm.  Marshall,  the 
general  manager  of  a  glass  manufactory:  "They  cannot  well  neglect  their  work; 
when  they  once  begin,  they  must  go  on;  they  are  just  the  same  as  parts  of  a 
machine."     ("Children's    Empl.    Comm.,"    4th    Rep.,    1865,   p.    247.) 

'  Dr.  Ure,  in  his  apotheosis  of  Modem  Mechanical  Industry,  brings  out  the  peculiar 
character  of  manufacture  more  sharply  than  previous  economists,  who  had  not  his 
polemical  interest  in  the  matters,  and  more  sharply  even  than  his  contemporaries — 
Babbage,  e.g.,  who,  though  much  his  superior  as  a  mathematician  and  mechanician, 
treated  mechanical  industry  from  the  standpoint  of  manufacture  alone.  Ure  says, 
"This  appropriation  ...  to  each,  a  workman  of  appropriate  value  and  cost  was 
naturally  assigned,  forms  the  very  essence  of  division  of  labour."  On  the  other 
hand,  he  describes  this  division  as  "adaptation  of  labour  to  the  different  talents  of 
men,"  and  lastly,  characterises  the  whole  manufacturing  system  as  "a  system  for 
the  division  or  gradation  of  labour,"  as  "the  division  of  labour  into  degrees  of 
Bkill,"  &c:     (Ure,  1.  c.  pp.  19-23  passim.) 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  385 

consequence  of  the  functions  being  simplified.  In  both 
cases  the  value  of  labour-power  falls.  ^  An  exception  to  this 
law  holds  good  wdienever  the  decomposition  of  the  labour- 
process  begets  new  and  comprehensive  functions,  that  either 
had  no  place  at  all,  or  only  a  very  modest  one,  in  handicrafts. 
The  fall  in  the  value  of  labour-power,  caused  by  the  disap- 
pearance or  diminution  of  the  expense  of  apprenticeship,  im- 
plies a  direct  increase  of  surplus-value  for  the  benefit  of 
capital ;  for  everything  that  shortens  the  necessary  lalx)ur- 
time  required  for  the  reproduction  of  labour-power,  extends 
the   domain   of  surplus-labour. 

SECTIOISr   4. DIVISION  OF  LABOUR  IN  MANUFACTUEE,   AND 

DIVISION    OF   LABOUR  IN    SOCIETY. 

We  first  considered  the  origin  of  Manufacture,  then  its 
simple  elements,  then  the  detail  labourer  and  his  implements, 
and  finally,  the  totality  of  the  mechanism.  We  shall  now 
lightly  touch  upon  the  relation  between  the  division  of  labour 
in  manufacture,  and  the  social  division  of  labour,  which  forms 
the  foundation  of  all  production  of  commodities. 

If  we  keep  labour  alone  in  view,  we  may  designate  the 
separation  of  social  production  into  its  main  division  or 
genera — ^viz.,  agriculture,  industries,  etc.,  as  division  of  labour 
in  general,  and  the  splitting  up  of  these  families  into  species 
and  sub-species,  as  division  of  labour  in  particular,  and  the 
division  of  labour  within  the  workshop  as  division  of  labour  in 
singular  or  in  detail.^ 

*  "Each  handicraftsman  being  .  .  .  enabled  to  perfect  himself  by  practice  in 
one  point,  became     ...     a  cheaper  workman."     (Ure,  1.  c,  p.  19.) 

^  "Division  of  labour  proceeds  from  the  separation  of  professions  the  most  widely 
different  to  that  division,  where  several  labourers  divide  between  them  the  preparation 
of  one  and  the  same  product,  as  in  manufacture."  (Storch:  "Cours  d'Econ.  Pol. 
Paris  Edn."  t.  I.,  p.  173.)  "Nous  rencontrons  chez  les  peuples  parvenus  a  un  certain 
degre  de  civilisation  trois  genres  de  divisions  d'industrie:  la  premiere,  que  nous 
nommerons  generale,  amene  la  distinction  des  producteurs  en  agricultcurs,  manu- 
facturiers  et  commerQans,  elle  se  rapporte  aux  trois  principales  branches  d'industrie 
nationale;  la  seconde,  qu'on  pourrait  appeler  speciale,  est  la  division  de  chaque  genre 
d'industrie  en  especes  ...  la  troisieme  division  d'industrie,  celle  enfin  qu'on 
devrait  qualifier  de  division  de  la  besogne  ou  de  travail  proprement  dit,  est  celle  qui 
s'ctablit  dans  les  arts  et  les  metiers  separes  .  .  .  qui  s'etablit  dans  la  plupart  des 
manufactures   et   des   ateliers."      (Skarbek.    1.   c.    pp.   84,   85.) 

Y 


^86  Capitalist  Production. 

Division  of  labour  in  a  society,  and  the  corresponding  ty- 
ing down  of  individuals  to  a  particular  calling,  developes  itself, 
just  as  does  tlie  division  of  labour  in  manufacture,  from  oppo- 
site starting  points.  Within  a  family,^  and  after  further  de- 
velopment within  a  tribe,  there  springs  up  naturally  a  division 
of  labour,  caused  by  differences  of  sex  and  age,  a  division  that 
is  consequently  based  on  a  purely  physiological  foundation, 
which  division  enlarges  its  materials  by  the  expansion  of  the 
community,  by  the  increase  of  population,  and  more  especially, 
by  the  conflicts  between  different  tribes,  and  the  subjugation 
of  one  tribe  by  another.  On  the  other  hand,  as  I  have  l)efore 
remarked,  the  exchange  of  products  springs  up  at  the  points 
where  different  families,  tribes,  communities,  come  in  contact ; 
for,  in  the  beginning  of  civilisation,  it  is  not  private  indi- 
viduals but  families,  tribes,  &c.,  that  meet  on  an  independent 
footing.  Different  communities  find  different  means  of  pro- 
duction and  different  means  of  subsistence  in  their  natural 
environment.  Hence,  their  modes  of  production,  and  of  living, 
and  their  products  are  different.  It  is  this  spontaneously  de- 
veloped difference  which,  when  different  communities  come  in 
contact,  calls  forth  the  mutual  exchange  of  products,  and  the 
consequent  gradual  conversion  of  those  products  into  com- 
modities. Exchange  does  not  create  the  differences  between 
the  spheres  of  production,  but  brings  such  as  are  already  differ- 
ent into  relation,  and  thus  converts  them  into  more  or  less  inter- 
dependent branches  of  the  collective  production  of  an  enlarged 
society.  In  the  latter  case,  the  social  division  of  labour  arises 
from  the  exchange  between  spheres  of  production,  that  are 
originally  distinct  and  independent  of  one  another.  In  the 
former,  where  the  physiological  division  of  labour  is  the  start- 
ing point,  the  particular  organs  of  a  compact  whole  grow  loose, 
and  break  off,  principally  owing  to  the  exchange  of  commodi- 
ties with  foreign  communities,  and  then  isolate  themselves  so 

*  Note  to  the  third  edition.  Subsequent  very  searching  study  of  the  primitive 
condition  of  man,  led  the  author  to  the  conclusion,  that  it  was  not  the  family  that 
originally  developed  into  the  tribe,  but  tliat,  on  the  contrary,  the  tribe  was  the  primi- 
tive and  spontaneously  developed  form  of  human  association,  on  the  basis  of  blood 
relationship,  and  that  out  of  the  first  incipient  loosening  of  the  tribal  bonds,  the 
many  and  various  forms  of  the  family  were  afterwards  developed.     (Ed.  3rd  ed.) 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  387 

far,  that  the  sole  bond,  still  connecting  the  vai'ioiis  kinds  of 
work,  is  the  exchange  of  the  products  as  commodities.  In  the 
one  case,  it  is  the  making  dependent  what  was  before  inde- 
jiendent;  in  the  other  case,  tlie  making  independent  what  was 
before  dependent. 

The  foundation  of  every  division  of  labour  that  is  well  de- 
veloped, and  iH'Ought  about  by  the  exchange  of  commodities,  is 
the  separation  between  town  and  counti-y.^  It  may  be  said, 
that  the  whole  economical  history  of  society  is  summed  up  in 
the  movement  of  this  antithesis.  We  pass  it  over,  however, 
for  the  present. 

Just  as  a  certain  number  of  simultaneously  employed 
labourers  are  the  material  pre-requisites  for  division  of  labour 
in  manufacture,  so  are  the  number  and  density  of  the  popula- 
tion, which  here  correspond  to  the  agglomeration  in  one  work- 
shop, a  necessary  condition  for  the  division  of  labour  in 
society.^  J^evertheless,  this  density  is  more  or  less  relative. 
A  relatively  thinly  populated  country,  with  well-developed 
means  of  communication,  has  a  denser  population  than  a  more 
numerously  populated  countiy,  with  badly-developed  means  of 
communication ;  and  in  this  sense  the  !tTorthem  States  of  the 
American  Union,  for  instance,  are  more  thickly  populated  than 
India.^ 

Since  the  production  and  the  circulation  of  commodities  are 
the  general  pre-requisites  of  the  capitalist  mode  of  production, 
division  of  labour  in  manufacture  demands,  that  division  of 
labour  in  society  at  large  should  previously  have  attained  a 

^  Sir  James  Steuart  is  the  economist  who  has  handled  this  subject  best.  IIow 
little  his  book,  which  appeared  ten  years  before  the  "Wealth  of  Nations,"  is  known, 
even  at  the  present  time,  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  the  admirers  of  Malthus 
do  not  even  know  that  the  first  edition  of  the  latter's  work  on  population  contains, 
except  in  the  purely  declamatory  part,  very  little  but  extracts  from  Steuart,  and  in 
a  less  degree,   from  Wallace  and  Townsend. 

2  "There  is  a  certain  density  of  population  which  is  convenient,  both  for  social 
intercourse,  and  for  that  combination  of  powers  by  which  the  produce  of  labour  is 
increased."  (James  Mill,  1.  c.  p.  50.)  "As  the  number  of  labourers  increases,  the 
productive  power  of  society  augments  in  the  compound  ratio  of  that  increase,  multi- 
plied by  the  effects  of  the  division  of  labour."      (Th.  Ilodgskiii,  1.  c.  pp.  1^5,  126.) 

^  In  consequence  of  the  great  demand  for  cotton  after  1861,  the  production  of 
cotton,  in  some  thickly  populated  districts  of  India,  was  extended  at  the  expense  of 
rice  cultivation.  In  consequence  there  arose  local  famines,  the  defective  means  of 
communication  not  permitting  the  failure  of  rice  in  one  district  to  be  compensated 
by  importation    from   another. 


388  Capitalist  Production. 

certain  degree  of  development.  Inversely,  tbe  former  division 
reacts  upon  and  developcs  and  multiplies  the  latter.  Simul- 
taneously, with  the  differentiation  of  the  instruments  of  labour, 
the  industries  that  produce  tliese  instruments,  become  more 
and  more  differentiated.*  If  the  manufacturing  system  seize 
upon  an  industry,  which,  previously,  was  carried  on  in  con- 
nexion with  others,  either  as  a  chief  or  as  a  subordinate 
industry,  and  by  one  producer,  these  industries  immediately 
separate  their  connexion,  and  become  independent.  If  it 
seize  upon  a  particular  stage  in  the  production  of  a  com- 
modity, the  other  stages  of  its  production  become  converted 
into  so  many  independent  industries.  It  has  already  been 
stated,  that  where  the  finished  article  consists  merely  of 
a  number  of  parts  fitted  together,  the  detail  operations  may  re- 
establish themselves  as  genuine  and  separate  handicrafts.  In 
order  to  carry  out  more  perfectly  the  division  of  labour  in 
manufacture,  a  single  branch  of  production  is,  according  to 
the  varieties  of  its  raw  material,  or  the  various  forms  that 
one  and  the  same  raw  material  may  assume,  split  up  into 
numerous,  and  to  some  extent,  entirely  new  manufactures. 
Accordingly,  in  France  alone,  the  first  half  of  the  18th  cen- 
tury, over  100  different  kinds  of  silk  stuffs  were  woven,  and 
in  Avignon,  it  was  law,  that  "  every  apprentice  should  devote 
himself  to  only  one  sort  of  fabrication,  and  should  not  learn 
the  preparation  of  several  kinds  of  stuff  at  once."  The 
territorial  division  of  labour,  which  confines  special  branches 
of  production  to  special  districts  of  a  country,  acquires  fresh 
stimulus  from  the  manufacturing  system,  which  exploits  every 
special  advantage.^  The  Colonial  system  and  the  opening 
out  of  the  markets  of  the  world,  both  of  which  are  included 
in  the  general  conditions  of  existence  of  the  manufacturing 
period,  furnish  rich  material  for  developing  the  division  of 
labour  in   society.     It  is  not  the  place,   here,   to  go  on  to 

*  Thus,  the  fabrication  of  shuttles  formed,  as  early  as  the  17th  century,  a  special 
branch   of    industry   in    Holland. 

'  "Whether  the  woollen  manufacture  of  England  is  not  divided  into  several  parts 
or  branches  appropriated  to  particular  places,  where  they  are  only  or  principally 
manufactured;  fine  cloths  in  Somersetshire  coarse  in  Yorkshire,  long  ells  at  Exeter, 
soies  at  Sudbury,  crapes  at  Norwich,  linseys  at  Kendal,  blankets  at  Whitney,  and 
so  forth."     (Berkeley:     "The  Querist,"  1750,  p.  520.) 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  389 

sliow  how  division  of  labour  seizes  upon,  not  only  the  econom- 
ical, but  every  other  sphere  of  society,  and  everywhere  lays 
the  foundation  of  that  all  engrossing  system  of  specialising 
and  sorting  men,  that  development  in  a  man  of  one  single 
faculty  at  the  expense  of  all  other  faculties,  which  caused  A. 
Ferguson,  the  master  of  Adam  Smith,  to  exclaim :  "  We  make 
a  nation  of  Ilclots,  and  have  no  free  citizens."^ 

But,  in  spite  of  the  numberous  analogies  and  links  connect- 
ing them,  division  of  labour  in  the  interior  of  a  society,  and 
that  in  the  interior  of  a  workshop,  differ  not  only  in  degree, 
but  also  in  kind.  The  analogy  appears  most  indisputable  where 
there  is  an  invisible  bond  uniting  the  various  branches  of 
trade.  For  instance  the  cattle  breeder  produces  hides,  the 
tanner  makes  the  hides  into  leather,  and  the  shoemaker,  the 
leather  into  boots.  Here  the  thing  produced  by  each  of  them 
is  but  a  step  towards  the  final  form,  which  is  the  product  of 
all  their  labours  combined.  There  are,  besides,  all  the  various 
industries  that  supply  the  cattle-breeder,  the  tanner,  and  the 
shoemaker  with  the  means  of  production.  Now  it  is  quite 
possible  to  imagine,  with  Adam  Smith,  that  the  difference  be- 
tween the  above  social  division  of  labour,  and  the  division  in 
manufacture,  is  merely  subjective,  exists  merely  for  the  ob- 
server, who,  in  a  manufacture,  can  see  with  one  glance,  all 
the  numerous  operations  being  performed  on  one  spot,  while 
in  the  instance  given  above,  the  spreading  out  of  the  work  over 
great  areas,  and  the  great  number  of  people  employed  in 
each  branch  of  labour,  obscure  the  connexion.^     But  what  is 

^A.  Ferguson:  "History  of  Civil  Society."  Edinburgh,  1767;  Part  iv.  sect,  ii., 
p.  286. 

*  In  manufacture  proper,  he  says,  the  division  of  labour  appears  to  be  greater, 
because  "those  employed  in  every  different  branch  of  the  work  can  often  be  col- 
lected into  the  same  workhouse,  and  placed  at  once  under  the  view  of  the  spectator. 
In  those  great  manufactures,  (!)  on  the  contrary,  which  are  destined  to  supply  the 
great  wants  of  the  great  body  of  the  people,  every  different  branch  of  the  work  em- 
ploys so  great  a  number  of  workmen,  that  it  is  impossible  to  collect  them  all  into  the 
same  workhouse  .  .  .  the  division  is  not  near  so  obvious."  (A.  Smith:  "Wealth 
of  Nations,"  bk.  i.  ch.  i.)  The  celebrated  passage  in  the  same  chapter  that  begins 
witli  the  words,  "Observe  the  accommodation  of  the  most  common  artificer  or  day 
labourer  in  a  civilized  and  thriving  country,"  &c.,  and  then  proceeds  to  depict  what 
an  enormous  number  and  variety  of  industries  contribute  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
wants  of  an  ordinary  labourer,  is  copied  almost  word  for  word  from  B.  de  Mande- 
villc's  Remarks  to  his  "Fable  of  the  Bees,  or  Private  Vices,  Publick  Benefits." 
(First  ed.,  without  the  remarks,   1706;  with  the  remarks,  1714.) 


390  Capitalist  Production. 

it  that  fomis  the  bond  between  the  independent  labours  of 
tlie  cattle-breeder,  the  tanner,  and  the  shoemaker?  It  is  the 
fact  that  their  respective  products  are  commodities.  What,  on 
the  other  hand,  characterises  division  of  labour  in  manufac- 
tures ?  The  fact  that  the  detail  labourer  produces  no  com- 
modities.^ It  is  only  the  common  product  of  all  the  detail 
labourers  that  becomes  a  commodity.^  Division  of  labour  in 
a  society  is  brought  about  by  the  purchase  and  sale  of  the 
products  of  different  branches  of  industry,  while  the  connexion 
between  the  detail  operations  in  a  workshop,  are  due  to  the 
sale  of  the  labour-power  of  several  workmen  to  one  capitalist, 
who  applies  it  as  combined  labour-power.  The  division  of 
labour  in  the  workshop  implies  concentration  of  the  means  of 
production  in  the  hands  of  one  capitalist;  the  division  of 
labour  in  society  implies  their  dispersion  among  many  inde- 
pendent producers  of  commodities.  While  within  the  work- 
shop, the  iron  law  of  proportionality  subjects  definite  numbers 
of  workmen  to  definite  functions,  in  the  society  outside  the 
workshop,  chance  and  caprice  have  full  play  in  distributing  the 
producers  and  their  means  of  production  among  the  various 
branches  of  industry.  The  different  spheres  of  production, 
it  is  true,  constantly  tend  to  an  equilibrium:  for,  on  the  one 
hand,  while  each  producer  of  a  commodity  is  bound  to  pro- 
duce a  use-value,  to  satisfy  a  particular  social  want,  and  while 

*  "There  is  no  longer  anything  which  we  can  call  the  natural  reward  of  individual 
labour.  Each  labourer  produces  only  some  part  of  a  whole,  and  each  part,  having  no 
value  or  utility  in  itself,  there  is  nothing  on  which  the  labourer  can  seize,  and  say: 
It  is  my  product,  this  I  will  keep  to  myself."  ("Labour  Defended  against  the  Claims 
of  Capital."  Lond.,  1825,  p.  25.)  The  author  of  this  admirable  work  is  the  Th. 
Ilodgskin  I  have  already  cited. 

-  This  distinction  between  division  of  labour  in  society  and  in  manufacture,  was 
practically  illustrated  to  the  Yankees.  One  of  the  new  taxes  devised  at  Washington 
during  the  civil  war,  was  the  duty  of  6%  "on  all  industrial  products."  Question: 
What  is  an  industrial  product?  Answer  of  the  legislature:  A  thing  is  produced 
"when  it  is  made,"  and  it  is  made  when  it  is  ready  for  sale.  Now,  for  one  example 
out  of  many.  The  New  York  and  Philadelphia  manufacturers  had  previously  been 
in  the  habit  of  "making"  umbrellas,  with  all  their  belongings.  But  since  an 
umbrella  is  a  mixtum  compositum  of  very  heterogeneous  parts,  by  degrees  these 
parts  became  the  products  of  various  separate  industricf;,  carried  on  independently 
in  different  places.  They  entered  as  separate  commodities  into  the  umbrella  man- 
ufactory, where  they  were  fitted  together.  The  Yankees  have  given  to  articles  thus 
fitted  together,  the  name  of  "assembled  articles,"  a  name  they  deserve,  for  being 
an  assemblage  of  taxes.  Thus  the  umbrella  "assembles,"  first,  6%  on  the  price  of 
each  of  its  elements,  and  a  further  6%  on  its  own  total  price. 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  391 

the  extent  of  these  wants  differs  quantitatively,  still  there 
exists  an  inner  relation  which  settles  their  proportions  into  a 
regular  system,  and  that  system  one  of  spontaneous  growth; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  law  of  the  value  of  commodities 
ultimately  determines  how  much  of  its  disposable  working-time 
society  can  expend  on  each  particular  class  of  commodities. 
But  this  constant  tendency  to  equilibrium,  of  the  various 
spheres  of  production,  is  exercised,  only  in  the  shape  of  a 
reaction  against  the  constant  upsetting  of  this  equilibrium. 
The  a  priori  system  on  which  the  division  of  labour,  within 
the  workshop,  is  regularly  carried  out,  becomes  in  the  division 
of  labour  within  the  society,  an  a  posteriori,  nature-imposed 
necessity,  controlling  the  lawless  caprice  of  the  producers,  and 
perceptible  in  the  barometrical  fluctuations  of  the  market 
prices.  Division  of  labour  within  the  workshop  implies  the 
undisputed  authority  of  the  capitalist  over  men,  that  are  but 
parts  of  a  mechanism  that  belongs  to  him.  The  division  of 
labour  within  the  society  brings  into  contact  independent 
commodity-producers,  who  acknowledge  no  other  authority 
but  that  of  competition,  of  the  coercion  exerted  by  the  pressure 
of  their  mutual  interests;  just  as  in  the  animal  kingdom,  the 
helium  omnium  contra  omnes  more  or  less  preserves  the  con- 
ditions of  existence  of  every  species.  The  same  bourgeois 
mind  which  praises  division  of  labour  in  the  workshop,  life- 
long annexation  of  the  labourer  to  a  partial  operation,  and  his 
complete  subjection  to  capital,  as  being  an  organisation  of 
labour  that  increases  its  productiveness — that  same  bourgeois 
mind  denounces  with  equal  vigour  every  conscious  attempt  to 
socially  control  and  regulate  the  process  of  production,  as  an 
inroad  upon  such  sacred  things  as  the  rights  of  property, 
freedom  and  unrestricted  play  for  the  bent  of  the  individual 
capitalist.  It  is  very  characteristic  that  the  enthusiastic  apol- 
ogists of  the  factory  system  have  nothing  more  damning  to 
urge  against  a  general  organization  of  the  labour  of  society, 
than  that  it  would  turn  all  society  into  one  immense  factoiy. 

If,  in  a  society  with  capitalist  production,  anarchy  in  the 
social  division  of  labour  and  despotism  in  that  of  the  workshop 
are  mutual  conditions  the  one  of  the  other,  we  find,  on  the  con- 


392  Capitalist  Production. 

trary,  in  those  earlier  forms  of  society  in  which  the  separation 
of  trades  has  been  spontaneously  developed,  then  crystallized, 
and  finally  made  permanent  by  law,  on  the  one  hand,  a  speci- 
men of  the  organization  of  the  labour  of  society,  in  accordance 
with  an  approved  and  authoritative  plan,  and  on  the  other, 
the  entire  exclusion  of  division  of  labour  in  the  workshop, 
or  at  all  events  a  mere  dwarflike  or  sporadic  and  accidental 
development  of  the  same.^ 

Those  small  and  extremely  ancient  Indian  communities, 
some  of  which  have  continued  down  to  this  day,  are  based  on 
possession  in  common  of  the  land,  on  the  blending  of  agricul- 
ture and  handicrafts,  and  on  an  unalterable  division  of  labour, 
which  serves,  whenever  a  new  community  is  started,  as  a  plan 
and  scheme  ready  cut  and  dried.  Occupying  areas  of  from 
100  up  to  several  thousand  acres,  each  forms  a  compact  whole 
producing  .ill  it  requires.  The  chief  part  of  the  products  is 
destined  for  direct  use  by  the  community  itself,  and  does  not 
take  the  form  of  a  commodity.  Hence,  production  here  is 
independent  of  that  division  of  labour  brought  about,  in  Indian 
society  as  a  whole,  by  means  of  the  exchange  of  commodities. 
It  is  the  surplus  alone  that  becomes  a  commodity,  and  a  portion 
of  even  that,  not  until  it  has  reached  the  hands  of  the  State, 
into  whose  hands  from  time  immemorial  a  certain  quantity  of 
these  products  has  found  its  way  in  the  shape  of  rent  in  kind. 
The  constitution  of  these  communities  varies  in  different  parts 
of  India.  In  those  of  the  simplest  form,  the  land  is  tilled  in 
common,  and  the  produce  divided  among  the  members.  At 
the  same  time,  spinning  and  weaving  are  carried  on  in  each 
family  as  subsidiary  industries.  Side  by  side  with  the  masses 
thus  occupied  with  one  and  the  same  work,  we  find  the  "chief 
inhabitant,"  who  is  judge,  police,  and  tax-gatherer  in  one;  the 
bookkeeper  who  keeps  the  accounts  of  the  tillage  and  registers 
everything  relating  thereto;   another  official,  who  prosecutes 

*  "On  peut  .  .  .  etablir  en  regie  g6n£rale,  que  moins  I'autorite  preside  a  la 
division  du  travail  dans  I'interieur  de  la  societe,  plus  la  division  du  travail  se 
developpe  dans  I'interieur  dc  I'atelier,  et  plus  elle  y  est  soumise  a  I'autorite  d'un 
seul.  Ainsi  I'autoritd  dans  Tatelier  et  celle  dans  la  societe,  par  rapport  a  la  division 
dutravail,  sont  en  raison  inverse  I'une  de  I'autre."  (Karl  Marx,  "Misere,"  &c.,  pp. 
130-131.) 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  393 

criminals,  protects  strangers  travelling  through,  and  escorts 
them  to  the  next  village;  the  boundary  man,  who  guards  the 
boundaries  against  neighbouring  communities ;  the  water-over- 
seer, who  distributes  the  water  from  the  common  tanks  for 
irrigation ;  the  Brahmin,  who  conducts  the  religious  services ; 
the  schoolmaster,  who  on  the  sand  teaches  the  children  reading 
and  writing;  the  calendar-Brahmin,  or  astrologer,  who  makes 
known  the  lucky  or  unlucky  days  for  seed-time  and  harvest, 
and  for  every  other  kind  of  agricultural  work ;  a  smith  and  a 
carpenter,  who  make  and  repair  all  the  agricultural  imple- 
ments; the  potter,  who  makes  all  the  pottery  of  the  village; 
the  barber,  the  washerman,  who  washes  clothes,  the  silversmith, 
here  and  there  the  poet,  who  in  some  communities  replaces  the 
silversmith,  in  others  the  schoolmaster.  This  dozen  of  indi- 
viduals is  maintained  at  the  expense  of  the  whole  community. 
If  the  population  increases,  a  new  community  is  founded,  on 
the  pattern  of  the  old  one,  on  unoccupied  land.  The  whole 
mechanism  discloses  a  systematic  division  of  labour;  but  a 
division  like  that  in  manufactures  is  impossible,  since  the 
smith  and  the  carpenter,  &c.,  find  an  unchanging  market,  and 
at  the  most  there  occur,  according  to  the  sizes  of  the  villages, 
two  or  three  of  each,  instead  of  one.^  The  law  that  regulates 
the  division  of  labour  in  the  community  acts  with  the  irresisti- 
ble authority  of  a  law  of  Nature,  at  the  same  time  that  each 
individual  artificer,  the  smith,  the  carpenter,  and  so  on,  con- 
ducts in  his  workshop  all  the  operations  of  his  handicraft  in 
the  traditional  way,  but  independently,  and  without  recogniz- 
ing any  authority  over  him.  The  simplicity  of  the  organisa- 
tion for  production  in  these  self-sufficing  communities  that 
constantly  reproduce  themselves  in  the  same  form,  and  when 
accidentally  destroyed,  spring  up  again  on  the  spot  and  with 
the  same  name  ^ — this  simplicity  supplies  the  key  to  the  secret 

*  Lieut.-Col.  Mark  Wilks:  "Historical  Sketches  of  the  South  of  India."  Lond., 
1810-17,  V.  I.,  pp.  118-20.  A  good  description  of  the  various  forms  of  the  Indian 
communities  is  to  be  found  in  George  Campbell's   "Modern   India."     Lond.,  1852. 

^  "Under  this  simple  form  .  .  .  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  have  lived  from 
time  immemorial.  The  boundaries  of  the  villages  have  been  but  seldom  altered;  and 
though  the  villages  themselves  have  been  sometimes  injured,  and  even  desolated  by 
war,  famine,  and  disease,  the  same  name,  the  same  limits,  the  same  interests,  and 
even   the  same   families,   have  continued   for  ages.     The  inhabitants  give  themselves 


394  Capitalist  Production. 

of  the  unchangeableness  of  Asiatic  societies,  an  unchangeable- 
ness  in  such  striking  contrast  with  the  constant  dissolution  and 
refounding  of  Asiatic  States,  and  the  never-ceasing  changes 
of  dynasty.  The  structure  of  the  economical  elements  of 
society  remains  untouched  by  the  storm-clouds  of  the  political 
sky. 

The  rules  of  the  guilds,  as  I  have  said  before,  by  limiting 
most  strictly  the  number  of  apprentices  and  journeymen  that  a 
single  master  could  employ,  prevented  him  from  becoming  a 
capitalist.  Moreover,  he  could  not  employ  his  journeymen  in 
any  other  handicraft  than  the  one  in  which  he  was  a  master. 
The  guilds  zealously  repelled  every  encroachment  by  the  capital 
of  merchants,  the  only  form  of  free  capital  with  which  they 
came  in  contact.  A  merchant  could  buy  every  kind  of  com- 
modity, but  labour  as  a  commodity  he  could  not  buy.  He 
existed  only  on  sufferance,  as  a  dealer  in  the  products  of  the 
handicrafts.  If  circumstances  called  for  a  further  division  of 
labour,  the  existing  guilds  split  themselves  up  into  varieties,  or 
founded  new  guilds  by  the  side  of  the  old  ones ;  all  this,  how- 
ever, without  concentrating  various  handicrafts  in  a  single 
workshop.  Hence,  the  guild  organization,  however  much  it 
may  have  contributed  by  separating,  isolating,  and  perfecting 
the  handicrafts,  to  create  the  material  conditions  for  the  exist- 
ence of  manufacture,  excluded  division  of  labour  in  the  work- 
shop. On  the  whole,  the  labourer  and  his  means  of  production 
remained  closely  united,  like  the  snail  with,  its  shell,  and  thus 
there  was  wanting  the  principal  basis  of  manufacture,  the  sep- 
aration of  the  labourer  from  his  means  of  oroduction,  and  the 
conversion  of  these  means  into  capital. 

While  division  of  labour  in  society  at  large,  whether  such 
division  be  brought  about  or  not  by  exchange  of  commodities, 
is  common  to  economical  formations  of  society  the  most  diverse, 
division  of  labour  in  the  workshop,  as  practised  by  manufac- 
ture, is  a  special  creation  of  the  capitalist  mode  of  production 
alone. 

no  trouble  about  the  breaking  up  and  division  of  kingdoms;  while  the  village  remains 
entire,  they  care  not  to  what  power  it  is  transferred,  or  to  what  sovereign  it  devolves; 
its  internal  economy  remains  unchanged."  (Th.  Stamford  Raffles,  late  Lieut.  Gov. 
of  Java:     "The   History  of  Java."     Lond.,  1817,  Vol.   I.,  p.   285.) 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  395 

SECTION  5. THE  CAPITALISTIC  CHARACTER  OF  MANUFACTTJBE. 

An  increased  number  of  labourers  under  the  control  of  one 
capitalist  is  the  natural  starting-point,  as  well  of  co-operation 
generally,  as  of  manufacture  in  particular.  But  the  division 
of  labour  in  the  manufacture  makes  this  increase  in  the  num- 
ber of  workmen  a  technical  necessity.  The  minimum  number 
that  any  given  capitalist  is  bound  to  employ  is  here  prescribed 
by  the  previously  established  division  of  labour.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  advantages  of  further  division  are  obtainable  only 
by  adding  to  the  number  of  workmen,  and  this  can  be  done 
only  by  adding  multiples  of  the  various  detail  groups.  But 
an  increase  in  the  variable  component  of  the  capital  employed 
necessitates  an  increase  in  its  constant  component,  too,  in  the 
workshops,  implements,  &c.,  and,  in  particular,  in  the  raw 
material,  the  call  for  which  grows  quicker  than  the  number  of 
workmen.  The  quantity  of  it  consumed  in  a  given  time,  by  a 
given  amount  of  labour,  increases  in  the  same  ratio  as  does  the 
productive  power  of  that  labour  in  consequence  of  its  division. 
Hence,  it  is  a  law,  based  on  the  very  nature  of  manufacture, 
that  the  minimum  amount  of  capital,  which  is  bound  to  be  in 
the  hands  of  each  capitalist,  must  keep  increasing;  in  other 
words,  that  the  transformation  into  capital  of  the  social  means 
of  production  and  subsistence  must  keep  extending.^ 

In  manufacture,  as  well  as  in  simple  co-operation,  the  collec- 
tive working  organism  is  a  form  of  existence  of  capital.  The 
mechanism  that  is  made  up  of  numerous  individual  detail 
labourers  belongs  to  the  capitalist.  Hence,  the  productive 
power  resulting  from  a  combination  of  labourers  appears  to  be 
the  productive  power  of  capital.     Manufacture  proper  not  only 

*  "It  is  not  sufficient  that  the  capital"  (the  writer  should  have  said  the  necessary 
means  of  subsistence  and  of  production)  "required  for  the  sub-division  of  handi- 
crafts should  be  in  readiness  in  the  society:  it  must  also  be  accumulated  in  the  hands 
of  the  employers  in  sufficiently  large  quantities  to  enable  them  to  conduct  their 
operations  on  a  large  scale.  .  .  .  The  more  the  division  increases,  the  more  does 
the  constant  employment  of  a  given  number  of  labourers  require  greater  outlay  of 
capital  in  tools,  raw  material,  &c.,"  (Storch:  Cours  d'Econ.  Polit.  Paris  Ed.,  t.  I.  pp. 
250,  251.)  "La  concentration  des  instruments  de  production  et  la  division  du  travail 
sont  aussi  inseparables  I'une  de  I'autre  que  le  sont,  dans  le  regime  politique,  la  con- 
centration des  pouvoirs  publics  et  la  division  des  interets  prives."  (Karl  Marx.  1.  c., 
p.  134.) 


396  Capitalist  Production. 

subjects  the  previously  independent  workman  to  the  discipline 
and  command  of  capital,  but,  in  addition,  creates  a  hierarchic 
gradation  of  the  workmen  themselves.  While  simple  co-opera- 
tion leaves  the  mode  of  working  by  the  individual  for  the  most 
part  unchanged,  manufacture  thoroughly  revolutionises  it,  and 
seizes  labour-power  by  its  very  roots.  It  converts  the  labourer 
into  a  crippled  monstrosity,  by  forcing  his  detail  dexterity  at 
the  expense  of  a  world  of  productive  capabilities  and  instincts ; 
just  as  in  the  States  of  La  Plata  they  butcher  a  whole  beast 
for  the  sake  of  his  hide  or  his  tallow.  Not  only  is  the  detail 
work  distributed  to  the  different  individuals,  but  the  individual 
himself  is  made  the  automatic  motor  of  a  fractional  operation,^ 
and  the  absurd  fable  of  Menenius  Agrippa,  which  makes  man 
a  mere  fragment  of  his  own  body,  becomes  realised.^  If,  at 
first,  the  workman  sells  his  labour-power  to  capital,  because  the 
material  means  of  producing  a  commodity  fail  him,  now  his 
very  labour-power  refuses  its  services  unless  it  has  been  sold 
to  capital.  Its  functions  can  be  exercised  only  in  an  environ- 
ment that  exists  in  .the  workshop  of  the  capitalist  after  the 
sale.  By  nature  unfitted  to  make  anything  independently, 
the  manufacturing  labourer  developes  productive  activity  as  a 
mere  appendage  of  the  capitalist's  workshop.^  As  the  chosen 
people  bore  in  their  features  the  sign  manual  of  Jehovah,  so 
division  of  labour  brands  the  manufacturing  workman  as  the 
property  of  capital. 

The  knowledge,  the  judgment,  and  the  will,  which,  though 
in  ever  so  small  a  degree,  are  practised  by  the  independent 
peasant  or  handicraftsman,  in  the  same  way  as  the  savage 
makes  the  whole  art  of  war  consist  in  the  exercise  of  his  per- 
sonal cunning — these  faculties  are  now  required  only  for  the 
workshop  as  a  whole.     Intelligence  in  production  expands  in 

>  Dugald  Stewart  calls  manufacturing  labourers  "living  automatons  .  .  .  em- 
ployed in  the  details  of  the  work."     (1.  c,  p.  318.) 

'  In  corals,  each  individual  is,  in  fact,  the  stomach  of  the  whole  group;  but  it  sup- 
plies the  group  with  nourishment,  instead  of,  like  the  Roman  patrician,  withdraw- 
ing it. 

*  "L'ouvrier  qui  porte  dans  ses  bras  tout  un  metier,  peut  aller  partout  exercer  son 
Industrie  et  trouver  des  moyens  de  subsister:  I'autre  (the  manufacturing  labourer) 
n'est  qu'un  accessoire  qui,  separ6  de  ses  confreres,  n'a  plus  ni  capacite,  ni  independ- 
ance,  et  qui  se  trouve  forci  d'accepter  la  loi  qu'on  juge  k  propos  de  lui  imposer." 
(Storch.     1.   c     Petersb.  edit.,   1815,  t.   I.,   p.   204.) 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  397 

one  direction,  because  it  vanishes  in  many  others.  What  is 
lost  by  the  detail  labourers,  is  concentrated  in  the  capital  that 
employs  them.^  It  is  a  result  of  the  division  of  labour  in 
manufactures,  that  the  labourer  is  brought  face  to  face  with 
the  intellectual  potencies  of  the  material  process  of  production, 
as  the  property  of  another,  and  as  a  ruling  power.  This  sepa- 
ration begins  in  simple  co-operation,  where  the  capitalist  re- 
presents to  the  single  workman,  the  oneness  and  the  will  of 
the  associated  labour.  It  is  developed  in  manufacture  which 
cuts  down  the  labourer  into  a  detail  labourer.  It  is  com- 
pleted in  modern  industry,  which  makes  science  a  productive 
force  distinct  from  labour  and  presses  it  into  the  service  of 
capital.^ 

In  manufacture,  in  order  to  make  the  collective  labourer, 
and  through  him  capital,  rich  in  social  productive  power,  each 
labourer  must  be  made  poor  in  individual  productive  powers. 
"Ignorance  is  the  mother  of  industry  as  well  as  of  superstition. 
Eeflection  and  fancy  are  subject  to  err ;  but  a  habit  of  moving 
the  hand  or  the  foot  is  independent  of  either.  Manufactures, 
accordingly,  prosper  most  where  the  mind  is  least  consulted, 
and  where  the  workshop  may  ...  be  considered  as  an  engine, 
the  parts  of  which  are  men."^  As  a  matter  of  fact,  some 
few  manufacturers  in  the  middle  of  the  18th  century  preferred, 
for  certain  operations  that  were  trade  secrets,  to  employ  half- 
idiotic  persons."* 

"The  understandings  of  the  greater  part  of  men,"  says  Adam 
Smith,  "are  necessarily  formed  by  their  ordinary  employments. 
The  man  whose  whole  life  is  spent  in  performing  a  few  simple 
operations  .  .  .  has  no  occasion  to  exert  his  understanding. 
....  He  generally  becomes  as  stupid  and  ignorant  as  it  is 

*  A.  Ferguson,  1.  c,  p.  281 :  "The  former  may  have  gained  what  the  other  has 
lost." 

*  "The  man  of  knowledge  and  the  productive  labourer  come  to  be  widely  divided 
fiom  each  other,  and  knowledge,  instead  of  remaining  the  handmaid  of  labour  in  the 
hand  of  the  labourer  to  increase  his  productive  powers  .  .  .  has  almost  every- 
where arrayed  itself  against  labour  .  .  .  systematically  deluding  and  leading  them 
(the  labourers)  astray  in  order  to  render  their  muscular  powers  entirely  mechanical 
and  obedient."  (W.  Thompson:  "An  Inquiry  into  the  Principles  of  the  Distribu- 
tion  of   Wealth.     London,    1824,"   p.    274.) 

*  A.  Ferguson,  1.  c,  p.  280. 

*  J.  D.  Tuckett:  "A  History  of  the  Past  and  Present  State  of  the  Labouring 
Population."     Lond.,   1846. 


398  Capitalist  Production. 

possible  for  a  human  creature  to  become."  After  describing 
the  stupidity  of  the  detail  labourer  he  goes  on :  "The  uni- 
formity of  his  stationary  life  naturally  corrupts  the  courage  of 

liis  mind It  corrupts  even  the  activity  of  his  body  and 

renders  him  incapable  of  exerting  his  strength  with  vigour  and 
perseverance  in  any  other  employments  than  that  to  which 
he  has  been  bred.  His  dexterity  at  his  o^vn  particular  trade 
seems  in  this  manner  to  be  acquired  at  the  expense  of  his  in- 
tellectual, social,  and  martial  virtues.  But  in  every  improved 
and  civilised  society,  this  is  the  state  into  which  the  labouring 
poor,  that  is,  the  great  body  of  the  people,  must  necessarily 
fall."^  For  preventing  the  complete  deterioration  of  the  great 
mass  of  the  people  by  division  of  labour,  A.  Smith  commends 
education  of  the  people  by  the  State,  %ut  prudently,  and  in 
homoeopathic  doses.  G.  Gamier,  his  French  translator  and 
commentator,  who,  under  the  first  French  Empire,  quite  natu- 
rally developed  into  a  senator,  quite  as  naturally  opposes  him 
on  this  point.  Education  of  the  masses,  he  urges,  violates  the 
first  law  of  the  division  of  labour,  and  with  it  "our  whole 
social  system  would  be  proscribed."  "Like  all  other  divisions 
of  labour,"  he  says,  "that  between  hand  labour  and  head  la- 
bour ^  is  more  pronounced  and  decided  in  proportion  as  society 
(he  rightly  uses  this  word,  for  capital,  landed  property  and 
their  State)  becomes  richer.  This  division  of  labour,  like 
every  other,  is  an  effect  of  past,  and  a  cause  of  future  progress 
....  ought  the  government  then  to  work  in  opposition  to  this 
division  of  labour,  and  to  hinder  its  natural  course  ?  Ought  it 
to  expend  a  part  of  the  public  money  in  the  attempt  to  con- 

*A.  Smith:  Wealth  of  Nations,  Bk.  V.,  ch.  I.,  art  II.  Being  a  pupil  of  A.  Fer- 
guson who  showed  the  disadvantageous  effects  of  division  of  labour,  Adam  Smith  was 
perfectly  clear  on  this  point.  In  the  introduction  to  his  work,  where  he  ex  pro- 
fcsso  praises  division  of  labour,  he  indicates  only  in  a  cursory  manner  that  it  is  the 
source  of  social  inequalities.  It  is  not  till  the  5th  Book,  on  the  Revenue  of  the 
State,  that  he  reproduces  Ferguson.  In  my  "Misere  de  la  Philosophie,"  I  have 
sufficiently  explained  the  historical  connection  between  Ferguson,  A.  Smith, 
Lemontey,  and  Say,  as  regards  their  criticisms  of  Division  of  Labour,  and  have 
shown,  for  the  first  time,  that  Division  of  Labour  as  practised  in  manufactures,  is 
a  specific  form  of  the  capitalist  mode  of  production. 

*  Ferguson  had  already  said,  1.  c.  p.  281:  "And  thinking  itself,  in  this  age  of 
separations,  may  become  a  peculiar  craft." 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  399 

found  and  blend  together  two  classes  of  labour,  which  are 
striving  after  division  and  separation?"^ 

Some  crippling  of  body  and  mind  is  inseparable  even  from 
division  of  labour  in  society  as  a  whole.  Since,  however,  man- 
ufacture carries  this  social  separation  of  branches  of  labour 
much  further,  and  also,  by  its  peculiar  division,  attacks  the  in- 
dividual at  the  very  roots  of  his  life,  it  is  the  first  to  afford 
the  materials  for,  and  to  give  a  start  to,  industrial  pathology. ^ 

"To  subdivide  a  man  is  to  execute  him,  if  he  deserves  the. 
sentence,  to  assassinate  him  if  he  does  not.     .     .     .     The  sub- 
division of  labour  is  the  assassination  of  a  people."^ 

Co-operation  based  on  division  of  labour,  in  other  words, 
manufacture,  commences  as  a  spontaneous  formation.  So  soon 
as  it  attains  some  consistence  and  extension,  it  becomes  the  re- 
cognised methodical  and  systematic  form  of  capitalist  produc- 
tion. History  shows  how  the  division  of  labour  peculiar  to 
manufacture,  strictly  so  called,  acquires  the  best  adapted  form 
at  first  by  experience,  as  it  were  behind  the  backs  of  the  actors,, 
and  then,  like  the  guild  handicrafts,  strives  to  hold  fast  that 
form  when  once  found,  and  here  and  there  succeeds  in  keeping 
it  for  centuries.  Any  alteration. in  this  form,  except  in  trivial 
matters,  is  solely  owing  to  a  revolution  in  the  instruments  of 
labour.  Modern  manufacture  wherever  it  arises — I  do  not 
here  allude  to  modern  industry  based  on  machinery — either 
finds  the  disjecta  membra  poetae  ready  to  hand,  and  only  wait- 

^  G.   Gamier,  vol.   V.   of  his  translation  of  A.   Smith,  pp.  4—5. 

^  Ramazzini,  professor  of  practical  medicine  at  Padua,  published  in  1713  his  work 
"De  morbis  artificum,"  which  was  translated  into  French  1781,  reprinted  in  1841  in 
the  "Encyclopedic  des  Sciences  Medicales.  7nie  Dis.  Auteurs  Classiques."  The 
period  of  Modern  Mechanical  Industry  has,  of  course,  very  much  enlarged  his  cat- 
alogue of  labour's  diseases.  See  "Hygiene  physique  et  morale  de  I'ouvrier  dans  les 
grandes  villes  en  general  et  dans  la  ville  de  Lyon  en  particulier.  Par  le  Dr.  A.  L. 
Fonterel,  Paris,  1858,"  and  "Die  Krankheiten,  welche  verschiednen  Standen,  Altern 
und  Geschlechtern  eigenthiimlich  sind.  6  Vols.  Ulm,  1860,"  and  others.  In  1854 
the  Society  of  Arts  appointed  a  Commission  of  Inquiry  into  industrial  pathology. 
The  list  of  documents  collected  by  this  commission  is  to  be  seen  in  the  catalogue  of 
the  "Twickenham  Economic  Museum."  Very  important  are  the  official  "Reports 
on  Public  Health."  See  also  Eduard  Reich,  M.D.  "Ueber  die  Entartung  des 
Menschen,"   Erlangen,   1868. 

3  (D.  Urquhart:  Familiar  Words.  Lond.,  1855,  p.  119.)  Hegel  held  very 
J''>retical  views  on  division  of  labour.  In  his  Rechtsphilosophie  he  says:  "By  well 
educated  men  we  understand  in  the  first  instance,  those  who  can  do  everything  that 
others  do." 


400  Capitalist  Production. 

ing  to  be  collected  together,  as  is  the  case  in  the  inanufactnref 
of  clothes  in  large  towns,  or  it  can  easily  apply  the  principle 
of  division,  simply  by  exclusively  assigning  the  various  opera- 
tions of  a  handicraft  (such  as  bookbinding)  to  particular  men. 
In  such  cases,  a  week's  experience  is  enough  to  determine  the 
proportion  between  the  numbers  of  the  hands  necessary  for  the 
various  functions.^ 

By  decomposition  of  handicrafts,  by  specialisation  of  the  in- 
struments of  labour,  by  the  formation  of  detail  labourers,  and 
by  grouping  and  combining  the  latter  into  a  single  mechanism, 
division  of  labour  in  manufacture  creates  a  qualitative  grada- 
tion, and  a  quantitative  proportion  in  the  social  process  of 
production ;  it  consequently  creates  a  definite  organization  of 
the  labour  of  society,  and  thereby  developes  at  the  same  time 
new  productive  forces  in  the  society.  In  its  specific  capitalist 
form — and  under  the  given  conditions,  it  could  take  no  other 
form  than  a  capitalistic  one — ^manufacture  is  but  a  particular 
method  of  begetting  relative  surplus-value,  or  of  augmenting 
at  the  expense  of  the  labourer  the  self-expansion  of  capital — 
usually  called  social  wealth,  "Wealth  of  Nations,"  &c.  It  in- 
creases the  social  productive  power  of  laboiir,  not  only  for  the 
benefit  of  the  capitalist  instead  of  for  that  of  the  labourer,  but 
it  does  this  by  crippling  the  individual  labourers.  It  creates 
new  conditions  for  the  lordship  of  capital  over  labour.  If, 
therefore,  on  the  one  hand,  it  presents  itself  historically  as  a 
progress  and  as  a  necessary  phase  in  the  economic  develop- 
ment of  society,  on  the  other  hand  it  is  a  refined  and  civilised 
method  of  exploitation. 

Political  economy,  which  as  an  independent  science,  first 
sprang  into  being  during  the  period  of  manufacture,  views 
the  social  division  of  labour  only  from  the  standpoint  of  manu- 
facture,^ and  sees  in  it  only  the  means  of  producing  more  com- 
modities with  a  given  quantity  of  labour,  and,  consequently, 

*  The  simple  belief  in  the  inventive  genius  exercised  a  priori  by  the  individual 
capitalist  in  division  of  labour,  exists  now-a-days  only  among  German  professors, 
of  the  stamp  of  Herr  Roscher,  who,  to  recompense  the  capitalist  from  whose 
Jovian  head  division  of  labour  sprang  ready  formed,  dedicates  to  him  "various 
wages"  (diverse  Arbeitslohne).  The  more  or  less  extensive  application  of  division 
of  labour  depends  on  length  of  purse,   not  on  greatness  of  genius. 

*  The  older  writers,  like  Petty  and  the  anonymous  author  of  "Advantages  of  the 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  401 

of  clieapeTiing  commodities  and  hurrying  on  the  accumuhition 
of  capital.  In  most  striking  contrast  with  this  accentuation  of 
quantity  and  exchange-value,  is  the  attitude  of  the  writers  of 
classical  antiquity,  who  hold  exclusively  by  quality  and  use- 
value/  In  consequence  of  the  separation  of  the  social 
branches  of  production,  commodities  are  better  made,  the  vari- 
ous bents  and  talents  of  men  select  a  suitable  field,^  and  with- 
out some  restraint  no  important  results  can  be  obtained  any- 
w^liere.^  Hence  both  product  and  producer  are  improved  by 
division  of  labour.  If  the  growth  of  the  quantity  produced  is 
occasionally  mentioned,  this  is  only  done  with  reference  to  the 
greater  abundance  of  use  values.  There  is  not  a  word  alluding 
to  exchange-value  or  to  the  cheapening  of  commodities.  This 
aspect,  from  the  standpoint  of  use-value  alone,  is  taken  as  well 
l>y  Plato,*  who  treats  division  of  labour  as  the  foundation  on 

East  India  Trade,"  bring  out  the  capitalist  character  of  division  of  labour  as  applied 
in   manufacture  more  than  A.   Smith  does. 

^  Amongst  the  moderns  may  be  excepted  a  few  writers  of  the  18th  century,  like 
Eeccaria  and  James  Harris,  who  with  regard  to  division  of  labour  almost  entirely 
follow  the  ancients.  Thus,  Beccaria:  "Ciascuno  prova  coll'  esperienza,  che  applicando 
la  mano  e  I'ingegno  sempre  alio  stesso  genere  di  opere  e  di  produtte,  egli  piu  facili, 
piu  abbondanti  e  migliori  ne  traca  risultati,  di  quello  che  se  ciascuno  isolatamente  le 
cose  tutte  a  se  necessarie  soltanto  facesse.  .  .  .  Dividendosi  in  tal  maniera  per 
la  comune  e  privati  utilita  gli  uomini  in  varie  classi  e  condizioni."  (Cesare  Beccaria: 
"Elementi  di  Econ.  Pubblica,"  ed.  Custodi,  Parte  Moderna,  t.  xi.,  p.  28.)  James 
Harris,  afterwards  Earl  of  Malmesbury,  celebrated  for  the  "Diaries"  of  his  embassy 
at  St.  Petersburg,  says  in  a  note  to  his  "Dialogue  Concerning  Happiness,"  Lond., 
1741,  reprinted  afterwards  in  "Three  Treatises,  &c.,  3  Ed.,  Lond.,  1772:"  "The 
whole  argument  to  prove  society  natural  {i.e.,  by  division  of  employments)  •  .  . 
is  taken  from  the  second  book  of  Plato's  Republic." 

'  Thus,  in  the  Odyssey  xiv.,  228,  "i''AXXos  yap  t  SWoiaiv  dvrjp  eTTtTepirerat  ^pyois" 
and  Archilochus  in   Sextus  Empiricus,   "  'AXXos  dWtfi  iir''  epy<p  KapSlrjv  lalverai." 

'  "IIoXX'  ijirlffTaTO  ipya,  KaKUS  d'-qTrUraTO  trivra.'"  livery  Athenian  considered 
himself  superior  as  a  producer  of  commodities  to  a  Spartan;  for  the  latter  in  time  of 
war  had  men  enough  at  his  disposal  but  could  not  command  money,  as  Thucydides 
makes  Pericles  say  in  the  speech  inciting  the  Athenians  to  the  Peloponnesian  war: 
"'SiifJMjl  re  iToindrepoi  ol  airovpyol  ruv  avSpdiiruv  fj  xp-fina<n  iraiXefisiv."  (Thuc:  l.I.c. 
41.)  Nevertheless,  even  with  regard  to  material  production,  a&rapKeta,  as  opposed 
to  division  of  labour  remained  their  ideal,  "  nap'  &v  yap  t6  et,  iropd  to^jtuv  Kal  rb 
aSrapKes."  It  should  be  mentioned  here  that  at  the  date  of  the  fall  of  the  30 
Tyrants  there   were   still    not   5000    Athenians  without   landed    property. 

*  With  Plato,  division  of  labour  within  the  community  is  a  development  from  the 
multifarious  requirements,  and  the  limited  capacities  of  individuals.  The  main 
point  with  him  is,  that  the  labourer  must  adapt  himself  to  the  work,  not  the  work 
to  the  labourer;  which  latter  is  unavoidable,  if  he  carries  on  several  trades  at  once, 
thus  making  one  or  the  other  of  them  subordinate.  "Oiyhp  idiXeirb  irpaTTd/jLevovrriv 
TOv  irpdrrovTOi  axo^V"  vepi/xiveiv,  dXX'  avdyKT]  rbv  TrpdrTOvra.  t^  npaTToixivi^ 
inanoXovdtii'  fir}  iv  napepyov  (lipei. — 'AviyKi]. — 'E/c  5^  tovtuv  ttXciw  re  (Kaara 

Z 


402  Capitalist  Production. 

which  the  division  of  society  into  classes  is  based,  as  by  Xeno- 
phon/  who  with  characteristic  bourgeois  instinct,  approaches 
more  nearly  to  division  of  labour  within  the  workshop.  Plato's 
Republic,  in  so  far  as  division  of  labour  is  treated  in  it,  as  the 
formative  principle  of  the  State,  is  merely  the  Athenian  ideali- 
sation of  the  Egyptian  system  of  castes,  Egypt  having  served 
as  the  model  of  an  industrial  country  to  many  of  his  contem- 
poraries also,  amongst  others  to  Isocrates,^  and  it  continued  to 
have  this  importance  to  the  Greeks  of  the  Roman  Empire.^ 
During  the  manufacturing  period  proper,  i.e.,  the  period 

ylyverai  Kal  KdWtov  Kal  pq.ov,  Srav  ets  Iv  kotA  tf^criv  Kal  iv  KaipQ  cxoX^jy  ruv  iWur 
6.yu)V  KpdTTti"  (Rep.  1.  2.  Ed.  Baiter,  Orelli,  &c.).  So  in  Thucydides  1.  c.  c,  42: 
"Seafaring  is  an  art  like  any  other,  and  cannot,  as  circumstances  require,  be  carried 
on  as  a  subsidiary  occupation;  nay,  other  subsidiary  occupations  cannot  be  carried  on 
alongside  of  this  one."  If  the  work,  says  Plato,  has  to  wait  for  the  labourer,  the 
critical  point  in  the  process  is  missed  and  the  article  spoiled,  tpyov  Kaip6v  $(6XXvral. 
The  same  Platonic  idea  is  found  recurring  in  the  protest  of  the  English  bleachers 
against  the  cause  in  the  Factory  Act  that  provides  fixed  meal  times  for  all  oper- 
atives. Their  business  cannot  wait  the  convenience  of  the  workmen,  for  "in  the 
various  operations  of  singeing,  washing,  bleaching,  mangling,  calendering,  and 
dyeing,  none  of  them  can  be  stopped  at  a  given  moment  without  risk  of  damage 
.  .  .  .  to  enforce  the  same  dinner  hour  for  all  the  work-people  might  occasion- 
ally subject  valuable  goods  to  the  risk  of  danger  by  incomplete  operations."  Le 
platonisme  ou   va-t-il  se  nichert 

*  Xenophon  says,  it  is  not  only  an  honour  to  receive  food  from  the  table  of  the 
King  of  Persia,  but  such  food  is  much  more  tasty  than  other  food.  "And  there 
is  nothing  wonderful  in  this,  for  as  the  other  arts  are  brought  to  special  perfection 
in  the  great  towns,  so  the  royal  food  is  prepared  in  a  special  way.  For  in  the  small 
towns  the  same  man  makes  bedsteads,  doors,  ploughs  and  tables:  often,  too,  he 
builds  houses  into  the  bargain,  and  is  quite  content  if  he  finds  custom  sufficient 
for  his  sustenance.  It  is  altogether  impossible  for  a  man  who  does  so  many  things  to 
do  them  all  well.  But  in  the  great  towns,  where  each  man  can  find  many  buyers,  one 
trade  is  sufficient  to  maintain  the  man  who  carries  it  on.  Nay,  there  is  often  not  even 
need  of  one  complete  trade,  but  one  man  makes  shoes  for  men,  another  for  women. 
Here  and  there  one  man  gets  a  living  by  sewing,  another  by  cutting  out  shoes; 
one  does  nothing  but  cut  out  clothes,  another  nothing  but  sew  the  pieces  together. 
It  follows  necessarily  then,  that  he  who  does  the  simplest  kind  of  work,  undoubted- 
ly does  it  better  than  any  one  else.  So  it  is  with  the  art  of  cooking."  (Xen. 
Cyrop.  1.  viii.,  c.  2.)  Xenophon  here  lays  stress  exclusively  upon  the  excellence 
to  be  attained  in  use-value,  although  he  well  knows  that  the  gradations  of  the  di- 
vision of  labour  depend  on  the  extent  of  the  market. 

*He    (Busiris)    divided  them   all   into  special   castes commanded   that 

the  same  individuals  should  always  carry  on  the  same  trade,  for  he  knew  that  they 
who  change  their  occupations  become  skilled  in  none;  but  that  those  who  constantly 
stick  to  one  occupation  bring  it  to  the  highest  perfection.  In  truth,  we  shall  also 
find  that  in  relation  to  the  arts  and  handicrafts,  they  have  outstripped  their  rivals 
more  than  a  master  does  a  bungler;  and  the  contrivances  for  maintaining  the  mon- 
archy and  the  other  institutions,  of  their  State  are  so  admirable  that  the  most 
celebrated  philosophers  who  treat  of  this  subject  praise  the  constitution  of  the 
Egyptian  State  above  all  others.     (Isocrates,  Busiris,  c.  8.) 

*  Cf.  Diodorus  Siculus. 


Division  of  Labour  and  Manufacture.  403 

during  which  manufacture  is  the  predominant  form  taken  by 
capitalist  production,  many  obstacles  are  opposed  to  the  full 
development  of  the  peculiar  tendencies  of  manufacture.  Al- 
though manufacture  creates,  as  we  have  already  seen,  a  simple 
separation  of  the  labourers  into  skilled  and  unskilled,  simul- 
taneously with  their  hierarchic  arrangement  in  classes,  yet  the 
number  of  the  unskilled  labourers,  owing  to  the  preponderating 
influence  of  the  skilled,  remains  very  limited.  Although  it 
adapts  the  detail  operations  to  the  various  degrees  of  maturity, 
strength,  and  development  of  the  living  instruments  of  labour, 
thus  conducing  to  exploitation  of  women  and  children,  yet  this 
tendency  as  a  whole  is  wrecked  on  the  habits  and  the  resistance 
of  the  male  labourers.  Although  the  splitting  up  of  handi- 
crafts lowers  the  cost  of  forming  the  workman,  and  thereby 
lowers  his  value,  yet  for  the  more  difficult  detail  work,  a  longer 
apprenticeship  is  necessary,  and,  even  where  it  would  be  super- 
fluous, is  jealously  insisted  upon  by  the  workmen.  In  Eng- 
land, for  instance,  we  find  the  laws  of  apprenticeship,  with  the 
seven  years'  probation,  in  full  force  down  to  the  end  of  the 
manufacturing  period ;  and  they  are  not  thrown  on  one  side  till 
the  advent  of  Modem  Industry.  Since  handicraft  skill  is  the 
foundation  of  manufacture,  and  since  the  mechanism  of  manu- 
facture as  a  whole  possesses  no  framework,  apart  from  the  la- 
bourers themselves,  capital  is  constantly  compelled  to  wrestle 
with  the  insubordination  of  the  workmen.  "By  the  infirmity 
of  human  nature,"  says  friend  Ure,  "it  happens  that  the  more 
skilful  the  workman,  the  more  self-willed  and  intractable  he  is 
apt  to  become,  and  of  course  the  less  fit  a  component  of  a  me- 
chanical system  in  which  ...  he  may  do  great  damage  to  the 
whole."^  Hence  throughout  the  whole  manufacturing  period 
there  runs  the  complaint  of  want  of  discipline  among  the  work- 
men.2  And  had  we  not  the  testimony  of  contemporary  writers, 
the  simple  facts  that,  during  the  period  between  the  16th  cen- 
tury and  the  epoch  of  Modem  Industry,  capital  failed  to  be- 
come the  master  of  the  whole  disposable  working-time  of  the 

^Ure,   1.   c,   p.   20. 

-  This  is  more  the  case  in  England  than  in  France,  and  more  in  France  than  in 
Holland. 


404  Capitalist  Production. 

manufacturing  labourers,  that  manufactures  are  short-lived, 
and  change  their  locality  from  one  country  to  another  with  the 
emigrating  or  immigrating  workmen,  these  facts  would  speak 
volumes.  "Order  must  in  one  way  or  another  be  established," 
exclaims  in  1770  the  oft-cited  autlior  of  the  "Essay  on  Trade 
and  Commerce."  "Order,"  re-echoes  Dr.  Andrew  Ure  63 
years  later,  "Order"  was  wanting  in  manufacture  based  on 
"the  scholastic  dogma  of  division  of  labour,"  and  "Arkwright 
created  order." 

At  the  same  time  manufacture  was  unable,  either  to  seize 
upon  the  production  of  society  to  its  full  extent,  or  to  revolu- 
tionise that  production  to  its  very  core.  It  towered  up  as 
an  economical  work  of  art,  on  the  broad  foundation  of  the  town 
handicrafts,  and  of  the  rural  domestic  industries.  At  a  given 
stage  in  its  development,  the  narrow  technical  basis  on  which 
manufacture  rested,  came  into  conflict  with  requirements  of 
production  that  were  created  by  manufacture  itself. 

One  of  its  most  finished  creations  was  the  workshop  for  ^he 
production  of  the  instruments  of  labour  themselves,  including 
especially  the  complicated  mechanical  apparatus  then  already- 
employed.  A  machine-factory,  says  TJre,  "displayed  the  di- 
vision of  labour  in  manifold  gradations — the  file,  the  drill,  the 
lathe,  having  each  its  different  workman  in  the  order  of  skill." 
(p.  21.)  This  workshop,  the  product  of  the  division  of  labour 
in  manufacture,  produced  in  its  turn — machines.  It  is  they 
that  sweep  away  the  handicraftsman's  work  as  the  regulating 
principle  of  social  production.  Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
technical  reason  for  the  life-long  annexation  of  the  workman  to 
a  detail  function  is  removed.  On  the  other  hand,  the  fetters 
that  this  same  principle  laid  on  the  dominion  of  capital,  fall 
away. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry,  405 

CHAPTER  XY. 

MACHINERY  AND  MODERN  INDUSTRY. 
SECTION    1. THE    DEVELOPMENT    OF    MACHINERY. 

JoTiN  Stuart  Mill  says  in  his  Principles  of  Political  Econ- 
omy: "It  is  questionable  if  all  the  mechanical  inventions  yet 
made  have  lighted  the  day's  toil  of  any  human  being."  ^ 
That  is,  however,  by  no  means  the  aim  of  the  capitalistic  ap- 
plication of  machinery.  Like  every  other  increase  in  the 
productiveness  of  labour,  machinery  is  intended  to  cheapen 
commodities,  and,  by  shortening  that  portion  of  the  working- 
day,  in  which  the  labourer  works  for  himself,  to  lengthen 
the  other  portion  that  he  gives,  without  an  equivalent,  to  the 
capitalist.  In  short,  it  is  a  means  for  producing  surplus- 
value. 

In  manufacture,  the  revolution  in  the  mode  of  production 
begins  with  the  labour-power,  in  modern  industry  it  begins 
with  the  instruments  of  labour.  Our  first  inquiry  then  is, 
how  the  instruments  of  labour  are  converted  from  tools  into 
machines,  or  what  is  the  difference  between  a  machine  and  the 
implements  of  a  handicraft  ?  We  are  only  concerned  here  with 
striking  and  general  characteristics ;  for  epochs  in  the  history 
of  society  are  no  more  separated  from  each  other  by  hard  and 
fast  lines  of  demarcation,  than  are  geological  epochs. 

Mathematicians  and  mechanicians,  and  in  this  they  are  fol- 
lowed by  a  few  English  economists,  call  a  tool  a  simple  ma- 
chine, and  a  machine  a  complex  tool.  They  see  no  essential 
difference  between  them,  and  even  give  the  name  of  machine  to 
the  simple  mechanical  powers,  the  lever,  the  inclined  plane,  the 
screw,  the  wedge,  &c.^  As  a  matter  of  fact,  every  machine  is 
a  combination  of  those  simple  powers,  no  matter  how  they 

^  Mill  should  have  said,  "of  any  human  being  not  fed  by  other  people's  labour," 
for,  without  doubt,  machinery  has  greatly  increased  the  number  of  well-to-do 
idlers. 

*  See,  for  instance,   Hutton :     "Course  of  Mathematics." 


4o6  Capitalist  Production. 

may  be  disguised.  From  the  economical  standpoint  this  ex- 
planation is  worth  nothing,  because  the  historical  element  is 
wanting.  Another  explanation  of  the  difference  between  tool 
and  machine  is  that  in  the  case  of  a  tool,  man  is  the  motive 
power,  while  the  motive  power  of  a  machine  is  something  dif- 
ferent from  man,  is,  for  instance,  an  animal,  water,  wind,  and 
so  on.*  According  to  this,  a  plough  drawn  by  oxen,  which  is 
a  contrivance  common  to  the  most  different  epochs,  would  be  a 
machine,  while  Claussen's  circular  loom,  which,  worked  by  a 
single  labourer,  weaves  96,000  picks  per  minute,  would  be 
a  mere  tool.  Nay,  this  very  loom,  though  a  tool  when  worked 
by  hand,  would,  if  worked  by  steam,  be  a  machine.  And  since 
the  application  of  animal  power  is  one  of  man's  earliest  inven- 
tions, production  by  machinery  would  have  preceded  produc- 
tion by  handicrafts.  When  in  1735,  John  Wyalt  brought  out 
his  spinning  machine,  and  began  the  industrial  revolution  of 
the  18th  century,  not  a  word  did  he  say  about  an  ass  driving 
it  instead  of  a  man,  and  yet  this  part  fell*to  the  ass.  He  de- 
scribed it  as  a  machine  "to  spiu  without  fingers."* 

*  "From  this  point  of  view  we  may  draw  a  sharp  line  of  distinction  between  a 
tool  and  a  machine:  spades,  hammers,  chisels,  &c.,  combinations  of  levers  and  of 
screws,  in  all   of  which,  no  matter  how  complicated  they  may   be  in  other  respects, 

man  is  the  motive  power, all  this  falls  under  the  idea  of  a  tool;  but 

the  plough,  which  is  drawn  by  animal  power,  and  windmills,  &c.,  must  be  classed 
among  machines."  (Wilhelm  Schulz:  "Die  Bewegung  der  Produktion.  Zurich, 
1843,"   p.   38.)     In   many   respects  a  book  to  be  recommended. 

*  Before  his  time,  spinning  machines,  although  very  imperfect  ones,  had  already 
been  used,  and  Italy  was  probably  the  country  of  their  first  appearance.  A  critical 
history  of  technology  would  show  how  little  any  of  the  inventions  of  the  18th  cen- 
tury are  the  wotk  of  a  single  individual.  Hitherto  there  is  no  such  book.  Darwin 
has  interested  us  in  the  history  of  Nature's  Technology,  i.e.,  in  the  formation  of 
the  organs  of  plants  and  animals,  which  organs  serve  as  instruments  of  production 
for  sustaining  life.  Does  not  the  history  of  the  productive  organs  of  man,  of  or- 
gans that  are  the  material  basis  of  all  social  organisation,  deserve  equal  attention? 
And  would  not  such  a  history  be  easier  to  compile  since,  as  Vico  says,  human 
history  differs  from  natural  history  in  this,  that  we  have  made  the  former,  but  not 
the  latter?  Technology  discloses  man's  mode  of  dealing  with  Nature,  the  process 
of  production  by  which  he  sustains  his  life,  and  thereby  also  lays  bare  the  mode 
of  formation  of  his  social  relations,  and  of  the  mental  conceptions  that  flow  from 
them.  Every  history  of  religion  even,  that  fails  to  take  account  of  this  material 
basis,  is  uncritical.  It  is,  in  reality,  much  easier  to  discover  by  analysis  the  earth- 
ly core  of  the  misty  creations  of  religion,  than,  conversely,  it  is,  to  develop  from  the 
actual  relations  of  life  the  corresponding  cclestialised  forms  of  those  relations.  The 
latter  method  is  the  only  materialistic,  and  therefore  the  only  scientific  one.  The 
weak  points  in  the  abstract  materialism  of  natural  science,  a  materialism  that  ex- 
cludes history  and  its  process,  are  at  once  evident  from  the  abstract  and  ideological 


Machinery  and  Modern-  Industry.  407 

All  fully  developed  machinery  consists  of  three  essentially 
different  parts,  the  motor  mechanism,  the  transmitting  mechan- 
ism, and  finally  the  tool  or  working  machine.  The  motor 
mechanism  is  that  which  puts  the  whole  in  motion.  It  either 
generates  its  own  motive  power,  like  the  steam  engine,  the 
caloric  engine,  the  electro-magnetic  machine,  &c.,  or  it  receives 
its  impulse  from  some  already  existing  natural  force,  like  the 
water-wheel  from  a  head  of  water,  the  wind-mill  from  wind, 
&c.  The  transmitting  mechanism,  composed  of  fly-wheels, 
shafting,  toothed  wheels,  pullies,  straps,  ropes,  hands,  pinions, 
and  gearing  of  the  most  varied  kinds,  regulates  the  motion, 
changes  its  form  where  necessary,  as  for  instance,  from  linear 
to  circular,  and  divides  and  distributes  it  among  the  working 
machines.  These  two  first  parts  of  the  whole  mechanism  are 
there,  solely  for  putting  the  working  machines  in  motion,  by 
means  of  which  motion  the  subject  of  labour  is  seized  upon 
and  modified  as  desired.  The  tool  or  working-machine  is  that 
part  of  the  machinery  with  which  the  industrial  revolution  of. 
the  18th  century  started.  And  to  this  day  it  constantly  serves 
as  such  a  starting  point,  whenever  a  handicraft,  or  a  manu- 
facture, is  turned  into  an  industry  carried  on  by  machinery. 

On  a  closer  examination  of  the  working-machine  proper,  we 
find  in  it,  as  a  general  rule,  though  often,  no  doubt,  under  very- 
altered  forms,  the  apparatus  and  tools  used  by  the  handicrafts- 
man or  manufacturing  workman ;  with  this  difference,  that 
instead  of  being  human  implements,  they  are  the  implements 
of  a  mechanism,  or  mechanical  implements.  Either  the  entire 
machine  is  only  a  more  or  less  altered  mechanical  edition  of 
the  old  handicraft  tool,  as,  for  instance,  the  power-loom  ;^  or 
the  working  parts  fitted  in  the  frame  of  the  machine  are  old 
acquaintances,  as  spindles  are  in  a  mule,  needles  in  a  stocking- 
loom,  saws  in  a  sawing  machine,  and  knives  in  a  chopping 
machine.  The  distinction  between  these  tools  and  the  body 
proper  of  the  machine,  exists  from  their  very  birth ;  for  they 

conceptions   of  its   spokesmen,    whenever  they   venture   beyond   the   bounds   of   their 
own  speciality. 

^  Especially  in  the  original  form  of  the  power-loom,  we  recognise,  at  the  first 
glance,  the  ancient  loom.  In  its  modern  form,  the  power-loom  has  undergone  es- 
sential   alterations. 


4o8  Capitalist  Production. 

continue  for  the  most  part  to  be  produced  by  handicraft,  or  by 
manufacture,  and  are  afterwards  fitted  into  the  body  of  the 
machine,  which  is  the  product  of  machinery.^  The  machine 
proper  is  therefore  a  mechanism  that,  after  being  set  in  motion, 
performs  with  its  tools  the  same  operations  that  were  formerly 
done  by  the  workman  with  similar  tools.  Whether  the  motive 
power  is  derived  from  man,  or  from  some  other  machine,  makes 
no  difference  in  this  respect.  From  the  moment  that  the  tool 
proper  is  taken  from  man,  and  fitted  into  a  mechanism,  a 
machine  takes  the  place  of  a  mere  implement.  The  difference 
strikes  one  at  once,  even  in  those  cases  where  man  himself 
continues  to  be  the  prime  mover.  The  number  of  implements 
that  he  himself  can  use  simultaneously,  is  limited  by  the  num- 
ber of  his  own  natural  instruments  of  production,  by  the 
number  of  his  bodily  organs.  In  Germany,  they  tried  at  first 
to  make  one  spinner  work  two  spinning  wheels,  that  is,  to 
work  simultaneously  with  both  hands  and  both  feet.  This  was 
too  difficult.  Later,  a  treddle  spinning  wheel  with  two  spin- 
dles was  invented,  but  adepts  in  spinning,  who  could  spin  two 
threads  at  once,  were  almost  as  scarce  as  two-headed  men. 
The  Jenny,  on  the  other  hand,  even  at  its  very  birth,  spun 
with  12-18  spindles,  and  the  stocking-loom  knits  with  many 
thousand  needles  at  once.  The  number  of  tools  that  a  machine 
can  bring  into  play  simultaneously,  is  from  the  very  first 
emancipated  from  the  organic  limits  that  hedge  in  the  tools  of 
a  handicraftsman. 

In  many  manual  implements  the  distinction  between  man  as 
mere  motive  power,  and  man  as  the  workman  or  operator 
properly  so-called,  is  brought  into  striking  contrast.  For  in- 
stance, the  foot  is  merely  the  prime  mover  of  the  spinning 
wheel,  while  the  hand,  working  with  the  spindle,  and  drawing 
and  twisting,  performs  the  real  operation  of  spinning.  It  is 
this  last  part  of  the  handicraftsman's  implement  that  is  first 

*  It  is  only  during  the  last  15  yerrs  (-.e.,  since  ahout  ISBO),  that  a  constantly 
increasing  portion  of  these  machine  too!s  have  been  made  in  England  by  machinery, 
and  that  not  by  the  same  manufrtctnrcs  v  :;o  make  the  machines.  InsUnces  of 
machines  for  the  fabrication  of  these  m  chaiicil  tools  are,  the  automatic  bobbin- 
making  engine,  the  card-setting  engine,  shutuc-making  machines,  and  machines  for 
forging  mule  and  throotie  s.inUles. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  409 

seized  upon  by  the  industrial  revolution,  leaving  to  the  work- 
man, in  addition  to  his  new  labour  of  watching  the  machine 
with  his  eyes  and  correcting  its  mistakes  with  his  hands,  the 
merely  mechanical  part  of  being  the  moving  power.  On  the 
other  hand,  implements,  in  regard  to  which  man  has  always 
acted  as  a  simple  motive  power,  as,  for  instance,  by  turning  the 
crank  of  a  mill,^  by  pumping,  by  moving  up  and  down  the  arm 
of  a  bellows,  by  pounding  with  a  mortar,  &c.,  such  implements 
soon  call  for  the  application  of  animals,  water,^  and  wind  as 
motive  powers.  Here  and  there,  long  before  the  period  of 
manufacture,  and  also,  to  some  extent,  during  that  period, 
these  implements  pass  over  into  machines,  but  without  creat'- 
ing  any  revolution  in  the  mode  of  production.  It  becomes 
evident,  in  the  period  of  Modern  Industry,  that  these  imple- 
ments, even  under  their  form  of  manual  tools,  are  already 
machines.  For  instance,  the  pumps  with  which  the  Dutch,  in 
1836-7,  emptied  the  Lake  of  Harlem,  were  constructed  on  the 
principle  of  ordinary  pumps;  the  only  difference  being,  that 
their  pistons  were  driven  by  cyclopean  steam-engines,  instead 
of  by  men.  The  common  and  very  impierfect  bellows  of  the 
blacksmith  is,  in  England,  occasionally  converted  into  a  blow- 
ing-engine, by  connecting  its  arm  with  a  steam-engine.  The 
steam-engine  itself,  such  as  it  was  at  its  invention,  during  the 
manufacturing  period  at  the  close  of  the  17th  century,  and 
such  as  it  continued  to  be  down  to  1780,^  did  not  give  rise  to 
any  industrial  revolution.     It  was,  on  the  contrary,  the  inven- 

1  Moses  says:  "Thou  shalt  not  muzzle  the  ox  that  treads  the  corn."  The  Christian 
philanthropists  of  Germany,  on  the  contrary,  fastened  a  wooden  board  round  the 
necks  of  the  serfs,  whom  they  used  as  a  motive  power  for  grinding,  in  order  to 
prevent    them    from    putting   flour    into   their    mouths    with   their    hands. 

*  It  was  partly  the  want  of  streams  with  a  good  fall  on  them,  and  partly  their 
battles  with  superabundance  of  water  in  other  respects,  that  compelled  the  Dutch  to 
resort  to  wind  as  a  motive  power.  The  windmill  itself  they  got  from  Germany, 
where  its  invention  was  the  origin  of  a  pretty  squabble  between  the  nobles,  the 
priests,  and  the  emperor,  as  to  which  of  those  three  the  wind  "belonged."  The  air 
makes  bondage,  was  the  cry  in  Germany,  at  the  same  time  that  the  wind  was  making 
Holland  free.  What  it  reduced  to  bondage  in  this  case,  was  not  the  Dutchman,  but 
the  land  for  the  Dutchman.  In  1836,  12,000  windmills  of  6000  horse-power  were 
still  employed  in  Holland,  to  prevent  two-thirds  of  the  land  from  being  reconverted 
'"•10  morasses. 

■*  1 1  was,  indeed,  very  much  improved  by  Watt's  first  so-called  single  acting  en- 
gine; but,  in  this  form,  it  continued  to  be  a  mere  machine  for  raising  water,  and 
the-   liquor   from   salt   mines. 


410  Capitalist  Production. 

tion  of  machines  that  made  a  revolution  in  the  form  of  steam- 
engines  necessary.  As  soon  as  man,  instead  of  working  with 
an  implement  on  the  subject  of  his  labour,  becomes  merely 
the  motive  power  of  an  implement-machine,  it  is  a  mere  acci- 
dent that  motive  power  takes  the  disguise  of  human  muscle; 
and  it  may  equally  well  take  the  form  of  wind,  water  or  steam. 
Of  course,  this  does  not  prevent  such  a  change  of  form  from 
producing  great  technical  alterations  in  the  mechanism  that 
was  originally  constructed  to  be  driven  by  man  alone.  Now- 
adays, all  machines  that  have  their  way  to  make,  such  as  sew- 
ing machines,  bread-making  machines,  &c.,  are,  unless  from 
their  very  nature  their  use  on  a  small  scale  is  excluded,  con- 
structed to  be  driven  both  by  human  and  by  purely  mechan- 
ical motive  power. 

The  machine,  which  is  the  starting  point  of  the  industrial 
revolution,  supersedes  the  workman,  who  handles  a  single  tool, 
by  a  mechanism  operating  with  a  number  of  similar  tools,  and 
set  in  motion  by  a  single  motive  power,  whatever  the  form  of 
that  power  may  be.^  Here  we  have  the  machine,  but  only  as 
an  elementary  factor  of  production  by  machinery. 

Increase  in  the  size  of  the  machine,  and  in  the  number  of  its 
working  tools,  calls  for  a  more  massive  mechanism  to  drive  it ; 
and  this  mechanism  requires,  in  order  to  overcome  its  resist- 
ance, a  mightier  moving  power  than  that  of  man,  apart  from 
the  fact  that  man  is  a  very  imperfect  instrument  for  producing 
uniform  continued  motion.  But  assuming  that  he  is  acting 
simply  as  a  motor,  that  a  machine  has  taken  the  place  of  his 
tool,  it  is  evident  that  he  can  be  replaced  by  natural  forces. 
Of  all  the  great  motors  handed  down  from  the  manufacturing 
period,  horse-power  is  the  worst,  partly  because  a  horse  has  a 
head  of  his  own,  partly  because  he  is  costly,  and  the  extent  to 
which  he  is  applicable  in  factories  is  very  restricted.^     Never- 

'  "The  union  of  all  these  simple  instruments,  set  in  motion  by  a  single  motor, 
constitutes   a   machine."      (Babbage,    1.    c.) 

'  In  January,  1861,  John  C.  Morton  read  before  the  Society  of  Arts  a  paper  on 
"The  forces  employed  in  agriculture."  He  there  states:  "Every  improvement  that 
furthers  the  uniformity  of  the  land  makes  the  steam-engine  more  and  more  applica- 
ble to  the  production  of  pure  mechanical  force.  .  .  .  Horse-power  is  requisite 
wherever  crooked  fences  and  other  obstructions  prevent  uniform  action.  These 
obstructions  are  vanishing  day  by  day.     For  operations  that  demand  more  exercise 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  411 

theless  the  horse  was  extensively  used  during  the  infancy  of 
Modern  Industry.  This  is  proved,  as  well  by  the  complaints 
of  contemporary  agriculturists,  as  by  the  term  "horse-power," 
which  has  survived  to  this  day  as  an  expression  for  mechanical 
force. 

Wind  was  too  inconstant  and  uncontrollable,  and  besides,  in 
England,  the  birthplace  of  Modern  Industry,  the  use  of  water- 
power  preponderated  even  during  the  manufacturing  period. 
In  the  17th  centuiy  attempts  had  already  been  made  to  turn 
two  pairs  of  millstones  with  a  single  water-wheel.  But  the 
increased  size  of  the  gearing  was  too  much  for  the  water- 
power,  which  had  now  become  insufficient,  and  this  was  one 
of  the  circumstances  that  led  to  a  more  accurate  investigation 
of  the  laws  of  friction.  In  the  same  way  the  irregularity 
caused  by  the  motive  power  in  mills  that  were  put  in  motion 
by  pushing  and  pulling  a  lever,  led  to  the  theory,  and  the 
application,  of  the  fly-wheel,  which  afterwards  plays  so  im- 
portant a  part  in  Modern  Industry.^  In  this  way,  during  the 
manufacturing  period,  were  developed  the  first  scientific  and 
technical  elements  of  Modern  Mechanical  Industry.  Ark- 
wright's  throstle-spinning  mill  was  from  the  very  first  turned 
by  water.  But  for  all  that,  the  use  of  water,  as  the  predomi- 
nant motive  power,  was  beset  with  difficulties.  It  could  not  be 
increased  at  Avill,  it  failed  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year,  and, 
above  all,  it  was  essentially  local. ^  Not  till  the  invention  of 
Watt's  second  and  so  called  double-acting  steam-engine,  was  a 

of  will  than  actual  force,  the  only  power  applicable  is  that  controlled  every  instant 
by  the  human  mind — in  other  words,  man-power."  Mr.  Morton  then  reduces  steam- 
power,  horse-power,  and  man-power,  to  the  unit  in  general  use  for  steam-engines, 
namely,  the  force  required  to  raise  33,000  lbs.  one  foot  in  one  minute,  and  reckons 
the  cost  of  one  horse-power  from  a  steam-engine  to  be  3d.,  and  from  a  horse  to 
be  B'/id.  per  hour.  Further,  if  a  horse  must  fully  maintain  its  health,  it  can  work 
no  more  than  8  hours  a  day.  Three  at  the  least  out  of  every  seven  horses  used  on 
tillage  land  during  the  year  can  be  dispensed  with,  by  using  steam-power,  at  an 
expense  not  greater  than  that  which,  the  horses  dispensed  with,  would  cost  dur- 
ing the  3  or  4  months  in  which  alone  they  can  be  used  effectively.  Lastly,  steam- 
power,  in  those  agricultural  operations  in  which  it  can  be  employed,  improves,  in 
comparison  with  horse-power,  the  quality  of  the  work.  To  do  the  work  of  a  steam- 
engine  would  require  66  men,  at  a  total  cost  of  15s.  an  hour,  and  to  do  the  work  of 
a  horse,  32  men,  at  a  total  cost  of  8s.  an  hour. 

'  Faulhcbr,   1625;   De   Cous,    1688. 

^  The  modern  turbine  frees  the  industrial  exploitation  of  water-power  from  many 
of  its   former  fetters. 


412  Capitalist  Production. 

prime  mover  found,  that  begot  its  own  force  by  the  consump- 
tion of  coal  and.  water,  whose  power  was  entirely  under  man's 
control,  that  was  mobile  and  a  means  of  locomotion,  that  was 
urban  and  not,  like  the  water-wheel,  rural,  that  permitted  pro- 
duction to  be  concentrated  in  towns  instead  of,  like  the  water- 
wheels,  being  scattered  up  and  down  the  country,^  that  was  of 
universal  technical  application,  and,  relatively  speaking,  little 
affected  in  its  choice  of  residence  by  local  circumstances.  The 
greatness  of  Watt's  genius  showed  itself,  in  the  specification  of 
the  patent  that  he  took  out  in  April,  1784.  In  that  specifica- 
tion his  steam-engine  is  described,  not  as  an  invention  for  a 
specific  purpose,  but  as  an  agent  universally  applicable  in 
Mechanical  Industry.  In  it  he  points  out  applications,  many 
of  which,  as  for  instance,  the  steam-hammer,  were  not  intro- 
duced till  half  a  century  later.  Nevertheless  he  doubted  the 
use  of  steam-engines  in  navigation.  His  successors,  Boulton 
and  Watt,  sent  to  the  exhibition  of  1851  steam-engines  of  colos- 
sal size  for  ocean  steamers. 

As  soon  as  tools  had  been  converted  from  being  manual 
implements  of  man  into  implements  of  a  mechanical  apparatus, 
of  a  machine,  the  motive  mechanism  also  acquired  an  indepen- 
dent form,  entirely  emancipated  from  the  restraints  of  human 
strength.  Thereupon  the  individual  machine,  that  we  have 
hitherto  been  considering,  sinks  into  a  mere  factor  in  produc- 
tion by  machinery.  One  motive  mechanism  was  now  able  to 
drive  many  machines  at  once.  The  motive  mechanism  grows 
with  the  number  of  the  machines  that  are  turned  simultane- 
ously, and  the  transmitting  mechanism  becomes  a  wide-spread- 
ing apparatus. 

We  now  proceed  to  distinguish  the  co-operation  of  a  number 

'  "In  the  early  days  of  textile  manufactures,  the  locality  of  the  factory  depended 
upon  the  existence  of  a  stream  having  a  sufficient  fall  to  turn  a  water-wheel;  and, 
although  the  establishment  of  the  water  mills  was  the  commencement  of  the  break- 
ing up  of  the  domestic  system  of  manufacture,  yet  the  mills  necessarily  situated 
upon  streams,  and  frequently  at  considerable  distances  the  one  from  the  other,  form- 
ed part  of  a  rural,  rather  than  an  urban  system;  and  it  was  not  until  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  steam-power  as  a  substitute  for  the  stream  that  factories  were  congre- 
gated in  towns,  and  localities  where  the  coal  and  water  required  for  the  production 
of  steam  were  found  in  sufficient  quantities.  The  steam-engine  is  the  parent  of 
manufacturing  towns."  (A.  Redgrave  in  "Reports  of  the  Insp.  of  Fact.  30th 
April,    1866,"   p.   36.) 


Machinery  and  Modem  Industry.  413 

of  machines  of  one  kind  from  a  complex  system  of  machinery. 
In  the  one  case,  the  product  is  entirely  made  by  a  single 
machine,  which  performs  all  the  various  operations  previously 
done  by  one  handicraftsman  with  his  tool ;  as,  for  instance,  by 
a  weaver  with  his  loom ;  or  by  several  handicraftsmen  success- 
ively, either  separately  or  as  members  of  a  system  of  Manu- 
facture.^ For  example,  in  the  manufacture  of  envelopes,  one 
man  folded  the  paper  with  the  folder,  another  laid  on  the  gum, 
a  third  turned  the  flap  over,  on  which  the  device  is  impressed, 
a  fourth  embossed  the  device,  and  so  on ;  and  for  each  of  these 
operations  the  envelope  had  to  change  hands.  One  single 
envelope  machine  now  performs  all  these  operations  at  once, 
and  makes  more  than  3000  envelopes  in  an  hour.  In  the  Lon- 
don exhibition  of  1862,  there  was  an  American  machine  for 
making  paper  cornets.  It  cut  the  paper,  pasted,  folded,  and 
finished  300  in  a  minute.  Here,  the  whole  process,  which, 
when  carried  on  as  Manufacture,  was  split  up  into,  and  carried 
out  by,  a  series  of  operations,  is  completed  by  a  single  machine, 
working  a  combination  of  various  tools.  Now,  whether  such 
a  machine  be  merely  a  reproduction  of  a  complicated  manual 
implement,  or  a  combination  of  various  simple  implements 
specialised  by  Manufacture,  in  either  case,  in  the  factory,  i.e., 
in  the  workshop  in  which  machinery  alone  is  used,  we  meet 
again  with  simple  co-operation;  and,  leaving  the  workman 
out  of  consideration  for  the  moment,  this  co-operation  presents 
itself  to  us,  in  the  first  instance,  as  the  conglomeration  in  one 
place  of  similar  and  simultaneously  acting  machines.  Thus,  a 
weaving  factory  is  constituted  of  a  number  of  power-looms, 
working  side  by  side,  and  a  sewing  factoi-y  of  a  number  of 
sewing  machines  all  in  the  same  building.  But  there  is  here 
a  technical  oneness  in  the  whole  system,  owing  to  all  the  ma- 

1  From  the  standpoint  of  division  of  labour  in  Manufacture,  weaving  was  not 
simple,  but  on  the  contrary,  complicated  manual  labour;  and  consequently  the 
power-loom  is  a  machine  that  does  very  complicated  work.  It  is  altogether  errone- 
ous to  suppose  that  modern  machinery  originally  appropriated  these  operations  alone, 
which  division  of  labour  had  simplified.  Spinning  and  weaving  were,  during  the 
manufacturing  period,  split  up  into  new  species,  and  the  implements  were  modified 
and  improved;  but  the  labour  itself  was  in  no  way  divided,  and  it  retained  its  handi- 
craft character.  It  is  not  the  labour,  but  the  instrument  of  labour,  that  serves  as 
the  starting-point  of  the   machine. 


414  Capitalist  Production. 

chines  receiving  their  impulse  simultaneously,  and  in  an  equal 
degree,  from  the  pulsations  of  the  common  prime  mover,  by 
the  intermediary  of  the  transmitting  mechanism;  and  this 
mechanism,  to  a  certain  extent,  is  also  common  to  them  all, 
since  only  particular  ramifications  of  it  branch  off  to  each 
machine.  Just  as  a  number  of  tools,  then,  form  the  organs  of 
a  machine,  so  a  number  of  machines  of  one  kind  constitute  the 
organs  of  the  motive  mechanism. 

A  real  machinery  system,  however,  does  not  take  the  place 
of  these  independent  machines,  until  the  subject  of  labour  goes 
through  a  connected  series  of  detail  processes,  that  are  carried 
out  by  a  chain  of  machines  of  various  kinds,  the  one  supple- 
menting the  other.  Here  we  have  again  the  co-operation  by 
division  of  labour  that  characterises  Manufacture;  only  now, 
it  is  a  combination  of  detail  machines.  The  special  tools  of 
the  various  detail  workmen,  such  as  those  of  the  beaters,  comb- 
ers, spinners,  &c.,  in  the  woollen  manufacture,  are  now  trans- 
formed into  the  tools  of  specialised  machines,  each  machine 
constituting  a  special  organ,  with  a  special  function,  in  the 
system.  In  those  branches  of  industry  in  which  the  machinery 
system  is  first  introduced,  Manufacture  itself  furnishes,  in  a 
general  way,  the  natural  basis  for  the  division,  and  consequent 
organisation,  of  the  process  of  production.^  Nevertheless  an 
essential  difference  at  once  manifests  itself.  In  Manufacture 
it  is  the  workmen  who,  with  their  manual  implements,  must, 

^  Before  the  epoch  of  Mechanical  Industry,  the  wool  manufacture  was  the  pre- 
dominating manufacture  in  England.  Hence  it  was  in  this  industry  that,  in  the  first 
half  of  the  18th  century,  the  most  experiments  were  made.  Cotton,  which  required 
less  careful  preparation  for  its  treatment  by  machinery,  derived  the  benefit  of  the 
experience  gained  on  wool,  just  as  afterwards  the  manipulation  of  wool  by  machin- 
ery was  developed  on  the  lines  of  cotton-spinning  and  weaving  by  machinery.  It 
was  only  during  the  10  years  immediately  preceding  1866,  that  isolated  details  of 
the  wool  manufacture,  such  as  wool-combing,  were  incorporated  in  the  factory 
system.  "The  application  of  power  to  the  process  of  combing  wool  .  .  .  . ' 
extensively  in  operation  since  the  introduction  of  the  combing  machine,  especially 
Lister's  .  .  .  undoubtedly  had  the  effect  of  throwing  a  very  large  number  of 
men  out  of  work.  Wool  was  formerly  combed  by  hand,  most  frequently  in  the 
cottage  of  the  comber.  It  is  now  very  generally  combed  in  the  factory,  and  hand- 
labour  is  superseded,  except  in  some  particular  kinds  of  work,  in  which  hand-combed 
wool  is  still  preferred.  Many  of  the  hand-combers  found  employment  in  the  fac- 
tories, but  the  produce  of  the  hand-combers  bears  so  small  a  proportion  to  that  of 
the  machine,  that  the  employment  of  a  very  large  number  of  combers  has  passed 
away."     (Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact,   for  31st  Oct.,   1856,  p.   16.) 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  415 

either  singly  or  in  groups,  carry  on  each  particular  detail  proc- 
ess. If,  on  the  one  hand,  the  workman  becomes  adapted  to  the 
process,  on  the  other,  the  process  was  previously  made  suitable 
to  the  workman.  This  subjective  principle  of  the  division  of 
labour  no  longer  exists  in  production  by  machinery.  Here, 
the  process  as  a  whole  is  examined  objectively,  in  itself,  that  is 
to  say,  without  regard  to  the  question  of  its  execution  by  hu- 
man hands,  it  is  analysed  into  its  constituent  phases ;  and  the 
problem,  how  to  execute  each  detail  process,  and  bind  them  all 
into  a  whole,  is  solved  by  the  aid  of  machines,  chemistry,  &c.^ 
But,  of  course,  in  this  case  also,  theory  must  be  perfected  by 
accumulated  experience  on  a  large  scale.  Each  detail  machine 
supplies  raw  material  to  the  machine  next  in  order ;  and  since 
they  are  all  working  at  the  same  time,  the  product  is  always 
going  through  the  various  stages  of  its  fabrication,  and  is  also 
constantly  in  a  state  of  transition,  from  one  phase  to  another. 
Just  as  in  Manufacture,  the  direct  co-operation  of  the  detail 
labourers  establishes  a  numerical  proportion  between  the  spe- 
cial groups,  so  in  an  organised  system  of  machinery,  where 
one  detail  machine  is  constantly  kept  employed  by  another,  a 
fixed  relation  is  established  between  their  numbers,  their  size, 
and  their  speed.  The  collective  machine,  now  an  organised 
system  of  various  kinds  of  single  machines,  and  of  groups  of 
single  machines,  becomes  more  and  more  perfect,  the  more  the 
process  as  a  whole  becomes  a  continuous  one,  i.e.,  the  less  the 
raw  material  is  interrupted  in  its  passage  from  its  first  phase 
to  its  last ;  in  other  words,  the  more  its  passage  from  one  phase 
to  another  is  effected,  not  by  the  hand  of  man,  but  by  the  ma- 
chinery itself.  In  Manufacture  the  isolation  of  each  detail 
process  is  a  condition  imposed  by  the  nature  of  division  of 
labour,  but  in  the  fully  developed  factory  the  continuity  of 
those  processes  is,  on  the  contrary,  imperative. 

A  system  of  machinery,  whether  it  reposes  on  the  mere  co- 
operation of  similar  machines,  as  in  weaving,  or  on  a  combina- 
tion of  different  machines,  as  in  spinning,  constitutes  in  itself 

^  "The  principle  of  the  factory  system,  then,  is  to  substitute  .  .  .  the  parti- 
tion of  a  process  into  its  essential  constituents,  for  the  division  or  graduation  of 
labour  among  artisans."  (Andrew  Ure:  "The  Philosophy  of  Manufactures." 
Lond.,   1835,   p.    20.) 


4i6  Capitalist  Production. 

a  huge  automaton,  whenever  it  is  driven  by  a  self-acting  prime 
mover.  But  although  the  factory  as  a  whole  be  driven  by  its 
steam-engine,  yet  either  some  of  the  individual  machines  may 
require  the  aid  of  the  workman  for  some  of  their  movements 
(such  aid  was  necessary  for  the  running- in  of  the  mule  car- 
riage, before  the  invention  of  the  self-acting  mule,  and  is  still 
necessary  in  fine-spinning  mills)  ;  or,  to  enable  a  machine  to  do 
its  work,  certain  parts  of  it  may  require  to  be  handled  by  the 
workman  like  a  manual  tool ;  this  was  the  case  in  machine- 
makers'  workshops,  before  the  conversion  of  the  slide  rest  into 
a  self-actor.  As  soon  as  a  machine  executes,  without  man's 
help,  all  the  movements  requisite  to  elaborate  the  raw  material, 
needing  only  attendance  from  him,  we  have  an  automatic  sys- 
tem of  machinery,  and  one  that  is  susceptible  of  constant  im- 
provement in  its  details.  Such  improvements  as  the  apparatus 
that  stops  a  drawing  frame,  whenever  a  sliver  breaks,  and  the 
self-acting  stop,  that  stops  the  power-loom  so  soon  as  the  shuttle 
bobbin  is  emptied  of  weft,  are  quite  modem  inventions.  As 
an  example,  both  of  continuity  of  production,  and  of  the  carry- 
ing out  of  the  automatic  principle,  we  may  take  a  modem 
paper  mill.  In  the  paper  industry  generally,  we  may  advan- 
tageously study  in  detail  not  only  the  distinctions  between 
modes  of  production  based  on  different  means  of  production, 
but  also  the  connexion  of  the  social  conditions  of  production 
with  those  modes :  for  the  old  German  paper-making  furnishes 
us  with  a  sample  of  handicraft  production ;  that  of  Holland 
in  the  17th  and  of  France  in  the  18th  century  with  a  sample 
of  manufacturing  in  the  strict  sense ;  and  that  of  modem  Eng- 
land with  a  sample  of  automatic  fabrication  of  this  article. 
Besides  these,  there  still  exist,  in  India  and  China,  two  dis- 
tinct antique  Asiatic  forms  of  the  same  industry. 

An  organised  system  of  machines,  to  which  motion  is  com- 
municated by  the  transmitting  mechanism  from  a  central 
automaton,  is  the  most  developed  form  of  production  by  ma- 
chinery. Here  we  have,  in  the  place  of  the  isolated  machine, 
a  mechanical  monster  whose  body  fills  whole  factories,  and 
•whose  demon  power,  at  first  veiled  under  the  slow  and  meas- 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  417 

ured  motions  of  his  giant  limbs,  at  length  breaks  out  into  the 
fast  and  furious  whirl  of  his  countless  working  organs. 

There  were  mules  and  steam-engines  before  there  were  any 
labourers,  whose  exclusive  occupation  it  was  to  make  mules 
and  steam-engines ;  just  as  men  wore  clothes  before  there  were 
such  people  as  tailors.  The  inventions  of  Vaucanson,  Ark- 
wright.  Watt,  and  others,  were,  however,  practicable,  only 
because  those  inventors  found,  ready  to  hand,  a  considerable 
number  of  skilled  mechanical  workmen,  placed  at  their  dis- 
posal by  the  manufacturing  period.  Some  of  these  workmen 
were  independent  handicraftmen  of  various  trades,  others  were 
grouped  together  in  manufactures,  in  which,  as  before-men- 
tioned, division  of  labour  was  strictly  carried  out.  As  inven- 
tions increased  in  numher,  and  the  demand  for  the  newly 
discovered  machines  grew  larger,  the  machine-making  industry 
split  up,  more  and  more,  into  numerous  independent  branches, 
and  division  of  labour  in  these  manufactures  was  more  and 
more  developed.  Here,  then,  we  see  in  Manufacture  the  imme- 
diate technical  foundation  of  Modern  Industry.  Manufacture 
produced  the  machinery,  by  means  of  which  Modern  Industry- 
abolished  the  handicraft  and  manufacturing  systems  in  those 
spheres  of  production  that  it  first  seized  upon.  The  factory 
system  was  therefore  raised,  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  on 
an  inadequate  foundation.  When  the  system  attained  to  a 
certain  degree  of  development,  it  had  to  root  up  this  ready- 
made  foundation,  which  in  the  meantime  had  been  elaborated 
on  the  old  lines,  and  to  build  up  for  itself  a  basis  that  should 
correspond  to  its  methods  of  production.  Just  as  the  indi- 
vidual machine  retains  a  dwarfish  character,  so  long  as  it  is 
worked  by  the  power  of  man  alone,  and  just  as  no  system  of 
machinery  could  be  properly  developed  before  the  steam  engine 
took  the  place  of  the  earlier  motive  powers,  animals,  wind,  and 
even  water ;  so,  too.  Modern  Industry  was  crippled  in  its  com- 
plete development,  so  long  as  its  characteristic  instrument  of 
production,  tlie  machine,  owed  its  existence  to  personal 
strength  and  personal  skill,  and  depended  on  the  muscular  de- 
velopment, the  keenness  of  sight,  and  the  cunning  of  hand, 
with   which   the   detail   workmen    in   manufactures,    and   the 

;:  A 


4i8  Capitalist  Production. 

manual  labourers  in  handicrafts,  wielded  their  dwarfish  imple- 
ments. Thus,  apart  from  the  dearness  of  the  machines  made 
in  this  way,  a  circumstance  that  is  ever  present  to  the  mind  of 
the  capitalist,  the  expansion  of  industries  carried  on  by  means 
of  machinery,  and  the  invasion  by  machinery  of  fresh  branches 
of  production,  were  dependent  on  the  growth  of  a  class  of  work- 
men, who,  owing  to  the  almost  artistic  nature  of  their  employ- 
ment, could  increase  their  numbers  only  gradually,  and  not  by 
leaps  and  bounds.  But  besides  this,  at  a  certain  stage  of  its- 
development,  Modern  Industry  became  technologically  incom- 
patible with  the  basis  furnished  for  it  by  handicraft  and  Manu- 
facture. The  increasing  size  of  the  prime  movers,  of  the 
transmitting  mechanism,  and  of  the  machines  proper,  the 
greater  complication,  multiformity  and  regularity  of  the  details 
of  these  machines,  as  they  more  and  more  departed  from  the 
model  of  those  originally  made  by  manual  labour,  and  acquired 
a  form,  untrammelled  except  by  the  conditions  under  which 
they  worked,^  the  perfecting  of  the  automatic  system,  and  the 
use,  every  day  more  avoidable,  of  a  more  refractory  ma- 
terial, such  as  iron  instead  of  wood — the  solution  of  all  these 
problems,  which  sprang  up  by  the  force  of  circumstances, 
everywhere  met  with  a  stumbling-block  in  the  personal  restric- 
tions which  even  the  collective  labourer  of  Manufacture  could 
not  break  through,  except  to  a  limited  extent.  Such  machines 
as  the  modern  hydraulic  press,  the  modern  powerloom,  and  the 
modern  carding  engine,  could  never  have  been  furnished  by 
Manufacture. 

A  radical  change  in  the  mode  of  production  in  one  sphere  of 
industry  involves  a  similar  change  in  other  spheres.     This 

'  The  powerloom  was  at  first  made  chiefly  of  wood ;  in  its  improved  modern  form 
it  is  made  of  iron.  To  what  an  extent  the  old  forms  of  the  instruments  of  pro- 
duction influenced  their  new  forms  at  first  starting,  is  shown  by,  amongst  other 
things,  the  most  superficial  comparison  of  the  present  powerloom  with  the  old  one, 
of  the  modern  blowing  apparatus  of  a  blast-furnace  with  the  first  inefficient  me- 
chanical reproduction  of  the  ordinary  bellows,  and  perhaps  more  strikingly  than 
in  any  other  way,  by  the  attempts  before  the  invention  of  the  present  locomotive, 
to  construct  a  locomotive  that  actually  had  two  feet,  which  after  the  fashion  of  a 
horse,  it  raised  alternately  from  the  ground.  It  is  only  after  considerable  develop- 
ment of  the  science  of  mechanics,  and  accumulated  practical  experience,  that  the 
form  of  a  machine  becomes  settled  entirely  in  accordance  with  mechanical  prin- 
ciples, and  emancipated   from  the  traditional   form  of  the  tool  that  gave   rise  to  it. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  419 

happens  at  first  in  such  branches  of  industry  as  are  connected 
together  by  being  separate  phases  of  a  process,  and  yet  are 
isolated  by  the  social  division  of  labour,  in  svich  a  way,  that 
each  of  them  produces  an  independent  commodity.  Thus 
spinning  by  machinery  made  weaving  by  machinery  a  neces- 
sity, and  both  together  made  the  mechanical  and  chemical  revo- 
lution that  took  place  in  bleaching,  printing,  and  dyeing,  im- 
perative. So  too,  on  the  other  hand,  the  revolution  in  cotton- 
spinning  called  forth  the  invention  of  the  gin,  for  separating 
the  seeds  from  the  cotton  fibre ;  it  was  only  by  means  of  this 
invention,  that  the  production  of  cotton  became  possible  on  the 
enormous  scale  at  present  required.-^  But  more  especially,  the 
revolution  in  the  modes  of  production  of  industry  and  agricul- 
ture made  necessary  a  revolution  in  the  general  conditions  of 
the  social  process  of  production,  i.e.j  in  the  means  of  communi- 
cation and  of  transport.  In  a  society  whose  pivot,  to  use  an 
expression  of  Fourier,  was  agriculture  on  a  small  scale,  with  its 
subsidiary  domestic  industries,  and  the  urban  handicrafts,  the 
means  of  communication  and  transport  were  so  utterly  inade- 
quate to  the  productive  requirements  of  the  manufacturing 
period,  with  its  extended  division  of  social  labour,  its  concen- 
tration of  the  instruments  of  labour,  and  of  the  workmen,  and 
its  colonial  markets,  that  they  became  in  fact  revolutionised. 
In  the  same  way  the  means  of  communication  and  transport 
handed  down  from  the  manufacturing  period  soon  became  un- 
bearable trammels  on  Modern  Industry,  with  its  feverish  haste 
of  production,  its  enormous  extent,  its  constant  flinging  of 
capital  and  labour  from  one  sphere  of  production  into  another, 
and  its  newly-created  connexions  with  the  markets  of  the 
whole  world.  Hence,  apart  from  the  radical  changes  intro- 
duced in  the  construction  of  sailing  vessels,  the  means  of 
communication  and  transport  became  gradually  adapted  to  the 
modes  of  production  of  mechanical  industry,  by  the  creation  of 
a   system   of  river   steamers,    railways,   ocean   steamers,    and 

*  Eli  Whitney's  cotton  gin  had  until  very  recent  times  undergone  less  essential 
changes  than  any  other  machine  of  the  18th  century.  It  is  only  during  tlie  last 
decade  (i.e.,  since  1856)  that  another  American,  Mr.  Emery,  of  Albany,  New  York, 
has  rendered  Whitney's  gin  antiquated  by  an  improvement  as  simple  as  it  is 
effective. 


420  Capitalist  Production. 

telegraphs.  But  the  huge  masses  of  iron  that  had  now  to  be 
forged,  to  be  welded,  to  be  cut,  to  be  bored,  and  to  be  shaped, 
demanded,  on  their  part,  cyclopean  machines,  for  the  construc- 
tion of  which  the  methods  of  the  manufacturing  period  were 
utterly  inadequate. 

Modern  Industry  had  therefore  itself  to  take  in  hand  the 
machine,  its  characteristic  instrument  of  production,  and  to 
construct  machines  by  machines.  It  was  not  till  it  did  this, 
that  it  built  up  for  itself  a  fitting  technical  foundation,  and 
stood  on  its  own  feet.  Machinery,  simultaneously  with  the 
increasing  use  of  it,  in  the  first  decades  of  this  century,  appro- 
priated, by  degrees,  the  fabrication  of  machines  proper.  But 
it  was  only  during  the  decade  preceding  1866,  that  the  con- 
struction of  railways  and  ocean  steamers  on  a  stupendous  scale 
called  into  existence  the  cyclopean  machines  now  employed  in 
the  construction  of  prime  movers. 

The  most  essential  condition  to  the  production  of  machines 
by  machines  was  a  prime  mover  capable  of  exerting  any 
amount  of  force,  and  yet  under  perfect  control.  Such  a  con- 
dition was  already  supplied  by  the  steam-engine.  But  at  the 
same  time  it  was  necessary  to  produce  tlie  geometrically  accu- 
rate straight  lines,  planes,  circles,  cylinders,  cones,  and  spheres, 
required  in  the  detail  parts  of  the  machines.  This  problem 
Henry  Maudsley  solved  in  the  first  decade  of  this  century  by 
the  invention  of  the  slide  rest,  a  tool  that  was  soon  made 
automatic,  and  in  a  modified  form  was  applied  to  other  con- 
structive machines  besides  the  lathe,  for  which  it  was  originally 
intended.  This  mechanical  appliance  replaces,  not  some  par- 
ticular tool,  but  the  hand  itself,  which  produces  a  given  form 
by  holding  and  guiding  the  cutting  tool  along  the  iron  or  other 
material  operated  upon.  Thus  it  became  possible  to  produce 
the  forms  of  the  individual  parts  of  machinery  "with  a  degree 
of  ease,  accuracy,  and  speed,  that  no  accumulated  experience 
of  the  hand  of  the  most  skilled  workman  could  give."^ 

*  "The  Industry  of  Nations,  Lend.,  1855,"  Part  II.,  p.  239.  This  work  also  re- 
marks: "Simple  and  outwardly  unimportant  as  this  appendage  to  lathes  may  appear, 
it  is  not,  we  believe,  averring  too  much  to  state,  that  its  influence  in  improving  and 
extending  the  use  of  machinery  has  been  as  great  as  that  produced  by  Watt's  im- 
provements of  the  steam-engine  itself.  Its  introduction  went  at  once  to  perfect  all 
machinery,  to  cheapen  it,   and   to  stimulate  invention  and   improvement." 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  421 

If  we  now  fix  our  attention  on  that  portion  of  the  machinery 
employed  in  the  construction  of  machines,  which  constitutes 
the  operating  tool,  we  find  the  manual  implements  reappear- 
ing, but  on  a  cyclopean  scale.  The  operating  part  of  the 
boring  machine  is  ah  immense  drill  driven  by  a  steam-engine; 
without  this  machine,  on  the  other  hand,  the  cylinders  cf  large 
steam-engines  and  of  hydaulic  presses  could  not  be  made. 
The  mechanical  lathe  is  only  a  cyclopean  reproduction  of  the 
ordinary  foot-lathe;  the  planing  machine,  an  iron  carpenter, 
that  works  on  iron  with  the  same  tools  that  the  human  car- 
penter employs  on  wood ;  the  instrument  that,  on  the  London 
wharves,  cuts,  the  veneers,  is  a  gigantic  razor;  the  tool  of  the 
shearing  machine,  which  shears  iron  as  easily  as  a  tailor's 
scissors  cut  cloth,  is  a  monster  pair  of  scissors ;  and  the 
steam  hammer  works  with  an  ordinary  hammer  head,  but  of 
such  a  weight  that  not  Thor  himself  could  wield  it.^  These 
steam  hammers  are  an  invention  of  Nasmyth,  and  there  is  one 
that  weighs  over  6  tons  and  strikes  with  a  vertical  fall  of  7 
feet,  on  an  anvil  weighing  36  tons.  It  is  mere  child's  play  for 
it  to  crush  a  block  of  granite  into  powder,  yet  it  is  no  less 
capable  of  driving,  with  a  succession  of  light  taps,  a  nail  into  a 
piece  of  soft  wood.^ 

The  implements  of  labour,  in  the  form  of  machinery,  neces- 
sitate the  substitution  of  natural  forces  for  human  force,  and 
the  conscious  application  of  science,  instead  of  rule  of  thumb. 
In  Manufacture,  the  organisation  of  the  social  labour-process 
is  purely  subjective ;  it  is  a  combination  of  detail  labourers ; 
in  its  machinery  system,  Modern  Industry  has  a  productive  or- 
ganism that  is  purely  objective,  in  which  the  labourer  becomes 
a  mere  appendage  to  an  already  existing  material  condition  of 
production.  In  simple  co-operation,  and  even  in  that  founded 
on  division  of  labour,  the  suppression  of  the  isolated,  by  the 
collective,  workman  still  appears  to  be  more  or  less  accidental. 
Machinery,  with  a  few  exceptions  to  be  mentioned  later,  oper- 

*  One  of  these  machines,  used  for  forging  paddle-wheel  shafts  in  London,  is  called 
"Thor."  It  forges  a  shaft  of  16J4  tons  with  as  much  ease  as  a  blacksmith  forges  a 
horse-shoe. 

^  Wood  working  machines  that  are  also  capable  of  being  employed  on  a  small 
scale  are  mostly   American   inventions. 


422  Capitalist  Production. 

ates  only  by  means  of  associated  labour,  or  labour  in  common. 
Hence,  the  co-operative  character  of  the  labour-process  is,  in 
the  latter  case,  a  technical  necessity  dictated  by  the  instrument 
of  labour  itself. 

SECTION  2. THE  VALUE  TRANSFEERED  BY  MACHINEBY  TO 

THE    PEOirUCT. 

We  saw  that  the  productive  forces  resulting  from  co-opera- 
tion and  division  of  labour  cost  capital  nothing.  They  are 
natural  forces  of  social  labour.  So  also  physical  forces,  like 
steam,  water,  &c.,  when  appropriated  to  productive  processes, 
cost  nothing.  But  just  as  a  man  requires  lungs  to  breathe 
with,  so  he  requires  something  that  is  work  of  man's  hand,  in 
order  to  consume  physical  forces  productively.  A  watei^wheel 
is  necessary  to  exploit  the  force  of  Avater,  and  a  steam  engine  to 
exploit  the  elasticity  of  steam.  Once  discovered,  the  law  of 
the  deviation  of  the  magnetic  needle  in  the  field  of  an  electric 
current,  or  the  law  of  magnetisation  of  iron,  around  which 
an  electric  current  circulates,  cost  never  a  penny. ^  But  the 
exploitation  of  these  laws  for  the  purposes  of  telegraphy,  &c., 
necessitates  a  costly  and  expensive  apparatus.  The  tool,  as  we 
have  seen,  is  not  exterminated  by  the  machine.  From  being 
a  dwarf  implement  of  the  human  organism,  it  expands  and 
multiplies  into  the  implement  of  mechanism  created  by  man. 
Capital  now  sets  the  labourer  to  work,  not  with  a  manual  tool, 
but  with  a  machine  which  itself  handles  the  tools.  Although, 
therefore,  it  is  clear  at  the  first  glance  that,  by  incorporating 
both  stupendous  physical  forces,  and  the  natural  sciences,  with 
the  process  of  production.  Modern  Industry  raises  the  produc- 
tiveness of  labour  to  an  extraordinary  degree,  it  is  by  no  means 
equally  clear,  that  this  increased  productive  force  is  not,  on 
the  other  hand,   purchased  by  an   increased  expenditure  of 

'  Science,  generally  speaking,  costs  the  capitalist  nothing,  a  fart  that  by  no  tneans 
hinders  him  from  exploiting  it.  The  science  of  others  is  as  much  annexed  by  capital 
as  the  labour  of  others.  Capitalistic  appropriation  and  personal  appropriation, 
whether  of  science  or  of  material  wealth,  are,  however,  totally  different  things.  Dr. 
Ure  himself  deplores  the  gross  ignorance  of  mechanical  science  existing  among  his 
('.ear  machinery-exploiting  manufacturers,  and  Liebig  can  a  tale  unfold  about  the 
a;.tounding  ignorance  of  chemistry  displayed  by  English  chemical  manufacturers. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  423 

labour.  Machinery,  like  every  other  component  of  constant 
capital,  creates  no  new  value,  but  yields  up  its  own  value  to 
the  product  that  it  serves  to  beget.  In  so  far  as  the  machine 
has  value,  and,  in  consequence,  parts  with  value  to  the  product, 
it  forms  an  element  in  the  value  of  that  product.  Instead  of 
being  cheapened,  the  product  is  made  dearer  in  proportion  to 
the  value  of  the  machine.  And  it  is  clear  as  noon-day,  that 
machines  and  systems  of  machinery,  the  characteristic  instru- 
ments of  labour  of  Modern  Industry,  are  incomparably  more 
loaded  with  value  than  the  implements  used  in  handicrafts 
and  manufactures. 

In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  observed  that  the  machinery, 
while  always  entering  as  a  whole  into  the  labour-process,  enters 
into  the  value-begetting  process  only  by  bits.  It  never  adds 
more  value  than  it  loses,  on  an  average,  by  wear  and  tear. 
Hence  there  is  a  great  difference  between  the  value  of  a  ma- 
chine, and  the  value  transferred  in  a  given  time  by  that 
machine  to  the  product.  The  longer  the  life  of  the  machine 
in  the  labour-process,  the  greater  is  that  difference.  It  is  true, 
no  doubt,  as  we  have  already  seen,  that  every  instrument  of 
labour  enters  as  a  whole  into  the  labour-process,  and  only  piece- 
meal, proportionally  to  its  average  daily  loss  by  wear  and  tear, 
into  the  value-begetting  process.  But  this  difference  between, 
the  instrument  as  a  whole  and  its  daily  wear  and  tear,  is  much 
greater  in  a  machine  than  in  a  tool,  because  the  machine,  being 
made  from  more  durable  material,  has  a  longer  life ;  because  its 
employment,  being  regulated  by  strictly  scientific  laws,  allows 
of  greater  economy  in  the  wear  and  tear  of  its  parts,  and  in  the 
materials  it  consumes ;  and  lastly,  because  its  field  of  produc- 
tion is  incomparably  larger  than  that  of  a  tool.  After  making 
allowance,  both  in  the  case  of  the  machine  and  of  the  tool,  for 
their  average  daily  cost,  that  is  for  the  value  they  transmit  to 
the  product  by  their  average  daily  wear  and  tear,  and  for 
their  consumption  of  auxiliary  substances,  such  as  oil,  coal,  and 
so  on,  they  each  do  their  work  gratuitously,  just  like  the  forces 
furnished  by  nature  without  the  help  of  man.  The  greater 
the  productive  power  of  the  machinery  compared  with  that  of 
the  tool,  the  greater  is  the  extent  of  its  gratuitous  service  com- 


424  Capitalist  Production. 

pared  with  that  of  the  tool.  In  Modern  Industry  man  suc- 
ceeded for  the  first  time  in  making  the  product  of  his  past 
labour  work  on  a  large  scale  gratuitously,  like  the  forces  of 
nature.^ 

In  treating  of  Co-operation  and  Manufacture,  it  was  shown 
that  certain  general  factors  of  production,  such  as  buildings, 
are,  in  comparison  with  the  scattered  means  of  production  of 
the  isolated  workman,  economised  by  being  consumed  in  com- 
mon, and  that  they  therefore  make  the  product  cheaper.  In  a 
system  of  machinery,  not  only  is  the  framework  of  the  machine 
consumed  in  conmion  by  its  numerous  operating  implements, 
but  the  prime  mover,  together  with  a  part  of  the  transmitting 
mechanism,  is  consumed  in  common  by  the  numerous  operative 
machines. 

Given  the  difference  between  the  value  of  the  machinery, 
and  the  value  transferred  by  it  in  a  day  to  the  product,  the 
extent  to  which  this  latter  value  makes  the  product  dearer, 
depends  in  the  first  instance,  upon  the  size  of  the  product;  so 
to  say,  upon  its  area.  Mr.  Baynes,  of  Blackburn,  in  a  lecture 
published  in  1858,  estimates  that  "each  real  mechanical  horse- 
power^ will  drive  450  self-acting  mule  spindles,   with  pre- 

•  Ricardo  lays  such  stress  on  this  effect  of  machinery  (of  which,  in  other  connex- 
ions, he  takes  no  more  notice  than  he  does  of  the  general  distinction  between  the 
labour-process  and  the  process  of  creating  surplus-value),  that  he  occasionally  loses 
sight  of  the  value  given  up  by  machines  to  the  product,  and  puts  machines  on  the 
same  footing  as  natural  forces.  Thus  "Adam  Smith  nowhere  undervalues  the  serv- 
ices which  the  natural  agents  and  machinery  perform  for  us,  but  he  very  justly  dis- 
tinguishes the  nature  of  the  value  which  they  add  to  commodities  .  '  .  .  as  they 
perform  their  work  gratuitously,  the  assistance  which  they  afford  us,  adds  nothing 
to  value  in  exchange."  (Ric.  1.  c,  p.  336,  337.)  This  observation  of  Ricardo  is  of 
course  correct  in  so  far  as  it  is  directed  against  J.  B.  Say,  who  imagines  that 
machines  render  the  "service"  of  creating  value  which  forms  a  part  of  "profits." 

*  A  horse-power  is  equal  to  a  force  of  33,000  foot-pounds  per  minute,  i.e.,  to  a 
force  that  raises  33,000  pounds  one  foot  in  a  minute,  or  one  pound  33,000  feet. 
Tliis  is  the  horse-power  meant  in  the  text.  In  ordinary  language,  and  also  here  and 
there  in  quotations  in  this  work,  a  distinction  is  drawn  between  the  "nominal"  and 
the  "commercial"  or  "indicated"  horse-power  of  the  same  engine.  The  old  or 
nominal  horse-power  is  calculated  exclusively  from  the  length  of  piston-stroke,  and 
the  diameter  of  the  cylinder,  and  leaves  pressure  of  steam  and  piston  speed  out  of 
consideration.  It  expresses  practically  this:  This  engine  would  be  one  of  50 
horse-power,  if  it  were  driven  with  the  same  low  pressure  of  steam,  and  the  same 
slow  piston  speed,  as  in  the  days  of  Boulton  and  Watt.  But  the  two  latter  factors 
have  increased  enormously  since  those  days.  In  order  to  measure  the  mechanical 
force  exerted  to-day  by  an  engine,  an  indicator  has  been  invented  which  shows  the 
pressure  of  the  steam  in  the  cylinder.     The  piston  speed  is  easily  ascertained     Thus 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  425 

paration,  or  200  throstle  spindles,  or  15  looms  for  40  inch 
cloth  with  the  appliances  for  warping,  sizing,  &c."  In  the 
first  case,  it  is  the  day's  produce  of  450  mule  spindles,  in 
the  second,  of  200  throstle  spindles,  in  the  third,  of  15  power- 
looms,  over  which  the  daily  cost  of  one  horse-power,  and  the 
wear  and  tear  of  the  machinery  set  in  motion  by  that  power, 
are  spread ;  so  that  only  a  very  minute  value  is  transferred  by 
such  wear  and  tear  to  a  pound  of  yarn  or  a  yard  of  cloth.  The 
same  is  the  case  with  the  steam-hammer  mentioned  above. 
Since  its  daily  wear  and  tear,  its  coal-consumption,  &c.,  are 
spread  over  the  stupendous  masses  of  iron  hammered  by  it  in 
a  day,  only  a  small  value  is  added  to  a  hundredweight  of  iron ; 
but  that  value  would  be  very  great,  if  the  cyclopean  instrument 
were  employed  in  driving  in  nails. 

Given  a  machine's  capacity  for  work,  that  is,  the  number 
of  its  operating  tools,  or,  where  it  is  a  question  of  force,  their 
mass,  the  amount  of  its  product  will  depend  on  the  velocity  of 
its  working  parts,  on  the  speed,  for  instance,  of  the  spindles,  or 
on  the  number  of  blows  given  by  the  hammer  in  a  minute. 
Many  of  these  colossal  hammers  strike  seventy  times  in  a 
minute,  and  Ryder's  patent  machine  for  forging  spindles  with 
small  hammers  gives  as  many  as  TOO  strokes  per  minute. 

Given  the  rate  at  which  machinery  transfers  its  value  to  the 
product,  the  amount  of  value  so  transferred  depends  on  the 
total  value  of  the  machinery.^  The  less  labour  it  contains,  the 
less  value  it  imparts  to  the  product.  The  less  value  it  gives 
up,  so  much  the  more  productive  it  is,  and  so  much  the  more 

the  "indicated"  or  "commercial"  horse-power  of  an  engine  is  expressed  by  a  mathe- 
matical formula,  involving  diameter  of  cylinder,  length  of  stroke,  piston  speed,  and 
steam  pressure,  simultaneously,  and  showing  what  multiple  of  33,000  pounds  is 
really  raised  by  the  engine  in  a  minute.  Hence,  one  "nominal"  horse-power  may 
exert  three,  four,  or  even  five  "indicated"  or  "real"  horse-powers.  This  observa- 
tion is  made  for  the  purpose  of  explaining  various  citations  in  the  subsequent 
pages. — (The   editor.) 

*  The  reader  who  is  imbued  with  capitalist  notions  will  naturally  miss  here  the 
"interest"  that  the  machine,  in  proportion  to  its  capital  value,  adds  to  the  product. 
It  is,  however,  easily  seen  that  since  a  machine  no  more  creates  new  value  than  any 
other  part  of  constant  capital,  it  cannot  add  any  value  under  the  name  of  "interest." 
It  is  also  evident  that  here,  where  we  are  treating  of  the  production  of  surplus 
value,  we  cannot  assume  a  priori  the  existence  of  any  part  of  that  value  under  the 
name  of  interest.  The  capitalist  mode  of  calculating,  which  appears,  prima  facie, 
absurd,  and  repugnant  to  the  laws  of  the  creation  of  value,  will  be  explained  in  the 
third  book   of  this   work. 


426  Capitalist  Production. 

its  services  approximate  to  those  of  natural  forces.  But  the 
production  of  machinery  by  machinery  lessens  its  value  rela- 
tively to  its  extension  and  efficacy. 

An  analysis  and  comparison  of  the  prices  of  commodities 
produced  by  handicrafts  or  manufacturers,  and  of  the  prices  of' 
the  same  commodities  produced  by  machinery,  shows  generally 
that,  in  the  product  of  machinery,  the  value  due  to  the  instru- 
ments of  labour,  increases  relatively,  but  decreases  absolutely. 
In  other  words,  its  absolute  amount  decreases,  but  its  amount, 
relatively  to  the  total  value  of  the  product,  of  a  pound  of  yam, 
for  instance,  increases.* 

It  is  evident  that  whenever  it  costs  as  much  labour  to  pro- 
duce a  machine  as  is  saved  by  the  employment  of  that  machine, 
there  is  nothing  but  a  transposition  of  labour;  consequently 
the  total  labour  required  to  produce  a  commodity  is  not 
lessened  or  the  productiveness  of  labour  is  not  increased.  It 
is  clear,  however,  that  the  difference  between  the  labour  a 
machine  costs,  and  the  labour  it  saves,  in  other  words,  that  the 
degree  of  its  productiveness  does  not  depend  on  the  difference 
between  its  own  value  and  the  value  of  the  implement  it  re- 
places. As  long  as  the  labour  spent  on  a  machine,  and  conse- 
quently the  portion  of  its  value  added  to  the  product,  remains 

^  This  portion  of  value  which  is  added  by  the  machinery,  decreases  both  absolutely 
and  relatively,  when  the  machinery  does  away  with  horses  and  other  animals  that 
are  employed  as  mere  moving  forces,  and  not  as  machines  for  changing  the  form  of 
matter.  It  may  here  be  incidentally  observed,  that  Descartes,  in  defining  animals  as 
mere  machines,  saw  with  eyes  of  the  manufacturing  period,  while  to  eyes  of  the 
middle  ages,  animals  were  assistants  to  man,  as  they  were  later  to  Von  Haller  in  his 
"Restauration  der  Staatswissenschaften."  That  Descartes,  like  Bacon,  anticipated 
an  alteration  in  the  form  of  production,  and  the  practical  subjugation  of  Nature  by 
Man,  as  a  result  of  the  altered  methods  of  thought,  is  plain  from  his  "Discours  de 
la  Methodc."  He  there  says:  "II  est  possible  (by  the  methods  he  introduced  in 
philosophy)  de  parvenir  a  des  connaissances  fort  utiles  a  la  vie,  et  qu'au  lieu  de 
cctte  philosophic  speculative  qu'on  enseigne  dans  les  ecoles,  on  en  peut  trouver  une 
pratique,  par  laquelle,  connaissant  la  force  et  les  actions  du  feu,  de  I'eau,  de  I'air, 
des  astres,  et  de  tous  les  autres  corps  qui  nous  environnent,  aussi  distinctement  que 
nous  connaissons  les  divers  metiers  de  nos  artisans,  nous  les  pourrious  employer  en 
meme  fagon  a  tous  les  usages  auxquels  ils  sont  propres,  et  ainsi  nous  rendre  comme 
maitres  et  possesseurs  de  la  nature"  and  thus  "contribuer  au  perfectionnement  de 
la  vie  humaine."  In  the  preface  to  Sir  Dudley  North's  "Discourses  upon  Trade  " 
(1691)  it  is  stated,  that  Descartes'  method  had  begun  to  free  political  economy  from 
the  old  fables  and  superstitious  notions  of  gold,  trade,  &c.  On  the  whole,  however, 
the  early  English  economists  sided  with  Bacon  and  Hobbes  as  their  philosophers; 
while,  at  a  later  period,  the  philosopher  Kar'  i^ox^v  "f  political  economy  in  Eng- 
land,  France,  and  Italy,  was  Locke. 


MacJiinery  and  Modern  Industry.  427 

smaller  than  the  value  added  bj  the  workman  to  the  product 
with  his  tool,  there  is  always  a  difference  of  labour  saved  in 
favour  of  the  machine.  The  productiveness  of  a  machine  is 
therefore  measured  by  the  human  labour-power  it  replaces. 
According  to  Mr.  Baynes,  2^  operatives  are  required  for  the 
450  mule  spindles,  inclusive  of  preparation  machinery,^  that 
are  driven  by  one-horse  power;  each  self-acting  mule  spindle, 
working  ten  hours,  produces  13  ounces  of  yarn  (average  num- 
ber or  thickness)  ;  consequently  2^  operatives  spin  weekly 
365f  lbs.  of  yarn.  Hence,  leaving  waste  on  one  side,  366  lbs. 
of  cotton  absorb,  during  their  conversion  into  yarn,  only  150 
hours'  labour,  or  fifteen  days'  labour  of  ten  hours  each.  But 
with  a  spinning-wheel,  supposing  the  hand-spinner  to  produce 
thirteen  ounces  of  yarn  in  sixty  hours,  the  same  weight  of  cot- 
ton would  absorb  2Y00  days'  labour  of  ten  hours  each,  or 
2T,000  hours'  labour.^  Where  block  printing,  the  old  method 
of  printing  calico  by  hand,  has  been  superseded  by  machine 
printing,  a  single  machine  prints,  with  the  aid  of  one  man  or 
boy,  as  much  calico  of  four  colours  in  one  hour,  as  it  formerly 
took  200  men  to  do.^  Before  Eli  Whitney  invented  the  cot- 
ton-gin in  1Y93,  the  separation  of  the  seed  from  a  pound  of 
cotton  cost  an  average  day's  labour.  By  means  of  his  inven- 
tion one  negress  was  enabled  to  clean  100  lbs.  daily ;  and  since 
then,  the  efficacy  of  the  gin  has  been  considerably  increased. 
A  pound  of  cotton  wool,  previously  costing  50  cents  to  produce, 
included  after  tliat  invention  more  unpaid  labour,  and  was 
consequently  sold  with  greater  profit,  at  10  cents.  In  India 
they  employ  for  separating  the  wool  from  the  seed,  an  instru- 
ment, half  machine,  half  tool,  called  a  churka;  with  this  one 

*  According  to  the  annual  report  (1863)  of  the  Essen  chamber  of  commerce, 
there  was  produced  in  1862,  at  the  cast-steel  works  of  Krupp,  with  its  161  furnaces, 
thirty-two  steam-engines  (in  the  year  1800  this  was  about  the  number  of  all  the 
steam-engines  working  in  Manchester),  and  fourteen  steam-hammers  (representing 
in  all  1236  horse-power),  forty-nine  forges,  203  tool-machines,  and  about  2400  work- 
men— thirteen  million  pounds  of  cast  steel.  Here  there  are  not  two  workmen  to 
each   horse-power. 

^  Babbage  estimates  that  in  Java  the  spinning  labour  alone  adds  117%  to  the  value 
of  the  cotton.  At  the  same  period  (1832)  the  total  value  added  to  the  cotton  by 
machinery  and  labour  in  the  fine  spinning-industry,  amounted  to  about  33%  of  the 
value  of  the  cotton.      ("On  the  Economy  of   Machinery,"  p.   214.) 

'  Machine  printing  also  economises  colour. 


428  Capitalist  Production. 

man  and  a  woman  can  clean  28  lbs.  daily.  With  the  churka 
invented  some  years  ago  by  Dr.  Forbes,  one  man  and  a  boy  pro- 
duce 250  pounds  daily.  If  oxen,  steam,  or  water,  be  used  for 
driving  it,  only  a  few  boys  and  girls  as  feeders  are  required. 
Sixteen  of  these  machines  driven  by  oxen  do  as  much  work  in 
a  day  as  formerly  750  people  did  on  an  average.^ 

As  already  stated,  a  steam-plough  does  as  much  work  in  one 
hour  at  a  cost  of  threepence,  as  66  men  at  a  cost  of  15  shillings. 
I  return  to  this  example  in  order  to  clear  up  an  erroneous 
notion.  The  15  shillings  are  by  no  means  the  expression  in 
money  of  all  the  labour  expended  in  one  hour  by  the  66  men. 
If  the  ratio  of  surplus  labour  to  necessary  labour  were  100%, 
these  66  men  would  produce  in  one  hour  a  value  of  30  shill- 
ings, although  their  wages,  15  shillings,  represent  only  their 
labour  for  half  an  hour.  Suppose,  then,  a  machine  cost  as 
much  as  the  wages  for  a  year  of  the  150  men  it  displaces,  say 
£3000 ;  this  £3000  is  by  no  means  the  expression  in  money  of 
the  labour  added  to  the  object  produced  by  these  150  men  be- 
fore the  introduction  of  the  machine,  but  only  of  that  portion 
of  their  year's  labour  which  was  expended  for  themselves  and 
represented  by  their  wages.  On  the  other  hand,  the  £3000, 
the  money  value  of  the  machine,  expresses  all  the  labour  ex- 
pended on  its  production,  no  matter  in  what  proportion  this 
labour  constitutes  wages  for  the  workman,  and  surplus-value 
for  the  capitalist.  Therefore,  though  a  machine  cost  as  much 
as  the  labour-power  displaced  by  its  cost,  yet  the  labour 
materalised  in  it  is  even  then  much  less  than  the  living  labour 
it  replaces.* 

The  use  of  machinery  for  the  exclusive  purpose  of  cheapen- 
.  ing  the  product,  is  limited  in  this  way,  that  less  labour  must 
be  expended  in  producing  the  machinery  than  is  displaced  by 
the  employment  of  that  machinery.  For  the  capitalist,  how- 
ever, this  use  is  still  more  limited.  Instead  of  paying  for  the 
labour,  he  only  pays  the  value  of  the  labour-power  employed ; 

'  See  paper  read  by  Dr.  Watson,  Reporter  on  Products  to  the  Government  of 
India,  before   the   Society   of   Arts,    17th   April,    1860. 

*  "These  mute  agents  (machines)  are  always  the  produce  of  much  less  labour  than 
that  which  they  displace,  even  when  they  are  of  the  same  money  value."  (Ricardo, 
1.  c,  p.  40.) 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  429 

therefore,  the  limit  to  his  using  a  machine  is  fixed  by  the 
difference  between  the  vahie  of  the  machine  and  the  value  of 
the  labour-power  replaced  by  it.  Since  the  division  of  the 
day's  work  into  necessary  and  surplus-labour  differs  in  differ- 
ent countries,  and  even  in  the  same  country  at  different 
periods,  or  in  different  branches  of  industry  ;  and  further,  since 
the  actual  wage  of  the  labourer  at  one  time  sinks  below  the 
value  of  his  labour-power,  at  another  rises  above  it,  it  is  possi- 
ble for  the  difference  between  the  price  of  the  machinery  to 
vary  very  much,  although  the  difference  betv/een  the  quantity 
of  labour  requisite  to  produce  the  machine  and  the  total  quan- 
tity replaced  by  it^  remain  constant.^  But  it  is  the  former 
difference  alone  that  determines  the  cost,  to  the  capitalist,  of 
producing  a  commodity,  and,  through  the  pressure  of  competi- 
tion, influences  his  action.  Hence  the  invention  now-a-days 
of  machines  in  England  that  are  employed  only  in  I^orth 
America ;  just  as  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
machines  were  invented  in  Germany  to  be  used  only  in  Hol- 
land, and  just  as  many  a  French  invention  of  the  eighteenth 
century  was  exploited  in  England  alone.  In  the  older  coun- 
tries, machinery,  when  employed  in  some  branches  of  industry, 
creates  such  a  redundancy  of  labour  in  other  branches  that  in 
these  latter  the  fall  of  wages  below  the  value  of  labour-power 
impedes  the  use  of  machinery,  and,  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
capitalist,  whose  profit  comes,  not  from  a  diminution  of  the 
labour  employed,  but  of  the  labour  paid  for,  renders  that  use 
surperfluous  and  often  impossible.  In  some  branches  of  the 
woollen  manufacture  in  England  the  employment  of  children 
has  during  recent  years  been  considerably  diminished,  and  in 
some  cases  has  been  entirely  abolished. ,  Why  ?  Because  the 
Factory  Acts  made  two  sets  of  children  necessary,  one  working 
six  hours,  the  other  four,  or  each  working  five  hours.  But  the 
parents  refuse  to  sell  the  "half-timers"  cheaper  than  the 
"full-timers."  Hence  the  substitution  of  machinery  for  the 
"half-timers."^     Before  the  labour  of  women  and  of  children 

*  Hence  in  a  communistic  society  there  would  be  a  very  difFerent  scope  for  the 
employment   of   machinery   than   there  can   be   in   a  bourgeois   society. 

-  "Knij'loycrs  of  labour  would  not  unnecessarily  retain  two  sets  of  children  under 
thirteen.     ...     In   fact  one  class  of  manufacturers,  the  spinners  of  woollen  yarn, 


430  Capitalist  Production. 

under  10  years  of  age  was  forbidden  in  mines,  capitalists  con- 
sidered the  employment  of  naked  women  and  girls,  often  in 
company  with  men,  so  far  sanctioned  by  their  moral  code,  and 
especially  by  their  ledgers,  that  it  was  only  after  the  passing 
of  the  Act  that  they  had  recourse  to  machinery.  The  Yankees 
have  invented  a  stone-breaking  machine.  The  English  do  not 
make  use  of  it,  because  the  "wretoh"  ^  who  does  this  work  gets 
paid  for  such  a  small  portion  of  his  labour,  that  machinery 
would  increase  the  cost  of  production  to  the  capitalist.^  In 
England  women  are  still  occasionally  used  instead  of  horses 
for  hauling  canal  boats,*  because  the  labour  required  to  pro- 
duce horses  and  machines  is  an  accurately  known  quantity, 
while  that  required  to  maintain  the  women  of  the  surplus 
population  is  below  all  calculation.  Plence  nowhere  do  we  find 
a  more  shameful  squandering  of  human  labour-power  for  the 
most  despicable  purposes  than  in  England,  the  land  of  ma- 
chinery. 

SECTION    3. THE    APPBOXIMATB   EFFECTS   OF   MACHINEEY    ON 

THE    WORKMAN. 

The  starting  point  of  Modem  Industry  is,  as  we  have  shown, 
the  revolution  in  the  instruments  of  labour,  and  this  revolu- 
tion attains  its  most  highly  developed  form  in  the  organised 
system  of  machinery  in  a  factory.  Before  we  inquire  how 
human  material  is  incorporated  with  this  objective  organism, 
let  us  consider  some  general  effects  of  this  revolution  on  the 
labourer  himself. 

now  rarely  employ  children  under  thirteen  years  of  age,  i.e.,  half-timers.  They  have 
introduced  improved  and  new  machinery  of  various  kinds,  which  altogether  super- 
sedes the  employment  of  children  (.i.e.,  under  13  years);  f.i.,  I  will  mention  one 
process  as  an  illustration  of  this  diminution  in  the  number  of  children,  wherein  by 
the  addition  of  an  apparatus,  called  a  piecing  machine,  to  existing  machines,  the 
work  of  six  or  four  half-times,  according  to  the  peculiarity  of  each  machine,  can  be 
performed  by  one  young  person  (over  13  years)  ...  the  half-time  system  'stim- 
ulated' the  invention  of  the  piecing  machine."  (Reports  of  Insp.  of  Fact,  for  31st 
Oct.,  185S.) 

*  "Wretch"  is  the  recognized  term  in  English  political  economy  for  the  agricultural 
labourer. 

*  "Machinery  .  .  .  can  frequently  not  be  employed  until  labour  (he  means 
wages)    rises."      (Ricardo,  1.  c,   p.   679.) 

»  Sec  "Report  of   the   Social   Science   Congress,   at   Edinburgh."     Oct.,    1863. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  431 

a.  Appropriation,  of  suppleryieniary  Labour-powder  hy 
Capital.     The  Employment  of  Women  and  Children. 

In  so  far  as  machinery  dispenses  with  muscular  power,  it 
becomes  a  means  of  employing  labourers  of  slight  muscular 
strength,  and  those  whose  bodily  development  is  incomplete, 
but  whose  limbs  are  all  the  more  supple.  The  labour  of 
women  and  children  was,  therefore,  the  first  thing  sought  for 
by  capitalists  who  used  machinery.  That  mighty  substitute 
for  labour  and  labourers  was  forthwith  changed  into  a  means 
for  increasing  the  number  of  wage-labourers  by  enrolling, 
under  the  direct  sway  of  capital,  every  member  of  the  work- 
man's family,  without  distinction  of  age  or  sex.  Compulsory 
work  for  the  capitalist  usurped  the  place,  not  only  of  the 
children's  play,  but  also  of  free  labour  at  home  within  mod- 
erate limits  for  the  support  of  the  family.-^ 

The  value  of  labour-power  was  determined,  not  only  by 
the  labour-time  necessary  to  maintain  the  individual  adult 
laborer,  but  also  by  that  necessary  to  maintain  his  family. 
Machinery,  by  throwing  every  member  of  that  family  on  to 
the  labour  market,  spreads  the  value  of  the  man's  labour- 
power  over  his  whole  family  It  thus  depreciates  his  labour- 
power.  To  purchase  the  labour-power  of  a  family  of  four 
workers  may,  perhaps,  cost  more  than  it  formerly  did  to 
purchase  the  labour-power  of  the  head  of  the  family,  but,  in 
return,  four  days'  labour  takes  the  place  of  one,  and  their  price 
falls  in  proportion  to  the  excess  of  the  surplus-labour  of 
four  over  the  surplus-labour  of  one.  In  order  that  the  family 
may  live,  four  people  must  now,  not  only  labour,  but  expend 

*  Dr.  Edward  Smith,  during  the  cotton  crisis  caused  by  the  American  Civil  War, 
was  sent  by  the  English  Government  to  Lancashire,  Cheshire,  and  other  places,  to 
report  on  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  cotton  operatives.  He  reported,  that  from 
a  hygienic  point  of  view,  and  apart  from  the  banishment  of  the  operatives  from  the 
factory  atmosphere,  the  crisis  had  several  advantages.  The  women  now  had  suffi- 
cient leisure  to  give  their  infants  the  breast,  instead  of  poisoning  them  with  "God- 
frey's cordial."  They  had  time  to  learn  to  cook.  Unfortunately  the  acquisition  of 
this  art  occurred  at  a  time  when  they  had  nothing  to  cook.  But  from  this  we  see 
how  capital,  for  the  purposes  of  its  self-expansion,  has  usurped  the  labour  necessary 
in  the  home  of  the  family.  This  crisis  was  also  utilised  to  teach  sewing  to  the 
daughters  of  the  workmen  in  sewing  schools.  An  American  revolution  and  a  uni- 
versal crisis  in  order  that  the  working  girls,  who  spin  for  the  whole  world,  might 
learn  to  sewl 


432  Capitalist  Production. 

surplus-labor  for  the  capitalist.  Thus  we  see,  that  machinery, 
while  augmenting  the  human  material  that  forms  the  principal 
object  of  capital's  exploiting  power,^  at  the  same  time  raises 
the  degree  of  exploitation. 

Machinery  also  revolutionises  out  and  out  the  contract  be- 
tween the  labourer  and  the  capitalist,  which  formally  fixes 
their  mutual  relations.  Taking  the  exchange  of  commodities 
as  our  basis,  our  first  assumption  was  that  capitalist  and 
labourer  met  as  free  persons,  as  independent  owners  of  com- 
modities ;  the  one  possessing  money  and  means  of  production, 
the  other  labour-power.  But  now  the  capitalist  buys  children 
and  young  persons  under  age.  Previously,  the  workman  sold 
his  own  labour  power,  which  he  disposed  of  nominally  as  a 
free  agent.  Now  he  sells  wife  and  child.  He  has  become  a 
slave  dealer. 2  The  demand  for  children's  labour  often  resem- 
bles in  form  the  inquiries  for  negro  slaves,  such  as  were 
formerly  to  be  read  among  the  advertisements  in  American 

*  "The  numerical  increase  of  labourers  has  been  great,  through  the  growing  substi- 
tution of  female  for  male,  and  above  all,  of  childish  for  adult  labour.  Three  girls 
of  13,  at  wages  of  from  6  shillings  to  8  shillings  a  week,  have  replaced  the  one 
man  of  mature  age,  of  wages  varying  from  18  shillings  to  45  shillings."  (Th.  de 
Quincey:  "The  Logic  of  Political  Econ.,  London,  1845."  Note  to  p.  147.)  Since 
certain  family  functions,  such  as  nursing  and  suckling  children,  cannot  be  entirely 
suppressed,  the  mothers  confiscated  by  capital,  must  try  substitutes  of  some  sort. 
Domestic  work,  such  as  sewing  and  mending,  must  be  replaced  by  the  purchase  of 
ready-made  articles.  Hence,  the  diminished  expenditure  of  labour  in  the  house  is 
accompanied  by  an  increased  expenditure  of  money.  The  cost  of  keeping  the  fam- 
ily increases,  and  balances  the  greater  income.  In  addition  to  this,  economy  and 
judgment  in  the  consumption  and  preparation  of  the  means  of  subsistence  becomes 
impossible.  Abundant  material  relating  to  these  facts,  which  are  concealed  by 
official  political  economy,  is  to  be  found  in  the  Reports  of  the  Inspectors  of  Fac- 
tories, of  the  Children's  Employment  Commission,  and  more  especially  in  the  Re- 
ports  on   Public   Health. 

*  In  striking  contrast  with  the  great  fact,  that  the  shortening  of  the  hours  of 
labour  of  women  and  children  in  English  factories  was  exacted  from  capital  by  the 
male  operatives,  we  find  in  the  latest  reports  of  the  Children's  Employment  Com- 
mission traits  of  the  operative  parents  in  relation  to  the  traffic  in  children,  that  are 
truly  revolting  and  thoroughly  like  slave-dealing.  But  the  Pharisee  of  a  capitalist, 
as  may  be  seen  from  the  same  reports,  denounces  this  brutality  which  he  himself 
creates,  perpetuates,  and  exploits,  and  which  he  moreover  baptizes  "Freedom  of 
labour."  "Infant  labour  has  been  called  into  aid  .  .  .  even  to  work  for  their 
own  daily  bread.  Without  strength  to  endure  such  disproportionate  toil,  without 
instruction  to  guide  their  future  life,  they  have  been  thrown  into  a  situation  phys- 
ically and  morally  polluted.  The  Jewish  historian  has  remarked  upon  the  overthrow 
of  Jerusalem  by  Titus  that  it  was  no  wonder  it  should  have  been  destroyed,  with 
such  a  signal  destruction,  when  an  inhuman  mother  sacrificed  her  own  offspring  to 
satisfy  the  cravings  of  absolute  hunger."  ("Public  Economy  Concentrated."  Car- 
lisle,  1833,   p.   56.) 


Machinery  and  Modem  Industry.  433 

journals.  "My  attention,"  says  an  English  factory  inspector, 
"was  drawn  to  an  advertisement  in  tlie  local  paper  of  one  of 
the  most  important  manufacturing  towns  of  my  district,  of 
which  the  following  is  a  copy:  Wanted,  12  to  20  young  pre- 
sons,  not  younger  than  what  can  pass  for  18  years.  Wages,  4 
shillings  a  week.  Apply  &c."^  The  phase  "what  can  pass 
for  13  years,"  has  reference  to  the  fact,  that  by  the  Factory 
Act,  children  under  13  years  may  work  only  6  hours.  A  sur- 
^on  oflBcial  appointed  must  certify  their  age.  The  manu- 
facturer, therefore,  asks  for  children  who  look  as  if  they  were 
already  13  years  old.  The  decrease,  often  by  leaps  and  bounds 
in  the  number  of  children  under  13  years  employed  in  fac- 
tories, a  decrease  that  is  shown  in  an  astonishing  manner  by 
the  English  statistics  of  the  last  20  years,  was  for  the  most 
part,  according  to  the  evidence  of  the  factory  inspectors  them- 
selves, the  work  of  the  certifying  surgeons,  who  overstated  the 
age  of  the  children,  agreeably  to  the  capitalist's  greed  for  ex- 
ploitation, and  the  sordid  trafficking  needs  of  the  parents.  In 
the  notorious  district  of  Bethnal  Green,  a  public  market  is  held 
every  Monday  and  Tuesday  morning,  where  children  of  both 
sexes  from  9  years  of  age  upwards,  hire  themselves  out  to  the 
silk  manufacturers.  "  The  usual  terms  are  Is.  8d.  a  week 
(this  belongs  to  the  parents)  and  '2d.  for  myself  and  tea.' 
The  contract  is  binding  only  for  the  week.  The  scene  and 
language  while  this  market  is  going  on  are  quite  disgraceful."^ 
It  has  also  occurred  in  England,  that  women  have  taken  "chil- 
dren from  the  workhouse  and  let  any  one  have  them  out  for  2s. 
6d.  a  week."^  In  spite  of  legislation,  the  number  of  boys 
sold  in  Great  Britain  by  their  parents  to  act  as  live  chimney- 
sweeping  machines  (althought  there  exist  plenty  of  machines 
to  replace  them)  exceeds  2000.^  The  revolution  effected  by 
machinery  in  the  judicial  relations  between  the  buyer  and  the 
seller  of  labour-power,  causing  the  transaction  as  a  whole  to 

^A.  Redgrave  in  "Reports  of  Insp.  of  Fact,  for  31st  October,  1858,"  pp.  40,  41. 

*  Children's  Employment  Commission,  Fifth  Report,  London,  1866,  p.  81,  n.  31. 
Note  to  the  4th  edition:  The  silk  industry  of  Bethnal  Green  is  now  almost 
ruined. — Ed. 

3  Children's  Employment  Commission,  Third  Report,  London,  1864,  p.  53,  n.  15. 

♦  1.  c.  Fifth  Report,  p.  22,  n.  137. 

2  B 


434  Capitalist  Production. 

lose  tlie  appearance  of  a  contract  between  free  persons,  afforded 
the  English  Parliament  an  excuse,  founded  on  judicial  princi- 
ples, for  the  interference  of  the  state  with  factories.  When- 
ever the  law  limits  the  labour  of  children  to  6  hours  in 
industries  not  before  interfered  with,  the  complaints  of  the 
manufacturers  are  always  renewed.  They  allege  that  num- 
bers of  the  parents  withdraw  their  children  from  the  industry- 
brought  under  the  act,  in  order  to  sell  them  where  "freedom  of 
labour"  still  rules  i.e.,  where  children  under  13  years  are  com- 
pelled to  work  like  grown-up  people,  and  therefore  can  be  got 
rid  of  at  a  higher  price.  But  since  capital  is  by  nature  a 
leveller,  since  it  exacts  in  every  sphere  of  production  equality 
in  the  conditions  of  the  exploitation  of  labour,  the  limitation 
by  law  of  children's  labour,  in  one  branch  of  industry,  becomes 
the  cause  of  its  limitation  in  others. 

We  have  already  alluded  to  the  physical  deterioration  as 
well  of  the  children  and  young  persons  as  of  the  women,  whom 
machinery,  first  directly  in  the  factories  that  shoot  up  on  its 
bases,  and  then  indirectly  in  all  the  remaining  branches  of  in- 
dustry, subjects  to  the  exploitation  of  capital.  In  this  place, 
therefore,  we  dwell  only  on  one  point,  the  enormous  mortality, 
during  the  first  few  years  of  their  life,  of  the  children  of  the 
operatives.  In  sixteen  of  the  registration  districts  into  which 
England  is  divided,  there  are,  for  every  100,000  children  alive 
under  the  age  of  one  year,  only  9000  death  in  the  year  on  an 
average  (in  one  district  only  7047)  ;  in  24  districts  the  deaths 
are  over  10,000,  but  under  11,000;  in  39  districts  over  11,000, 
but  under  12,000;  in  48  districts  over  12,000,  but  under 
13,000;  in  22  districts  over  20,000;  in  25  districts  over 
21,000 ;  in  17  over  22,000 ;  in  11  over  23,000 ;  in  Hoo,  Wol- 
verhampton, Ashton-under-Lyne,  and  Preston,  over  24,000 ;  in 
!N^ottingham,  Stockport,  and  Bradford,  over  25,000 ;  in  Wis- 
beach,  26,000 ;  and  in  Manchester,  26,125,^  As  was  shown 
by  an  oflScial  medical  inquiry  in  the  year  1861,  the  high  death- 
rates  are,  apart  from  local  causes,  principally  due  to  the 
employment  of  the  mothers  away  from  their  homes,  and  to  the 
neglect  and  maltreatment  consequent  on  her  absence,  such  as, 

*  Sixth  Report  on  Public  Health.     Lend.,  1S64,  p.  34. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  435 

amongst  others,  insufficient  nourishment,  unsuitable  food,  and 
dosing  with  opiates;  beside  this,  there  arises  an  unnatural 
estrangement  between  mother  and  child,  and  as  a  consequence 
intentional  starving  and  poisoning  of  the  children.^  In  those 
agricultural  districts,  "where  a  minimum  in  the  employment 
of  women  exists,  the  death-rate  is  on  the  other  hand  very  low."^ 
The  Inquiry-Commission  of  1861  led,  however,  to  the  unex- 
pected result,  that  in  some  purely  agricultural  districts  border- 
ing on  the  North  Sea,  the  death-rate  of  children  under  one 
year  old  almost  equalled  that  of  the  worst  factory  districts. 
Dr.  Julian  Hunter  was  therefore  commissioned  to  investigate 
this  phenomenon  on  the  spot.  His  report  is  incorporated  with 
the  "Sixth  Keport  on  Public  Health."^  Up  to  that  time  it 
was  supposed,  that  the  children  were  decimated  by  malaria, 
and  other  diseases  peculiar  to  low-lying  and  marshy  districts. 
But  the  inquiry  showed  the  very  opposite,  namely,  that  the 
same  cause  which  drove  away  malaria,  the  conversion  of  the 
land,  from  a  morass  in  winter  and  a  scanty  pasture  in  summer, 
into  fruitful  com  land,  created  the  exceptional  death-rate  of 
the  infants.^  The  70  medical  men,  whom  Dr.  Hunter  exam- 
ined in  that  district,  were  "wonderfully  in  accord"  on  this 
point  In  fact,  the  revolution  in  the  mode  of  cultivation  had 
led  to  the  introduction  of  the  industrial  system.  Married 
women,  who  work  in  gangs  along  with  boys  and  girls,  are,  for 
a  stipulated  sum  of  money,  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the 
farmer,  by  a  man  called  "the  undertaker,"  who  contracts  for 
the  whole  gang.  "These  gangs  will  sometimes  travel  many 
miles  from  their  own  village;  they  are  to  be  met  morning  and 
evening  on  the  roads,  dressed  in  short  petticoats,  with  suitable 
coats  and  boots,  and  sometimes  trousers,  looking  wonderfully 
strong  and  healthy,  but  tainted  with  a  customary  immorality, 

*  "It  (the  inquiry  of  1861)  .  .  .  showed,  moreover,  that  while,  with  the  de- 
scribed circumstances,  infants  perish  under  the  neglect  and  mismanagement  which 
their  mothers'  occupations  imply,  the  mothers  become  to  a  grievous  extent  denatural- 
ized towards  their  offspring — commonly  not  troubling  themselves  much  at  the  death, 
and  even  sometimes     •     .     .     taking  direct  measures  to  insure  it."     (1.  c.) 

»1.  c,  p.  454. 

*  1.  c,  p.  454—463.  "  Report  by  Dr.  Henry  Julian  Hunter  on  the  excessive  mor* 
tality  of  infants  in  some  rural  districts  of  England." 

*  1.  c,  p.  35  and  pp.  455,  456. 


436  Capitalist  Production. 

and  heedless  of  the  fatal  results  which  their  love  of  this  busy 
and  independent  life  is  bringing  on  their  unfortunate  offspring 
who  are  pining  at  home."^  Every  phenomenon  of  the  factory 
districts  is  here  reproduced,  including,  but  to  a  greater  extent, 
ill-disguised  infanticide,  and  dosing  children  with  opiates.^ 
"My  knowledge  of  such  evils,"  says  Dr.  Simon,  the  medical 
officer  of  the  Privy  Council  and  editor  in  chief  of  the  Reports 
on  Public  Health,  "may  excuse  the  profound  misgiving  with 
which  I  regard  any  large  industrial  employment  of  adult 
women."^  "Happy  indeed,"  exclaims  Mr.  Baker,  the  factory 
inspector,  in  his  official  report,  "happy  indeed  will  it  be  for  the 
manufacturing  districts  of  England,  when  every  married 
woman  having  a  family  is  prohibited  from  working  in  any 
textile  works  at  all."* 

The  moral  degradation  caused  by  the  capitalistic  exploita- 
tion of  women  and  children  has  been  so  exhaustively  depicted 
by  F.  Engels  in  his  "Lage  der  Arbeitenden  Klasse  Englands," 
and  other  writers,  that  I  need  only  mention  the  subject  in  this 
place.  But  the  intellectual  desolation,  artificially  produced  by 
converting  immature  human  beings  into  mere  machines  for  the 
fabrication  of  surplus-value,  a  state  of  mind  clearly  dis- 
tinguishable from  that  natural  ignorance  which  keeps  the 
mind  fallow  without  destroying  its  capacity  for  development, 
its  natural  fertility,  this  desolation  finally  compelled  even  the 
English  Parliament  to  make  elementary  education  a  com- 
pulsory condition  to  the  "productive"  employment  of  children 
under  14  years,  in  every  industry  subject  to  the  Factory  Acts. 
The  spirit  of  capitalist  production  stands  out  clearly  in  the 
ludicrous  wording  of  the  so-called  education  clauses  in  the 
Factory  Acts,  in  the  absence  of  an  administrative  machinery, 
an  absence  that  again  makes  the  compulsion  illusory,  in  the 

»1.  c,  p.  456. 

*In  the  agricultural  as  well  as  in  the  factory  districts  the  consumption  of  opium 
among  the  grown-up  labourers,  both  male  and  female,  is  extending  daily.  "To  push 
the  sale  of  opiate  ...  is  the  great  aim  of  some  enterprising  wholesale  merchants. 
By  druggists  it  is  considered  the  leading  article."  (1.  c.,  p.  459.)  Infants  that  take 
opiates  "shrank  up  into  little  old  men,"  or  "wizzened  like  little  monkeys,"  (1.  c, 
p.  460.)     We  here  see  how  India  and  China  avenged  themselves  on   England. 

*1.  c,  p.  87. 

*  "Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact  for  81st  Oct,  1862,"  p.  59.  Mr.  Baker  was  formerly  a 
doctor. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  437 

opposition  of  the  manufacturers  themselves  to  these  education 
clauses,  and  in  the  tricks  and  dodges  they  put  in  practice  for 
evading  them.  "For  this  the  legislature  is  alone  to  blame,  by 
having  passed  a  delusive  law,  which,  while  it  would  seem  to 
provide  that  the  children  employed  in  factories  shall  be 
educated^  contains  no  enactment  by  which  that  professed  end 
can  be  secured.  It  provides  nothing  more  than  that  the 
children  shall  on  certain  days  of  the  week,  and  for  a  certain 
number  of  hours  (three)  in  each  day,  be  inclosed  within  the 
four  walls  of  a  place  called  a  school,  and  that  the  employer  of 
the  child  shall  receive  weekly  a  certificate  to  that  effect  signed 
by  a  person  designated  by  the  subscriber  as  a  schoolmaster  or 
schoolmistress."^  Previous  to  the  passing  of  the  amended 
Factory  Act,  1844,  it  happened,  not  unfrequently,  that  the 
certificate  of  attendance  at  school  were  signed  by  the  school- 
master or  schoolmistress  with  a  cross,  as  they  themselves  were 
unable  to  write.  "On  one  occasion,  on  visiting  a  place  called  a 
school,  from  which  certificates  of  school  attendance  had  issued, 
I  was  so  struck  with  the  ignorance  of  the  master,  that  I  said 
to  him:  "Pray,  sir,  can  you  read?"  His  reply  was:  "Aye, 
summat!"  and  as  a  justification  of  his  right  to  grant  certifi- 
cates, he  added :  "At  any  rate,  I  am  before  my  scholars."  The 
inspectors,  when  the  Bill  of  1844  was  in  preparation,  did  not 
fail  to  represent  the  disgraceful  state  of  the  places  called 
schools,  certificates  from  which  they  were  obliged  to  admit  as 
a  compliance  with  the  laws,  but  they  were  successful  only  in 
obtaining  thus  much,  that  since  the  passing  of  the  Act  of  1844, 
the  figures  in  the  school  certificate  must  be  filled  up  in  the 
handwriting  of  the  schoolmaster,  who  must  also  sign  his 
Christian  and  surname  in  full."^  Sir  John  Kincaid,  factory 
inspector  for  Scotland,  relates  experiences  of  the  same  kind. 
"The  first  school  we  visited  was  kept  by  a  Mrs.  Ann  Killin. 
Upon  asking  her  to  spell  her  name,  she  straightway  made  a 
mistake,  by  beginning  with  the  letter  C,  but  correcting  herself 
immediately,  she  said  her  name  began  with  a  K.  On  looking 
at  her  signature,  however,  in  the  school  certificate  books,  I 

*  Leonard  Horner  in  "Reports  of  Insp.  of  Fact,  for  30th  June,  1857,"  p.  17. 
°  L.  Horner  in  "Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact,  for  31st  Oct.,  1855,"  pp.  18,  19. 


438  Capitalist  Production. 

noticed  that  she  spelt  it  in  various  ways,  while  her  hand- 
writing left  no  doubt  as  to  her  unfitness  to  teach.  She  her- 
self also  acknowledged  that  she  could  not  keep  the  register 
.  .  .  .  In  a  second  school  I  found  the  schoolroom  15  feet 
long,  and  10  feet  wide,  and  counted  in  this  space  75  children, 
who  were  gabbling  something  unintelligible."^  But  it  is  not 
only  in  the  miserable  places  above  referred  to  that  the  chil- 
dren obtained  certificates  of  school  attendance  without  having 
received  instruction  of  any  value,  for  in  many  schools  where 
there  is  a  competent  teacher,  his  efforts  are  of  little  avail  from 
the  distracting  crowd  of  children  of  all  ages,  from  infants  of 
3  years  old  and  upwards ;  his  livelihood,  miserable  at  the  best, 
depending  on  the  pence  received  from  the  greatest  number  of 
children  whom  it  is  possible  to  cram  into  the  space.  To  this  is 
to  be  added  scanty  school  furniture,  deficiency  of  books,  and 
other  materials  for  teaching,  and  the  depressing  effect  upon 
the  poor  children  themselves  of  a  close,  noisome  atmosphere. 
I  have  been  in  many  schools,  where  I  have  seen  rows  of 
children  doing  absolutely  nothing;  and  this  is  certified  as 
school  attendance,  and,  in  statistical  returns,  such  children  are 
set  down  as  being  educated."^  In  Scotland  the  manufacturers 
try  all  they  can  to  do  without  the  children  that  are  obliged  to 
attend  school.  "It  requires  no  further  argument  to  prove 
that  the  educational  clauses  of  the  Factory  Act,  being  held  in 
such  disfavour  among  mill  owners  tend  in  a  great  measure  to 
exclude  that  class  of  children  alike  from  the  employment  and 
the  benefit  of  education  contemplated  by  this  Act."^  Horribly 
grotesque  does  this  appear  in  print  works,  which  are  regulated 
by  a  special  Act.  By  that  Act,  "every  child,  before  being  em- 
ployed in  a  print  work  must  have  attended  school  for  at  least 
30  days,  and  not  less  than  150  hours,  during  the  six  months 
immediately  preceding  such  first  day  of  employment,  and 
during  the  continuance  of  its  employment  in  the  print  works, 
it  must  attend  for  a  like  |)eriod  of  30  days,  and  150  hours 
during  every  successive  period  of  six  months.     .     .     .     The 

*  Sir  John  Kincaid  in  "Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact,  for  31st  Oct.,  1858,"  pp.  31,  32. 
*L.  Homer  in  "Reports,  &c,  for  31st  Oct.,  1857,"  pp.  17,  18. 
•Sir  J.  Kincaid  in  "Reports,  &c.,  31st  Oct.,   1856,"  p.  66. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  439 

attendance  at  school  must  be  between  8  a.m.  and  6  p.m.  No 
attendance  of  less  than  2|  hours,  nor  more  than  5  hours  on 
any  one  day,  shall  be  reckoned  as  part  of  the  150  hours. 
Under  ordinary  circumstances  the  children  attend  school 
morning  and  afternoon  for  30  days,  for  at  least  5  hours  each 
day,  and  upon  the  expiration  of  the  30  days,  the  statutory  total 
of  150  hours  having  been  attained,  having,  in  their  language, 
made  up  their  book,  they  return  to  the  print  work,  where  they 
continue  until  the  six  months  have  expired,  wiien  another  in- 
stalment of  school  attendance  becomes  due,  and  they  again  seek 

the  school  until  the  book  is  again  made  up Many 

boys  having  attended  school  for  the  required  number  of  hours, 
when  they  return  to  school  after  the  expiration  of  their  six 
months'  work  in  the  print  work,  are  in  the  same  condition  as 
when  they  first  attended  school  as  print-work  boys,  that  they 
have  lost  all  they  gained  by  their  previous  school  attendance. 
.  .  .  In  other  print  works  the  children's  attendance  at 
school  is  made  to  depend  altogether  upon  the  exigencies  of  the 
work  in  the  establishment.  The  requisite  number  of  hours  is 
made  up  each  six  months,  by  instalments  consisting  of  from 
3  to  five  hours  at  a  time,  spreading  over,  perhaps,  the  whole  six 
months.  .  .  .  For  instance,  the  attendance  on  one  day 
might  be  from  8  to  11  a.m.,  on  another  day  from  1  p.m.  to  4 
p.m.,  and  the  child  might  not  appear  at  school  again  for 
several  days,  when  it  would  attend  from  3  p.m.  to  6  p.m.; 
then  it  might  attend  for  3  or  4  days  consecutively,  or  for  a 
week,  then  it  would  not  appear  in  school  for  3  weeks  or  a 
month,  after  that  upon  some  odd  days  at  some  odd  hours  when 
the  operative  who  employed  it  chose  to  spare  it;  and  thus  the 
child  was,  as  it  were,  buffeted  from  school  to  work,  from  work 
to  school,  until  the  tale  of  150  hours  was  told."^ 

*  A.  Redgrave  in  "Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,  31st  Oct.,  1857,"  pp.  41-42.  In  those  in- 
dustries where  the  Factory  Act  proper  (not  the  Print  Works  Act  referred  to  in  the 
text)  has  been  in  force  for  some  time,  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  education 
clauses  have,  in  recent  years,  been  overcome.  In  industries  not  under  the  Act,  the 
views  of  Mr.  J.  Geddes,  a  glass  manufacturer,  still  extensively  prevail.  He  informed 
Mr.  White,  one  of  the  Inquiry  Commissioners:  "As  far  as  I  can  see,  the  greater 
amount  of  education  which  a  part  of  the  working  class  has  enjoyed  for  some  years 
past  is  an  evil.  It  is  dangerous,  because  it  makes  them  independent."  (Children's 
Empl.  Comm.,  Fourth  Report,  Lond.,  18C5,  p.  253.) 


440  Capitalist  Production. 

Bj  the  excessive  addition  of  women  and  children  to  the 
ranks  of  the  workers,  machinery  at  last  breaks  down  the  re- 
sistance which  the  male  operatives  in  the  manufacturing  period 
continued  to  oppose  to  the  despotism  of  capital.^ 

b.  Prolongation  of  the  working-day. 

If  machinery  be  the  most  powerful  means  for  increasing  the 
productiveness  of  labour — i.e.,  for  shortening  the  working 
time  required  in  the  production  of  a  commodity,  it  becomes 
in  the  hands  of  capital  the  most  powerful  means,  in  those  in- 
dustries first  invaded  by  it,  for  lengthening  the  working  day 
beyond  all  bounds  set  by  human  nature.  It  creates,  on  the  one 
hand,  new  conditions  by  which  capital  is  enabled  to  give  free 
scope  to  this  its  constant  tendency,  and  on  the  other  hand,  new 
motives  with  which  to  whet  capital's  appetite  for  the  labour 
of  others. 

In  the  first  place,  in  form  of  machinery,  the  implements 
of  labour  become  automatic,  things  moving  and  working  inde- 
pendent of  the  workman.  They  are  thenceforth  an  industrial 
perpetuum  mobile,  that  would  go  on  producing  forever,  did  it 
not  meet  with  certain  natural  obstructions  in  the  weak  bodies 
and  the  strong  wills  of  its  human  attendants.  The  automaton, 
as  capital,  and  because  it  is  capital,  is  endowed,  in  the  person 
of  the  capitalist,  with  intelligence  and  will ;  it  is  therefore 
animated  by  the  longing  to  reduce  to  a  minimum  the  resistance 
offered  by  that  repellant  yet  elastic  natural  barrier,  man.^ 
This  resistance  is  moreover  lessened  by  the  apparent  lightness 
of  machine  work,  and  by  the  more  pliant  and  docile  character 
of  the  w^omen  and  children  employed  on  it.^ 

*  "Mr.  E.,  a  manufacturer  .  .  .  informed  me  that  he  employed  females  exclu- 
sively at  his  power-looms  .  .  .  gives  a  decided  preference  to  married  females, 
especially  those  who  have  families  at  home  dependent  on  them  for  support;  they  are 
attentive,  docile,  more  so  than  unmarried  females,  and  are  compelled  to  use  their 
utmost  exertions  to  procure  the  necessaries  of  life.  Thus  are  the  virtues,  the  pe- 
culiar virtues  of  the  female  character  to  be  perverted  to  her  injury — thus  all  that 
is  most  dutiful  and  tender  in  her  nature  is  made  a  means  of  her  bondage  and  suffer- 
ing." (Ten  Hours'  Factory  Bill.  The  Speech  of  Lord  Ashley,  March  15th,  Lond., 
1844,  p.  20.) 

*  "Since  the  general  introduction  of  machinery,  human  nature  has  been  forced  far 
beyond  its  average  strength."  (Rob.  Ov/en:  "Observations  on  the  effects  of  the 
manufacturing  system,   2nd   Ed.,   Lond.,   1817.") 

*  The  English,  who  have  a  tendency  to  look  upon  the  earliest  form  of  appearance 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  441 

The  productiveness  of  machinery  is,  as  we  saw,  inversely 
proportional  to  the  value  transferred  by  it  to  the  product. 
The  longer  the  life  of  the  machine,  the  greater  is  the  mass  of 
the  products  over  which  the  value  transmitted  by  the  machine 
is  spread,  and  the  less  is  the  portion  of  that  value  added  to 
each  single  commodity.  The  active  lifetime  of  a  machine  is, 
however,  clearly  dependent  on  the  length  of  the  working  day, 
or  on  the  duration  of  the  daily  labour-process  multiplied  by 
the  number  of  days  for  which  the  process  is  carried  on. 

The  wear  and  tear  of  a  machine  is  not  exactly  proportional 
to  its  working  time.  And  even  if  it  were  so,  a  machine  working 
16  hours  daily  for  7^  years,  covers  as  long  a  working  period 
as,  and  transmits  to  the  total  product  no  more  value  than,  the 
same  machine  would  if  it  worked  only  8  hours  daily  for  15 
years.  But  in  the  first  case  the  value  of  the  machine  would 
be  reproduced  twice  as  quickly  as  in  the  latter,  and  the  capi- 
talist would,  by  this  use  of  the  machine,  absorb  in  7^  years  as 
much  surplus-value  as  in  the  second  case  he  would  in  15. 

The  material  wear  and  tear  of  a  machine  is  of  two  kinds. 
The  one  arises  from  use,  as  coins  wear  away  by  circulating, 
the  other  from  non-use,  as  a  sword  rusts  when  left  in  its 
scabbard.  The  latter  kind  is  due  to  the  elements.  The 
former  is  more  or  less  directly  proportional,  the  latter  to  a 
certain  extent  inversely  proportional,  to  the  use  of  the 
machine.^ 

of  a  thing  as  the  cause  of  its  existence,  are  in  the  habit  of  attributing  the  long  hours 
of  work  in  factories  to  the  extensive  kidnapping  of  children,  practised  by  capitalists 
in  the  infancy  of  the  factory  system,  on  workhouses  and  orphanages,  by  means  of 
which  robbery,  unresisting  material  for  exploitation  was  procured.  Thus,  for  in- 
stance, Fielden,  himself  a  manufacturer,  says:  "It  is  evident  that  the  long  hours 
of  work  were  brought  about  by  the  circumstance  of  so  great  a  number  of  destitute 
children  being  supplied  from  different  parts  of  the  country,  that  the  masters  were 
independent  of  the  hands,  and  that  having  once  established  the  custom  by  means  of 
the  miserable  materials  they  had  procured  in  this  way,  they  could  impose  it  on  their 
neighbours  with  the  greater  facility."  (J.  Fielden:  "The  Curse  of  the  Factory 
System.  Lond.,  1836,"  p.  11.)  With  reference  to  the  labour  of  women,  Saunders, 
the  Factory  inspector,  says  in  his  report  of  1844:  "Amongst  the  female  operatives 
there  are  some  women  who,  for  many  weeks  in  succession,  except  for  a  few  days, 
are  employed  from  6  a.  m.  till  midnight,  with  less  than  2  hours  for  meals,  so  that  on 
5  days  of  the  week  they  have  only  6  hours  left  out  of  the  24,  for  going  to  and  from 
their  homes  and  resting  in  bed." 

1  Occasion  .  .  .  injury  to  the  delicate  moving  parts  of  metallic  mechanism  by 
inaction."     (Ure,  1.  c,  p.   28.) 


442  CapifaHsi  FycJ^tCiion. 

But  in  addition  to  the  mateiij.)  v.  ear  and  tear,  l  riid^'hine 
also  undergoes,  what  we  may  call  a  moral  depreciation.  It 
loses  exchange-value,  either  bj  :.nachires  of  the  same  sort  being 
produced  cheaper  than  it,  or  by  better  machines  entering  into 
competition  with  it.^  In  both  cases,  be  the  machine  ever  so 
young  and  full  of  life,  its  value  is  no  longer  determined  by 
the  labour  actually  materialised  in  it,  but  by  the  labour-time 
requisite  to  reproduce  either  it  or  the  better  machine.  It  has, 
therefore,  lost  value  move  or  less.  The  shorter  the  period 
taken  to  reproduce  its  total  value,  the  less  is  the  danger  of 
moral  depreciation;  and  the  longer  the  working  day,  the 
shorter  is  that  period.  When  machinery  is  first  introduced 
into  an  industry,  new  methods  of  reproducing  it  more  cheaply 
follow  blow  upon  blow,^  and  so  do  improvements,  that  not  only 
affect  individual  parts  and  details  of  the  machine,  but  its  en- 
tire build.  It  is,  therefore,  in  the  early  days  of  the  life  of 
machinery  that  this  special  incentive  to  the  prolongation  of  the 
working  day  makes  itself  felt  most  acutely.^ 

Given  the  length  of  the  working  day,  all  other  circumstances 
remaining  the  same,  the  exploitation  of  double  the  number  of 
workmen  demands,  not  only  a  doubling  of  that  part  of  constant 
capital  which  is  invested  in  machinery  and  buildings,  but  also 
of  that  part  which  is  laid  out  in  raw  material  and  auxiliary 
substances.  The  lengthening  of  the  working  day,  on  the  other 
hand,  allows  of  production  on  an  extended  scale  without  any 
alteration  in  the  amount  of  capital  laid  out  on  machinery  and 

*  The  "Manchester  Spinner"  {Times,  26th  Nov.  1862)  before  referred  to  says  in 
relation  to  this  subject:  "It  (namely,  the  "allowance  for  deterioration  of  machin- 
ery") is  also  intended  to  cover  the  loss  which  is  constantly  arising  from  the  super- 
seding of  machines  before  they  are  worn  out,  by  others  of  a  new  and  better  con- 
struction." 

*  "It  has  been  estimated,  roughly,  that  the  first  individual  of  a  newly-invented 
machine  will  cost  about  five  times  as  much  as  the  construction  of  the  second."  (Bab- 
bage,  1.  c,  p.  211.) 

*  "The  improvements  which  took  place  not  long  ago  in  frames  for  making  patent 
net  was  so  great  that  a  machine  in  good  repair  which  had  cost  £1,200,  sold  a  few 
years  after  for  £60  .  .  .  improvements  succeeded  each  other  so  rapidly,  that 
machines  which  had  never  been  finished  were  abandoned  in  the  hands  of  their 
makers,  because  new  improvements  had  superseded  their  utility."  (Babbage,  1.  c, 
p.  233.)  In  these  stormy,  go-ahead  times,  therefore,  the  tulle  manufacturers  soon 
extended  the  working  day,  by  means  of  double  sets  of  hands,  from  the  original  8 
hours  to  S4. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  443 

buildings.*  Not  only  is  there,  therefore,  an  increase  of  sur- 
plus-value, but  the  outlay  necessary  to  obtain  it  diminishes. 
It, is  true  that  this  takes  place,  more  or  less,  with  every  length- 
ening of  the  working  day ;  but  in  the  case  under  consideration, 
the  change  is  more  marked,  because  the  capital  converted  into 
the  instruments  of  labour  preponderates  to  a  greater  degree.^ 
The  development  of  the  factory  system  fixes  a  constantly  in- 
creasing portion  of  the  capital  in  a  form,  in  which,  on  the  one 
hand,  its  value  is  capable  of  continual  self-expansion,  and  in 
which,  on  the  other  hand,  it  loses  both  use-value  and  exchange- 
value  whenever  it  loses  contact  with  living  labour.  "When  a 
labourer,"  said  Mr.  Ashworth,  a  cotton  magnate,  to  Professor 
^Nassau  W.  Senior,  "lays  down  his  spade,  he  renders  useless, 
for  that  period,  a  capital  worth  eighteenpence.  When  one  of 
our  people  leaves  the  mill,  he  renders  useless  a  capital  that  has 
cost  £100,000."^  Only  fancy !  making  "useless"  for  a  single 
moment,  a  capital  that  has  cost  £100,000 !  It  is,  in  truth, 
monstrous,  that  a  single  one  of  our  people  should  ever  leave 
the  factory!  The  increased  use  of  our  machinery,  as  Senior 
after  the  instruction  he  received  from  Ashworth  clearly  per- 
ceives, makes  a  constantly  increasing  lengthening  of  the  work- 
ing day  "desirable."* 

Machinery    produces   relative    surplus-value ;    not   only   by 
directly  depreciating  the  value  of  labour-power,  and  by  in- 

*  "It  is  self-evident,  that,  amid  the  ebbings  and  flowings  of  the  markets  and  the 
alternate  expansions  and  contractions  of  demand,  occasions  will  constantly  recur,  in 
which  the  manufacturer  may  employ  additional  floating  capital  without  employing 
additional  fixed  capital  ...  if  additional  quantities  of  raw  material  can  be 
worked  up  without  incurring  an  additional  expense  for  buildings  and  machinery." 
(R.   Torrens:     "On   Wages   and   Con'binations.     London,    1834,"   p.    63.) 

*  This  circumstance  is  mentioned  only  for  the  sake  of  completeness,  for  I  shall 
not  consider  the  rate  of  profit,  i.e.,  the  ratio  of  the  surplus-value  to  the  total  capital 
advanced,  until  I  come  to  the  third  book. 

*  Senior,  "Letters  on  the  Factory  Act.     London,  1837,"  p.  13,  14. 

*  "The  great  proportion  of  fixed  to  circulating  capital  .  .  .  makes  long  hours  of 
work  desirable."  With  the  increased  use  of  machinery,  &c.,  "the  motives  to  long 
hours  of  work  will  become  greater,  as  the  only  means  by  which  a  large  proportion  of 
fixed  capital  can  be  made  profitable."  (1.  c,  pp.  11-13.)  "There  are  certain  ex- 
penses upon  a  mill  which  go  on  in  the  same  proportion  whether  the  mill  be  running 
short  or  full  time,  as,  for  instance,  rent,  rates,  and  taxes,  insurance  against  fire, 
wages  of  several  permanent  servants,  deterioration  of  machinery,  with  various  other 
charges  upon  a  manufacturing  establishment,  the  proportion  of  which  to  profits  in- 
creases as  the  production  decreases.  ("Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact,  for  31st  Oct.,  ISGl'," 
p.  19.) 


444  Capitalist  Production. 

directly  cheapening  the  same  through  cheapening  the  com- 
modities that  enter  into  its  reproduction,  but  also,  when  it  is 
first  introduced  sporadically  into  an  industry,  by  converting 
the  labour  employed  by  the  owner  of  that  machinery,  into 
labour  of  a  higher  degree  and  greater  efficacy,  by  raising  the 
social  value  of  the  article  produced  above  its  individual  value, 
and  thus  enabling  the  capitalist  to  replace  the  value  of  a  day's 
labour-power  by  a  smaller  portion  of  tlie  value  of  the  day's 
product.  During  this  transition  period,  when  the  use  of  ma- 
chinery is  a  sort  of  monopoly,  the  profits  are  therefore  excep- 
tional, and  the  capitalist  endeavours  to  exploit  thoroughly  "the 
sunny  time  of  this  his  first  love,"  by  prolonging  the  working 
day  as  much  as  possible.  The  magnitude  of  the  profit  whets 
his  appetite  for  more  profit. 

As  the  use  of  machinery  becomes  more  general  in  a  parti- 
cular industry,  the  social  value  of  the  product  sinks  down  to 
its  individual  value,  and  the  law  that  surplus-value  does  not 
arise  from  the  labour-power  that  has  been  replaced  by  the 
machinery,  but  from  the  labour-power  actually  employed  in 
working  with  the  machinery,  asserts  itself.  Surplus-value 
arises  from  the  variable  capital  alone,  and  we  saw  that  the 
amount  of  surplus-value  depends  on  two  factors,  viz.,  the  rate 
of  surplus-value  and  the  number  of  the  workmen  simul- 
taneously employed.  Given  the  length  of  the  working  day, 
the  rate  of  surplus-value  is  determined  by  the  relative  dura- 
tion of  the  necessary  labour  and  of  the  surplus-labour  in 
a  day.  The  number  of  the  labourers  simultaneously  em- 
ployed depends,  on  its  side,  on  the  ratio  of  the  variable  to  the 
constant  capital.  Now,  however  much  the  use  of  machinery 
may  increase  the  surplus-labour  at  the  expense  of  the  necessary 
labour  by  heightening  the  productiveness  of  labour,  it  is  clear 
that  it  attains  this  result,  only  by  diminishing  the  number  of 
workmen  employed  by  a  given  amount  of  capital.  It  converts 
what  was  formerly  variable  capital,  invested  in  labour-power, 
into  machinery,  which,  being  constant  capital,  does  not  pro- 
duce surplus-value.  It  is  impossible,  for  instance,  to  squeeze 
as  much  surplus-value  out  of  2  as  out  of  24  labourers.  If  each 
of  these  24  men  gives  only  one  hour  of  surplus-labour  in  12,  the 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  445 

24  men  give  together  24  hours  of  surplus-labour,  while  24 
hours  is  the  total  labour  of  the  two  men.  Hence,  the  applica- 
tion of  machinery  to  the  production  of  surplus-value  implies 
a  contradiction  which  is  immanent  in  it,  since,  of  the  two 
factors  of  the  surplus-value  created  by  a  given  amount  of 
capital,  one,  the  rate  of  surplus-value  cannot  be  increased,  ex- 
cept by  diminishing  the  other,  the  number  of  workmen.  This 
contradiction  comes  to  light,  as  soon  as  by  the  general  employ- 
ment of  machinery  in  a  given  industry,  the  value  of  the 
machine-produced  commodity  regulates  the  value  of  all  com- 
modities of  the  same  sort ;  and  it  is  tliis  contradiction,  that  in 
its  turn,  drives  the  capitalist,  without  his  being  conscious  of 
the  fact,^  to  excessive  lengthening  of  the  working  day,  in  order 
that  he  may  compensate  the  decrease  in  the  relative  number 
of  labourers  exploited,  by  an  increase  not  only  of  the  relative, 
but  of  the  absolute  surplus-labour. 

If,  then,  the  capitalistic  employment  of  machinery,  on  the 
one  hand,  supplies  new  and  powerful  motives  to  an  excessive 
lengthening  of  the  working  day,  and  radically  changes,  as  well 
the  methods  of  labour,  as  also  the  character  of  the  social  work- 
ing organism,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  break  down  all  opposition 
to  this  tendency,  on  the  other  hand  it  produces,  partly  by 
opening  out  to  the  capitalist  new  strata  of  the  working  class, 
previously  inaccessible  to  him,  partly  by  setting  free  the 
labourers  it  supplants,  a  surplus  working  population,^  which  is 
compelled  to  submit  to  the  dictation  of  capital.  Hence  that 
remarkable  phenomenon  in  the  history  of  Modern  Industry, 
that  machinery  sweeps  away  every  moral  and  natural  restric- 
tion on  the  length  of  the  working  day.  Hence,  too,  the 
economical  paradox,  that  the  most  powerful  instrument  for 
shortening  labour-time,  becomes  the  most  unfailing  means  for 
placing  every  moment  of  the  labourer's  time  and  that  of  his 
family,  at  the  disposal  of  the  capitalist  for  the  purpose  of 
expanding  the  value  of  his  capital.     "If,"  dreamed  Aristotle, 

*  Why  it  is,  that  the  capitalist,  and  also  the  political  economists  who  are  embued 
with  his  views,  are  unconscious  of  this  immanent  contradiction,  will  appear  from  the 
first   part  of   the  third  volume. 

'  It  is  one  of  the  greatest  merits  of  Ricardo  to  have  seen  in  machinery  not  only  the 
means  of  producing  commodities,  but  of  creating  a  "redundant  population." 


446  Capitalist  Production. 

the  greatest  thinker  of  antiquity,  "if  every  tool,  when  sum- 
moned, or  even  of  its  own  accord,  could  do  the  work  that  befits 
it,  just  as  the  creations  of  Daedalus  moved  of  themselves,  or  the 
tripods  of  Ilephffistos  went  of  their  own  accord  to  their  sacred 
work,  if  the  weavers'  shuttles  were  to  weave  of  themselves, 
then  there  would  be  no  need  either  of  apprentices  for  the 
master  workers,  or  of  slaves  for  the  lords."^  And  Antiparos, 
a  Greek  poet  of  the  time  of  Cicero,  hailed  the  invention  of  the 
water-wheel  for  grinding  com,  an  invention  that  is  the  ele- 
mentary form  of  all  machinery,  as  the  giver  of  freedom  to 
female  slaves,  and  the  bringer  back  of  the  golden  age.^  Oh ! 
those  heathens !  They  understood,  as  the  learned  Bastiat,  and 
before  him  the  still  wiser  MacCulloch  have  discovered,  nothing 
of  political  economy  and  Christianity.  They  did  not,  for 
example,  comprehend  that  machinery  is  the  surest  means  of 
lengthening  the  working  day.  They  perhaps  excused  the 
slavery  of  one  on  the  ground  that  it  was  a  means  to  the  full 
development  of  another.  But  to  preach  slavery  of  the  masses, 
in  order  that  a  few  crude  and  half-educated  parvenus,  might 
become  "eminent  spinners,"  "extensive  sausage-makers,"  and 
"influential  shoe-black  dealers,"  to  do  this,  they  lacked  the 
bump  of  Christianity. 

*F.  Biese.  "Die  Philosophic  des  Aristoteles,"  Vol.  2.  Berlin,  1842,  p.  408, 
*  I  give  below  the  translation  of  this  poem  by  Stolberg,  because  it  brings  into  relief, 
quite  in  the  spirit  of  former  quotations  referring  to  division  of  labour,  the  antitliesis 
between  the  views  of  the  ancients  and  the  moderns.  "Spare  the  hand  that  grinds 
the  corn.  Oh,  miller  girls,  and  softly  sleep.  Let  Chanticleer  announce  the  morn  in 
vain!  Deo  has  commanded  the  work  of  the  girls  to  be  done  by  the  Nymphs,  and  now 
they  skip  lightly  over  the  wheels,  so  that  the  shaken  axles  revolve  with  their  spokes 
and  pull  round  the  load  of  the  revolving  stones.  Let  us  live  the  life  of  our  fathers, 
and  let  us  rest  from  work  and  enjoy  the  gifts  that  the  Goddess  sends  us  " 

"Schonet  der  mahlenden  Hand,  o  Mullerinnen  und  schlafet 
Sanft!  es  verkiinde  der  Hahn  euch  den  Morgen  umsonsti 
Dao  hat  die  Arbeit  der  Madchen  den  Nymphen  befohlen, 
Und  itzt  hijpfen  sie  leicht  iiber  die   Rader  dahin, 
Dass  die  erschiitterten  Achsen  mit  ihren  Speichen  sich  walzen, 
Und  im  Kreise  die  Last  drehen  des  walzendcn   Steins. 
Lasst  uns  lebcn  das  Leben  der  Vater,  und  lasst  uns  der  Gaben 
Arbeitslos  uns  freun,  welche  die  Gottin  uns  schcnkt." 

(Gedichte  aus  dem   Griechischen   iibersetzt  von  Christian  Graf  zu   Stolberg,   Ham- 
burg, 1782.) 


Murh'rc^ry  and  Modern  Industry.  447 

c.  Intensification  of  Labour. 

Tlie  immoderate  lengthening  of  the  working  day,  produced 
by  machinery  in  the  hands  of  capital,  leads  to  a  reaction  on 
the  part  of  society,  the  very  sources  of  whose  life  are  menaced ; 
and,  thence,  to  a  normal  working  day  whose  length  is  fixed  by 
law.  Thenceforth  a  phenomenon  that  we  have  already  met 
with,  namely,  the  intensification  of  labour,  develops  into  great 
importance.  Our  analysis  of  absolute  surplus-value  had  refer- 
ence primarily  to  the  extension  or  duration  of  the  labour,  its 
intensity  being  assumed  as  given.  We  now  proceed  to  con- 
sider the  substitution  of  a  more  intensified  labour  for  labour 
of  more  extensive  duration,  and  the  degree  of  the  former. 

It  is  self-evident,  that  in  proportion  as  the  use  of  machinery 
spreads,  and  the  experience  of  a  special  class  of  workmen 
habituated  to  machinery  accumulates,  the  rapidity  and  inten- 
sity of  labour  increase  as  a  natural  consequence.  Thus  in 
England,  during  half  a  century,  lengthening  of  the  working- 
day  went  hand  in  hand  with  increasing  intensity  of  factory- 
labour.  ^N^evertheless  the  reader  will  clearly  see,  that  where 
we  have  labour,  not  carried  on  by  fits  and  starts,  but  repeated 
day  after  day  with  unvarying  uniformity,  a  point  must  inevit- 
ably be  reached,  where  extension  of  the  working  day  and  in- 
tensity of  the  labour  mutually  exclude  one  another,  in  such  a 
way  that  lengthening  of  the  working  day  becomes  compatible 
only  with  a  lower  degree  of  intensity,  and,  a  higher  degree  of 
intensity,  only  with  a  shortening  of  the  working  day.  So  soon 
as  the  gradually  surging  revolt  of  the  working  class  compelled 
Parliament  to  shorten  compulsorily  the  hours  of  labour,  and  to 
begin  by  imposing  a  normal  working  day  on  factories  proper, 
so  soont  consequently  as  an  increased  production  of  surplus 
value  by  the  prolongation  of  the  working  day  was  once  for  all 
put  a  stop  to,  from  that  moment  capital  threw  itself  mth  all 
its  might  into  the  production  of  relative  surplus-value,  by 
hastening  on  the  further  improvement  of  machinery.  At  the 
same  time  a  change  took  place  in  the  nature  of  relative  surplus- 
value.  Generally  speaking,  the  mode  of  producing  relative 
surplus-value  consists  in  raising  the  productive  power  of  the 


448  Capitalist  Production. 

workman,  so  as  to  enable  him  to  produce  more  in  a  given  time 
with  the  same  expenditure  of  labour.  Labour-time  continues 
to  transmit  as  before  the  same  value  to  the  total  product,  but 
this  unchanged  amount  of  exchange  value  is  spread  over  more 
use-values;  hence  the  value  of  each  single  commodity  sinks. 
Othei'wise,  however,  so  soon  as  the  compulsory  shortening  of 
the  hours  of  labour  takes  place.  The  immense  impetus  it  gives 
to  the  development  of  productive  power,  and  to  economy  in 
the  means  of  production,  imposes  on  the  workman  increased 
expenditure  of  labour  in  a  given  time,  heightened  tension  of 
labour-power,  and  closer  filling  up  of  the  pores  of  the  working 
day,  or  condensation  of  labour  to  a  degree  that  is  attainable 
only  within  the  limits  of  the  shortened  working  day.  This 
condensation  of  a  greater  mass  of  labour  into  a  given  period 
thenceforward  counts  for  what  it  really  is,  a  greater  quantity 
of  labour.  In  addition  to  a  measure  of  its  extension,  i.e.,  dura- 
tion, labour  now  acquires  a  measure  of  its  intensity  or  of  the 
degree  of  its  condensation  or  density.^  The  denser  hour  of 
the  ten  hours'  working-day  contains  more  labour,  i.e.,  ex- 
pended labour-power,  than  the  more  porous  hour  of  the  twelve 
hours'  working-day.  The  product  therefore  of  one  of  the 
former  hours  has  as  much  or  more  value  than  has  the  product 
of  li  of  the  latter  hours.  Apart  from  the  increased  yield  of 
relative  surplus-value  through  the  heightened  productiveness  of 
labour,  the  same  mass  of  value  is  now  produced  for  the  cap- 
italist, say,  by  3^  hours  of  surplus  labour,  and  6f  hours  of 
necessary  labour,  as  was  previously  produced  by  four  hours  of 
surplus  labour  and  eight  hours  of  necessary  labour. 

We  now  come  to  the  question :  How  is  the  labour  intensified  ? 

The  first  effect  of  shortening  the  working  day  results  from 
the  self-evident  law,  that  the  efficiency  of  labour-power  is  in 
an  inverse  ratio  to  the  duration  of  its  expenditure.  Hence, 
within  certain  limits  what  is  lost  by  shortening  the  duration  is 
gained  by  the  increasing  tension  of  labour-power.     That  the 

*  There  are,  of  course,  always  differences  in  the  intensities  of  the  labour  in  various 
industries.  But  these  differences  are,  as  Adam  Smith  has  shown,  compensated  to  a 
partial  extent  by  minor  circumstances,  peculiar  to  each  sort  of  labour.  Labour-time, 
as  a  measure  of  value,  is  not,  however,  affected  in  this  case,  except  in  so  far  as  the 
duration  of  labour,  and  the  degree  of  its  intensity,  are  two  antithetical  and  mutually 
exclusive  expressions  for  one  and  the  same  quantity  of  labour. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  449 

workman  moreover  really  does  expend  more  labonr-power,  is 
ensured  by  the  mode  in  which  the  capitalist  pays  him.^  In 
those  industries,  such  as  potteries,  where  machinery  plays  little 
or  no  part,  the  introduction  of  the  Factory  Acts  has  strikingly 
shown  that  the  mere  shortening  of  the  working-day  increases 
to  a  wonderful  degree  the  regularity,  uniformity,  order,  con- 
tinuity, and  energy  of  the  labour.^  It  seemed,  however,  doubt- 
ful whether  this  effect  was  produced  in  the  factory  proper, 
where  the  dependence  of  the  workman  on  the  continuous  and 
uniform  motion  of  the  machinery  had  already  created  the 
strictest  discipline.  Hence,  when  in  1844  the  reduction  of  the 
working-day  to  less  than  twelve  hours  was  being  debated,  the 
masters  almost  unanimously  declared  "that  their  overlookers 
in  the  different  rooms  took  good  care  that  the  hands  lost  no 
time,"  that  the  "extent  of  vigilance  and  attention  on  the  part 
of  the  workmen  was  hardly  capable  of  being  increased,"  and 
therefore,  that  the  speed  of  the  machinery  and  other  conditions 
remaining  unaltered,  "to  expect  in  a  well-managed  factory  any 
important  result  from  increased  attention  of  the  workmen  was 
an  absurdity."^  This  assertion  was  contradicted  by  experi- 
ments. Mr.  Robert  Gardner  reduced  the  hours  of  labour  in 
his  two  large  factories  at  Preston,  on  and  after  the  20th  April, 
1844,  from  twelve  to  eleven  hours  a  day.  The  result  of  about 
a  year's  working  was  that  "the  same  amount  of  product  for  the 
same  cost  was  received,  and  the  workpeople  as  a  whole  earned 
in  eleven  hours  as  much  wages  as  they  did  before  in  twelve."'* 
I  pass  over  the  experiments  made  in  the  spinning  and  carding 
rooms,  because  they  were  accompanied  by  an  increase  of  2%  in 
the  speed  of  the  machines.  But  in  the  weaving  department,- 
where,  moreover,  many  sorts  of  figured  fancy  articles  were 
woven,  there  was  not  the  slightest  alteration  in  the  conditions 
of  the  work.  The  result  was:  "From  6th  January  to  20th 
April,  1844,  with  a  twelve  hours'  day,  average  weekly  wages  of 
each  hand  10s.  l|d.,  from  20th  April  to  29th  June,  1844,  with 

*  Especially  by  piece-work,   a   form  we  shall  investigate  in  Part  VI.   of  this  book. 
'  See  "Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact,   for  31st  October,  1865." 

'  Rep.   of   Insp.    of    Fact,    for    1844   and   the   quarter   ending  3Cth   April    1845,   pp. 
20-21. 

*  1.  c,  p.   19.     Since  the  wages  for  piece-work  were  unaltered,   the  weekly  wages 
depended  on  the  quantity  produced. 

8C 


450  Capitalist  Production. 

day  of  eleven  hours,  average  weekly  wages  10s.  3Jd."^  Hero 
we  have  more  produced  in  eleven  hours  than  previously  in 
twelve,  and  entirely  in  consequence  of  more  steady  application 
and  economy  of  time  by  the  workpeople.  While  they  got  the 
same  wages  and  gained  one  hour  of  spare  time,  the  capitali^'t 
got  the  same  amount  produced  and  saved  the  cost  of  coal,  gas, 
and  other  such  items,  for  one  hour.  Similar  experiments,  and 
with  the  like  success,  were  carried  out  in  the  mills  of  Messrs. 
Ilorrocks  and  Jacson.^ 

The  shortening  of  the  hours  of  labour  creates,  to  begin  with, 
the  subjective  conditions  for  the  condensation  of  labour,  by 
enabling  the  workman  to  exert  more  strength  in  a  given  time. 
So- soon  as  that  shortening  becomes  compulsory,  machinery  be- 
comes in  the  hands  of  capital  the  objective  means,  systemati- 
cally employed  for  squeezing  out  more  labour  in  a  given  time. 
This  is  effected  in  two  ways:  by  increasing  the  speed  of  the 
machinery,  and  by  giving  the  workman  more  machinery  to 
tend.  Improved  construction  of  the  machinery  is  necessary, 
partly  because  without  it  greater  pressure  cannot  be  put  on 
the  workman,  and  partly  because  the  shortened  hours  of  labour 
force  the  capitalist  to  exercise  the  strictest  watch  over  the  cost 
of  production.  The  improvements  in  the  steam-engine  have 
increased  the  piston  speed,  and  at  the  same  time  have  made  it 
possible,  by  means  of  a  greater  economy  of  power,  to  drive 
Vv'ith  the  same  or  even  a  smaller  consumption  of  coal  more 
machinery  with  the  same  engine.  The  improvements  in  the 
transmitting  mechanism  have  lessened  friction,  and,  what  so 
strikingly  distinguishes  modern  from  the  older  machinery, 
have  reduced  the  diameter  and  weight  of  the  shafting  to  a 
constantly  decreasing  minimum.  Finally,  the  improvements 
in  the  operative  machines  have,  while  reducing  their  size,  in- 
creased their  speed  and  efficiency,  as  in  the  modern  power- 
loom  ;  or,  while  increasing  the  size  of  their  frame- work,  have 
also  increased  the  extent  and  number  of  their  working  parts, 

^1.  c,  p.  22. 

*  The  moral  element  played  an  important  part  in  the  above  experiments.  The 
workpeople  told  the  factory  inspector:  "We  work  with  more  spirit,  we  have  the 
reward  ever  before  us  of  getting  away  sooner  at  night,  and  one  active  and  cheerful 
spirit  pervades  the  whole  mill,  from  the  youngest  piecer  to  the  oldest  band,  and  we 
can  greatly  help  each  other"    (1.  c.) 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry,  451 

as  in  spinning  mnles,  or  have  added  to  tlie  speed  of  these 
working  parts  by  imperceptible  alterations  of  detail,  such  as 
those  which  ten  years  ago  increased  the  speed  of  the  spindles  in 
self-acting  mules  by  one-fifth. 

The  reduction  of  the  working  day  to  12  hours  dates  in 
England  from  1832.  In  1836  a  manufacturer  stated:  "The 
labour  now  undergone  in  the  factories  is  much  greater  than  it 
used  to  be  .  .  .  compared  with  thirty  or  forty  years  ago  .  .  . 
owing  to  the  greater  attention  and  activity  required  by  the 
greatly  increased  speed  which  is  given  to  the  machinery."^  In 
the  year  1814,  Lord  Ashley,  now  Lord  Shaftesbury,  made  in  ' 
the  House  of  Commons  the  following  statements,  supported  by 
documentary  evidence : 

"The  labour  performed  by  those  engaged  in  the  processes  of 
manufacture,  is  three  times  as  great  as  in  the  beginning  of  such 
operations.  Machinery  has  executed,  no  doubt,  the  work  that 
would  demand  the  sinews  of  millions  of  men ;  but  it  has  also 
prodigiously  multiplied  the  labour  of  those  who  are  governed 
by  its  fearful  movements  ...  In  1815,  the  labour  of  following 
a  pair  of  mules  spinning  cotton  of  No.  40 — reckoning  12  hours 
to  the  working-day — ^involved  a  necessity  of  walking  8  miles. 
In  1832,  the  distance  travelled  in  following  a  pair  of  mules, 
spinning  cotton  yarn  of  the  same  number,  was  20  miles,  and 
frequently  more.  In  1835"  (query— 1815  or  1825?)  "tho 
spinner  put  up  daily,  on  each  of  these  mules,  820  stretches, 
making  a  total  of  1,640  stretches  in  the  course  of  the  day.  In 
1832,  the  spinner  put  up  on  each  mule  2,200  stretches,  making 
a  total  of  4,400.  In  1844,  2,400  stretches,  making  a  total  of 
4,800 ;  and  in  some  cases  the  amount  of  labour  required  is 
even  still  greater  ...  I  have  another  document  sent  to  me  in 
1842,  stating  that  the  labour  is  progressively  increasing — 
increasing  not  only  because  the  distance  to  be  travelled  is 
greater,  but  because  the  quantity  of  goods  produced  is  multi- 
plied, while  the  hands  are  fewer  in  proportion  than  before; 
and,  moreover,  because  an  inferior  species  of  cotton  is  now 
often  spun,  which  it  is  more  difficult  to  work  ...  In  the 
carding-room  there  has  also  been  a  great  increase  of  labour. 

ijohn    Fielden,  1.  c,  p.   32. 


452  Capitalist  Production. 

One  person  there  does  the  work  formerly  divided  between  two. 
In  the  weaving-roora,  where  a  vast  number  of  persons  are  em- 
ployed, and  principally  females  .  .  .  the  labour  has  increased 
witliin  the  last  few  years  fully  10  per  cent,  owing  to  the  in- 
creased speed  of  the  machinery  in  spinning.  In  1838,  the 
number  of  hanks  spun  per  week  was  18,000,  in  1843  it 
amounted  to  21,000.  In  1819  the  number  of  picks  in  power- 
loom-weaving  per  minute  was  60 — in  1842  it  was  140,  show- 
ing a  vast  increase  of  labour."^ 

In  the  face  of  this  remarkable  intensity  of  labour  which  had 
already  been  reached  in  1844  under  the  Twelve  Hours'  Act, 
there  appeared  to  be  a  justification  for  the  assertion  made  at 
that  time  by  the  English  manufacturers,  that  any  further  pro- 
gress in  that  direction  was  impossible,  and  therefore  that  every 
further  reduction  of  the  hours  of  labour  meant  a  lessened  pro- 
duction. The  apparent  correctness  of  their  reasons  will  be 
best  shown  by  the  following  contemporary  statement  by  Leon- 
ard Horner,  the  factory  inspector,  their  ever  watchful  censor. 

"Now,  as  the  quantity  produced  must,  in  the  main,  be  regu- 
lated by  the  speed  of  the  machinery,  it  must  be  the  interest  of 
the  mill  owner  to  drive  it  at  the  utmost  rate  of  speed  con- 
sistent with  these  following  conditions,  viz.,  the  preservation 
of  the  machinery  from  too  rapid  deterioration ;  the  preservation 
of  the  quality  of  the  article  manufactured ;  and  the  capability 
of  the  workman  to  follow  the  motion  without  a  greater  exer- 
tion than  he  can  sustain  for  a  constancy.  One  of  the  most 
important  problems,  therefore,  which  the  owner  of  a  factory 
has  to  solve  is  to  find  out  the  maximum  speed  at  which  he  can 
run,  with  a  due  regard  to  the  above  conditions.  It  frequently 
happens  that  he  finds  he  has  gone  too  fast,  that  breakages  and 
bad  work  more  than  counterbalance  the  increased  speed,  and 
that  he  is  obliged  to  slacken  his  pace.  I  therefore  concluded, 
that  as  an  active  and  intelligent  millowner  would  find  out  the 
safe  maximum,  it  would  not  be  possible  to  produce  as  much  in 
eleven  hours  as  in  twelve.  I  further  assumed  that  the  opera- 
tive paid  by  piece  work,  would  exert  himself  to  the  utmost 

*Lord  Ashley,  1.  c.  p.  6—9,  passim. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  453 

consistent  v.ith  the  power  of  continuing  at  the  same  rate."^ 
Horner,  therefore,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  a  reduction 
of  tlie  working  hours  below  twelve  would  necessarily  diminish 
production.^  He  himself,  ten  years  later,  cites  his  opinion  of 
1845  in  proof  of  how  much  he  under-estimated  in  that  year 
the  elasticity  of  machinery^  and  of  man's  labour-power,  both  of 
which  are  simultaneously  stretched  to  an  extreme  by  the  com- 
pulsory shortening  of  the  working  day. 

We  now  come  to  the  period  that  follows  the  introduction  of 
the  Ten  Hours'  Act  in  1847  into  the  English  cotton,  woollen, 
silk,  and  flax  mills. 

"The  speed  of  the  spindles  has  increased  upon  throstles  500, 
and  upon  mules  1000  revolutions  a  minute,  i.e.,  the  speed  of 
the  throstle  spindle,  which  in  1839  was  4500  times  a  minute, 
is  now  (1SG2)  5000 ;  and  of  the  mule  spindle,  that  was  5000, 
is  now  6000  times  a  minute,  amounting  in  the  former  case  to 
one-tenth,  and  in  the  second  case  to  one-fifth  addition  in- 
crease."^ James  Kasmyth,  the  eminent  civil  engineer  of  Pat- 
ricroft,  near  Manchester,  explained  in  a  letter  to  Leonard 
Horner,  Avritten  in  1852,  the  nature  of  the  improvements  in  the 
steam-engine  that  had  been  made  between  the  years  1848  and 
1852.  After  remarking  that  the  horse-power  of  steam-engines, 
being  always  estimated  in  the  official  returns  according  to  the 
power  of  similar  engines  in  1828,^  is  only  nominal,  and  can 
serve  only  as  an  index  of  their  real  power,  he  goes  on  to  say : 
"I  am  confident  that  from  the  same  weight  of  steam-engine 
machinery,  we  are  now  obtaining  at  least  50  per  cent,  more 
duty  or  work  performed  on  the  average,  and  that  in  many 
cases  the  identical  steam-engines  which  in  the  days  of  the 
restricted   speed  of  220  feet  per  minute,   yielded   50  horse- 

1  Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact,  for  Quarter  ending  30th  September,  1844,  and  from  1st 
October,  1844,  to  30th  April,  1845.     p.  20. 

M.   c,  p.   22. 

'  "Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact,  for  31st  October,  1862,"  p.  62. 

*  This  was  altered  in  the  "Parliamentary  Return"  of  1862.  In  it  the  actual  horse- 
power of  the  modern  steam-engines  and  water-wheels  appears  in  place  of  the  nominal. 
The  doubling  spindles,  too,  are  no  longer  included  in  the  spinning  spindles  (as  was 
the  case  in  the  "Returns"  of  3830,  1850,  and  1856);  further,  in  the  case  of  woollen 
mills,  the  number  of  "gigs"  is  added,  a  distinction  made  between  jute  and  hemp 
mills  on  the  one  hand  and  flax  mills  on  the  other,  and  finally  stocking-weaving  is  for 
the  first  time  inserted  in  the  report. 


454  Capitalist  Production. 

power,  are  nov/  yielding  upwards  of  100."  ....  "TTie  modern 
steam-engine  of  100  horse-power  is  capable  of  being  driven  at 
a  much  greater  force  than  formerly,  arising  from  improve- 
ments in  its  construction^  the  capacity  and  construction  of  the 
boilers,  &c."  .  .  .  "Although  the  same  number  of  hands  are 
employed  in  proportion  to  the  horse-power  as  at  former  periods, 
there  are  fewer  hands  employed  in  proportion  to  the  ma- 
chinery,"^ "In  the  year  1850,  the  factories  of  the  United  King- 
dom employed  13i,217  nominal  horse-power  to  give  motion  to 
25,638,716  spindles  and  301,445  looms.  The  number  of  spin- 
dles and  looms  in  1856  was  respectively  33,503,580  of  the 
former,  and  369,205  of  the  latter,  which,  reckoning  the  force 
of  the  nominal  horse-power  required  to  be  the  same  as  in  1850, 
would  require  a  force  equal  to  175,000  horses,  but  the  actual 
power  given  in  the  return  for  1856  is  161,435,  less  by  above 
10,000  horses  than,  calculating  upon  the  basis  of  the  return  of 
1850,  the  factories  ought  to  have  required  in  1856."^  "The 
facts  thus  brought  out  by  the  Return  (of  1856)  appear  to  be 
that  the  factory  system  is  increasing  rapidly;  that  although 
the  same  number  of  hands  are  employed  in  proportion  to  the 
horse-power  as  at  former  periods,  there  are  fewer  hands  em- 
ployed in  proportion  to  the  machinery ;  that  the  steam-engine 
is  enabled  to  drive  an  increased  weight  of  machinery  by  econ- 
omy of  force  and  other  methods,  and  that  an  increased  quan- 
tity of  work  can  be  turned  off  by  improvements  in  machinery, 
and  in  methods  of  manufacture,  by  increase  of  speed  of  the 
machinery,  and  by  a  variety  of  other  causes."^ 

"The  great  improvements  made  in  machines  of  every  kind 
have  raised  their  productive  power  very  much.  Without  any 
doubt,  the  shortening  of  the  hours  of  labour  ....  gave  the 
impulse  to  these  improvements.  The  latter,  combined  ^vith 
the  more  intense  strain  on  the  workman,  have  had  the  effect, 
that  at  least  as  much  is  produced  in  the  shortened  (by  two 
hours  or  one-sixth)  working-day  as  was  previously  produced 
during  the  longer  one."* 

^  "Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact,  for  31st  October,  ISjO,"  jmi.  13-14,  20  and  1862,  p.  28. 
*1.  c,  p.  14-15.  3)    ^  ^  p    20. 

*  Reports,  &c.,   for  31st  October,   1358,  p.   0-10.     Compare   Reports,  &c.,   for   80th 
April,  1860,  p.  SO,  seqq. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry  455 

One  fact  is  suflicieiit  to  show  how  greatly  the  wealth  of  the 
manufacturers  increased  along  with  the  more  intense  exploita- 
tion of  labour-power.  From  1838  to  1850,  the  average  pro- 
portional increase  in  English  cotton  and  other  factories  was 
32%,  while  from  1850  to  1856  it  amounted  to  86%. 

But  however  great  the  progress  of  English  industry  had 
been  during  the  8  years  from  1848  to  1856  under  the  influence 
of  a  working-day  of  10  hours,  it  was  far  surpassed  during  the 
next  period  of  6  years  from  1856  to  1862.  In  silk  factories, 
for  instance,  there  were  in  1856,  spindles  1,093,799;  in  1862, 
1,388,544;  in  1856,  looms  9,260;  in  1862,  10,709.  But  the 
number  of  operatives  was,  in  1856,  56,131;  in  1862,  52,429. 
The  increase  in  the  spindles  was  therefore  26.9%  and  in  the 
looms  15.6%,  while  the  number  of  the  operatives  decreased 
7%.  In  the  year  1850  there  were  employed  in  worsted  mills 
875,830  spindles;  in  1856,  1,324,549  (increase  51.2%),  and 
in  1862,  1,289,172  (decrease  2.7%).  But  if  we  deduct  the 
doubling  spindles  that  figure  in  the  numbers  for  1856,  but  not 
in  those  for  1862,  it  will  be  found  that  after  1856  the  number 
of  spindles  remained  nearly  stationary.  On  the  other  hand, 
after  1850,  the  speed  of  the  spindles  and  looms  was  in  many 
cases  doubled.  The  number  of  power-looms  in  worsted  mills 
was  in  1850,  32,617 ;  in  1856,  38,956 ;  in  1862,  43,048.  The 
number  of  the  operatives  was,  in  1850,  79,737;  in  1856,  87,- 
794;  in  1862,  86,063 ;  included  in  these,  however,  the  children 
under  14  years  of  age  were,  in  1850,  9,956;  in  1856,  11,228; 
in  1862,  13,178.  In  spite,  therefore,  of  the  greatly  increased 
number  of  looms  in  1862,  compared  with  1856,, the  total  num- 
ber of  the  workpeople  employed  decreased,  and  that  of  the 
children  exploited  increased.^ 

On  the  27th  of  April,  1863,  Mr.  Ferrand  said  in  the  House 
of  Commons :  "I  have  been  informed  by  delegates  from  16 
districts  of  Lancashire  and  Cheshire,  in  whose  behalf  I  speak, 
that  the  work  in  the  factories  is,  in  consequence  of  the  improve- 
ments in  machinery,  constantly  on  the  increase.  Instead  of  as 
formerly  one  person  with  two  helps  tenting  two  looms,  one 
person  now  tents  three  looms  without  helps,  and  it  is  no  un- 

^  "Report  of  Insp.  of  Fact,  for  31st  Oct.,  1862,"  pp.   100  and  130. 


456  Capitalist  Production. 

common  thing  for  one  person  to  tent  four.  Twelve  hours' 
work,  as  is  evident  from  the  facts  adduced,  is  now  compressed 
into  less  than  10  hours.  It  is  therefore  self-evident,  to  what 
an  enormous  extent  the  toil  of  the  factory  operative  has  in- 
creased during  the  last  10  years."^ 

Although,  therefore,  the  Factory  Inspectors  unceasingly  and 
with  justice,  commend  the  results  of  the  Acts  of  1844  and 
1850,  yet  they  admit  that  the  shortening  of  the  hours  of  labour 
has  already  called  forth  such  an  intensification  of  the  labour  as 
is  injurious  to  the  health  of  the  workman  and  to  his  capacity 
for  work.  "In  most  of  the  cotton,  worsted,  and  silk  mills,  an 
exhausting  state  of  excitement  necessary  to  enable  the  workers 
satisfactorily  to  mind  the  machinery,  the  motion  of  which  has 
been  greatly  accelerated  within  the  last  few  years,  seems  to  me 
not  unlikely  to  be  one  of  the  causes  of  that  excess  of  mortality 
from  lung  disease,  which  Dr.  Greenhow  has  pointed  out  in  his 
recent  report  on  this  subject."^  There  cannot  be  the  slightest 
doubt  that  the  tendency  that  urges  capital  as  soon  as  a  pro- 
longation of  the  hours  of  labour  is  once  for  all  forbidden,  to 
compensate  itself,  by  a  systematic  heightening  of  the  intensity 
of  labour,  and  to  convert  every  improvement  in  machinery  into 
a  more  perfect  means  of  exhausting  the  workman,  must  soon 
lead  to  a  state  of  things  in  which  a  reduction  of  the  hours  of 
labour  will  again  be  inevitable.^  On  the  other  hand,  the  rapid 
advance  of  English  industry  between  1848  and  the  present 
time,  under  the  influence  of  a  day  of  10  hours,  surpa'sses  the 
advance  made  between  1833  and  1847,  when  the  day  was  12 
hours  long,  by  far  more  than  the  latter  surpasses  the  advance 

*  On  2  modem  power-looms  a  weaver  now  makes  in  a  week  of  60  hours  26  pieces 
of  certain  quality,  length,  and  breadth;  while  on  the  old  power-looms  he  could  make 
no  more  than  4  such,  pieces.  The  cost  of  weaving  a  piece  of  such  cloth  had  already 
soon  after  1850  fallen  from  2s.  9d.  to  &%d. 

"Thirty  years  ago  (1841)  one  spinner  with  three  piecers  was  not  required  to  attend 
to  more  than  one  pair  of  mules  with  300—324  spindles.  At  the  present  time  (1871) 
he  has  to  mind  with  the  help  of  6  piecers  2200  spindles,  and  produces  not  less  than 
seven  times  as  much  yarn  as  in  1841."  (Alex.  Redgrave,  Factory  Inspector — in  the 
Journal  of  Arts,   5th  January,   1872.) 

*  Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact,  for  31st  Oct.  1861,  pp.  25,  26. 

*  The  agitation  for  a  working  day  of  8  hours  has  now  (1867)  begun  in  Lancashire 
among  the  factory  operatives. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  457 

made  during  the  half  century  after  the  first  introduction  of 
the  factory  system,  when  the  working  day  was  without  limits.  ^ 

SECTION   IV. THE    FACTORY. 

At  the  commencement  of  this  chapter  we  considered  that 
which  we  may  call  the  body  of  the  factory,  i.  e.,  machinery 
organised  into  a  system.     We  there  saw  how  machinery,  by 

^  The  following  few  figures  indicate  the  increase  in  the  "factories"  of  the  United 
Kingdom  since  1848: 


Quantity    Expor- 
ted,   1848. 

Quantity    Expor- 
ted,  1851. 

Quantity    Expor- 
ted,  1860. 

Quantity   Expor- 
ted,   1865. 

COTTON. 

Cotton   yarn 

Sewing    thread. 
Cotton    cloth .  . . 

FLAX    &    HEMP. 

Varn     

lbs.     135,831,162 

lbs. 

ydsl, 091,373,930 

lbs.     11,722,182 
yds.     88,901,519 

lbs.           466,825 
yds. 

lbs. 
yds. 

lbs.    143.966,106 

lbs.      4,392,176 

ydsl, 543,161, 789 

lbs.      18,841,326 
yds.  129,106,753 

lbs.           462,513 
yds.      1,181,455 

lbs.      14,670.880 
yds.  241,120,973 

lbs.   197,343,655 
lbs.       6,297,554 
yds2,776,218,427 

lbs.      31,210,612 
yds.  143,996,773 

lbs.           897,402 
yds.       1,307,293 

lbs.     27,533,968 
yds.  190,381,537 

lbs.   103,751,455 
lbs.        4,648,611 
yds2,015,237,851 

lbs.     36,777,334 
yds.  247,012.529 

yds.         812,589 
yds.      2,869,837 

lbs.     31,669,267 
yds.  278,837,438 

Cloth    

SILK. 

Yarn       

Cloth    

WOOL. 

Woollen    and    ^ 
Worsted  yarns  J 
Cloth    

Value    Expor- 
ted, 1848. 

Value   Expor- 
ted, 1851. 

Value   Expor- 
ted, 1860. 

Value   Expor- 
ted, 1865. 

COTTON. 

£ 

5,927,831 

16,753,369 

493,449 

2,802,789 

77,789 

776,975 
5,733,828 

£ 

6,634,026 

23,454,810 

951,426 
4,107,396 

195,380 
1,130,398 

1,484,544 
8,377,183 

£ 

9,870,875 

42,141,505 

1,801,272 
4,804,803 

918,342 
1,587,303 

3,843,450 
12,156,998 

£ 
10,351,04 
46,903,796 

2,505,497 
9,155,318 

768,067 
1,409,221 

6,424,017 
20,102,259 

Cloth    

FLAX    &    HEMP. 

Yarn     

Cloth    

SILK. 

Yarn     

Cloth    

WOOL. 

Yarn     

Cloth    

458     .  Capitalist  Production. 

annexing  the  labour  of  women  and  children,  augments  the 
number  of  human  beings  who  form  the  material  for  capitalistic 
exploitation,  how  it  confiscates  the  whole  of  the  workman's 
disposable  time,  by  immoderate  extension  of  the  hours  of 
labour,  and  how  finally  its  progress,  which  allows  of  enormous 
increase  of  production  in  shorter  and  shorter  periods,  serves  as 
a  means  of  systematically  getting  more  work  done  in  a  shorter 
time,  or  in  exploiting  labour-power  more  intensely.  We  now 
turn  to  the  factory  as  a  whole,  and  that  in  its  most  perfect 
form. 

Dr.  Ure,  the  Pindar  of  the  automatic  factory,  describes  it,  on 
the  one  hand  as  "Combined  co-operation  of  many  orders  of 
workpeople,  adult  and  young,  in  tending  with  assiduous  skill,  a 
system  of  productive  machines,  continuously  impelled  by  a 
central  power"  (the  prime  mover)  ;  on  the  other  hand,  as  "a 
vast  automaton,  composed  of  various  mechanical  and  intel- 
lectual organs,  acting  in  uninterrupted  concert  for  the  produc- 
tion of  a  common  object,  all  of  them  being  subordinate  to  a 
self -regulated  moving  force."  These  two  descriptions  are  far 
from  being  identical.  In  one,  the  collective  labourer,  or  social 
body  of  labour,  appears  as  the  dominant  subject  and  the  me- 
chanical automaton  as  the  object;  in  the  other,  the  automaton 
itself  is  the  subject,  and  the  workmen  are  merely  conscious 
organs,  co-ordinate  with  the  unconscious  organs  of  the  automa- 
ton, and  together  Avith  them,  subordinated  to  the  central 
moving-power.  The  first  description  is  applicable  to  every 
possible  employment  of  machinery  on  a  large  scale,  the  second 
is  characteristic  of  its  use  by  capital,  and  therefore  of  the 
modern  factory  system.  Ure  prefers  therefore,  to  describe  the 
central  machine,  from  which  the  motion  comes,  not  only  as  an 

See  the  Bluebooks  "Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  Kingdom,  Nos.  8  and  13." 
Lond.,  1861  and  1866.  In  Lancashire  the  number  of  mills  increased  only  4  per  cent, 
between  1839  and  1850;  19  per  cent,  between  1850  and  1856;  and  33  per  cent,  be- 
tween 1856  and  1862;  while  the  persons  employed  in  them  during  each  of  the  above 
periods  of  11  years  increased  absolutely,  but  diminished  relatively.  (See  "Rep.  of 
Insp.  of  Fact.,  for  31st  Oct.,  1862,"  p.  63.)  The  cotton  trade  preponderates  in 
Lancashire.  We  may  form  an  idea  of  the  stupendous  nature  of  the  cotton  trade  in 
that  district,  when  we  consider  that,  of  the  gross  number  of  textile  factories  in  the 
United  Kingdom,  it  absorbs  45.2  per  cent.,  of  the  spindles  83.3  per  cent.,  of  the 
power-looms  81.4  per  cent.,  of  the  mechanical  horse-power  72.6  per  cent.,  and  of  the 
total  number  of  persons  employed  68.2  per  cent.     (L  c,  p.  62-63.) 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  459 

automaton,  but  as  an  autocrat.  "In  these  spacious  halls  the 
benignant  power  of  steam  summons  around  him  his  myriads 
of  willing  menials."^ 

Along  with  the  tool,  the  skill  of  the  workman  in  handling  it 
passes  over  to  the  machine.  The  capabilities  of  the  tool  are 
emancipated  from  the  restraints  that  are  inseparable  from 
human  labour-power.  Thereby  the  technical  foundation  on 
which  is  based  the  division  of  labour  in  Manufacture,  is  swept 
away.  Hence,  in  the  place  of  the  hierarchy  of  specialised 
workmen  that  characterises  manufacture,  there  steps,  in  the 
automatic  factory,  a  tendency  to  equalise  and  reduce  to  one 
and  the  same  level  every  kind  of  work  that  has  to  be  done 
by  the  minders  of  the  machines;^  in  the  place  of  the  artifi- 
cially produced  differentiations  of  the  detail  workmen,  step 
the  natural  differences  of  age  and  sex. 

So  far  as  division  of  labour  re-appears  in  the  factory,  it  is 
primarily  a  distribution  of  the  workmen  among  the  specialised 
machines ;  and  of  masses  of  workmen,  not  however  organised 
into  groups,  among  the  various  departments  of  the  factory, 
in  each  of  which  they  work  at  a  number  of  similar  machines 
placed  together;  their  co-operation,  therefore,  is  only  simple. 
The  organised  group,  peculiar  to  manufacture,  is  replaced  by 
the  connexion  l^etween  the  head  workman  and  his  few  assist- 
ants. The  essential  division  is,  into  workmen  who  are  actually 
employed  on  the  machines  (among  whom  are  included  a  few 
who  look  after  the  engine),  and  into  mere  attendants  (almost 
exclusively  children)  of  these  workmen.  Among  the  attend- 
ants are  reckoned  more  or  less  all  "Feeders"  who  supply  the 
machines  with  the  material  to  be  worked.  In  addition  to 
these  two  principal  classes,  there  is  a  numerically  unimportant 
class  of  persons,  whose  occupation  it  is  to  look  after  the  whole 
of  the  machinery  and  repair  it  from  time  to  time;  such. as 
engineers,  mechanics,  joiners,  &c.  This  is  a  superior  class  of 
workmen,  sopae  of  them  scientifically  educated,  others  brought 
up  to  a  trade ;  it  is  distinct  from  the  factory  operative,  class, 

*Ure,  1.  c,  p.  18. 

*  Ure,   1.   c,  p.   31.     See  Karl   Marx,  Poverty    of    Philosophy,    p.    laa. 


460  Capitalist  Production. 

and  merely  aggregated  to  it.^    This  division  of  labour  is  purely 
technical. 

To  work  at  a  machine,  the  workman  should  be  taught  from 
childhood,  in  order  that  he  may  learn  to  adapt  his  own  move- 
ments to  the  uniform  and  unceasing  motion  of  an  automaton. 
When  the  machinery,  as  a  whole,  forms  a  system  of  manifold 
machines,  working  simultaneously  and  in  concert,  the  co-opera- 
tion based  upon  it,  requires  the  distribution  of  various  groups 
of  workmen  among  the  different  kinds  of  machines.  But  the 
employment  of  machinery  does  away  with  the  necessity  of 
crystallizing  this  distribution  after  the  manner  of  Manufac- 
ture, by  the  constant  annexation  of  a  particular  man  to  a  par- 
ticular function.^  Since  the  motion  of  the  whole  system  does 
not  proceed  from  the  workman,  but  from  the  machinery,  a 
change  of  persons  can  take  place  at  any  time  without  an  inter- 
ruption of  the  work.  The  most  striking  proof  of  this  is 
afforded  by  the  relays  system,  put  into  operation  by  the  manu- 
facturers during  their  revolt  from  1848-1850.  Lastly,  the 
quickness  with  which  machine  work  is  learnt  by  young  people, 
does  away  with  the  necessity  of  bringing  up  for  exclusive  em- 
ployment by  machinery,  a  special  class  of  operatives.^     With 

^  It  looks  very  like  intentional  misleading  by  statistics  (which  misleading  it  would 
be  possible  to  prove  in  detail  in  other  cases  too),  when  the  English  factory  legislation 
excludes  from  its  operation  the  class  of  labourers  last  mentioned  in  the  text,  while 
the  parliamentary  returns  expressly  include  in  the  category  of  factory  operatives,  not 
only  engineers,  mechanics,  &c,  but  also  managers,  salesmen,  messengers,  warehouse- 
men, packers,  &c.,  in  short  everybody,  except  the  owner  of  the  factory  himself. 

'  Ure  grants  this.  He  says,  "in  case  of  need,"  the  workmen  can  be  moved  at  the 
will  of  the  manager  from  one  machine  to  another,  and  he  triumphantly  exclaims: 
"Such  a  change  is  in  flat  contradiction  with  the  old  routine,  that  divides  the  labour, 
and  to  one  workman  assigns  the  task  of  fashioning  the  head  of  a  needle,  to  another 
the  sharpening  of  the  point."  He  had  much  better  have  asked  himself,  why  this 
"old  routine"  is  departed  from  in  the  automatic  factory,  only  "in  case  of  need." 

*  When  distress  is  very  great,  as,  for  instance,  during  the  American  civil  war,  the 
factory  operative  is  now  and  then  set  by  the  Bourgeois  to  do  the  roughest  of  work, 
such  as  road-making,  &c.  The  English  "ateliers  nationaux"  of  1862  and  the  follow- 
ing years,  established  for  the  benefit  of  the  destitute  cotton  operatives,  differ  from 
the  French  of  1848  in  this,  that  in  the  latter  the  workmen  had  to  do  unproductive 
work  at  the  expense  of  the  state,  in  the  former  they  had  to  do  productive  municipal 
work  to  the  advantage  of  the  bourgeois,  and  that,  too,  cheaper  than  the  regular- 
workmen,  with  whom  they  were  thus  thrown  into  competition.  "The  physical  ap- 
pearance of  the  cotton  operatives  is  unquestionably  improved.  This  I  attribute 
••  .  .  as  to  the  men,  to  outdoor  labour  on  public  works."  ("Rep.  of  Insp.  of 
Fact.,"  31st  Oct.,  1865,  p.  69.)  The  writer  here  alludes  to  the  Preston  factory 
Operatives,  who  were  employed  on  Preston  Moor. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  461 

regard  to  the  work  of  tlie  mere  attendants,  it  can,  to  some 
extent,  be  replaced  in  the  mill  by  machines,^  and  owing  to  its 
extreme  simplicity,  it  allows  of  a  rapid  and  constant  change 
of  the  individuals  burdened  with  this  drudgery. 

Although  then,  technically  speaking,  the  old  system  of 
division  of  labour  is  thrown  overboard  by  machinery,  it  hangs 
on  in  the  factory,  as  a  traditional  habit  handed  down  from 
Manufacture,  and  is  afterwards  systematically  re-moulded  and 
established  in  a  more  hideous  form  by  capital,  as  a  means  of 
exploiting  labour-power.  The  life-long  speciality  of  handling 
one  and  the  same  tool,  now  becomes  the  life-long  speciality  of 
serving  one  and  the  same  machine.  Machinery  is  put  to  a 
wrong  use,  with  the  object  of  transforming  the  workman,  from 
his  very  childhood,  into  a  part  of  a  detail-machine.^  In  this 
way,  not  only  are  the  expenses  of  his  re-production  considerably 
lessened,  but  at  the  same  time  his  helpless  dependence  upon 
the  factory  as  a  whole,  and  therefore  upon  the  capitalist,  is 
rendered  complete.  Here  as  everywhere  else,  we  must  dis- 
tinguish between  the  increased  productiveness  due  to  the 
development  of  the  social  process  of  production,  and  that  due 
to  the  capitalist  exploitation  of  that  process.  In  handicrafts 
and  manufacture,  the  workman  makes  use  of  a  tool,  in  tlio 
factory,  the  machine  makes  use  of  him.  There  the  movements 
of  the  instrument  of  labour  proceed  from  him,  here  it  is  the 
movements  of  the  machine  that  he  must  follow.  In  manu- 
facture the  workmen  are  parts  of  a  living  mechanism.  In  the 
factory  we  have  a  lifeless  mechanism  independent  of  the  work- 

*  An  example:  The  various  mechanical  apparatus  introduced  since  the  Act  of  1844 
into  woollen  mills,  for  replacing  the  labour  of  children.  So  soon  as  it  shall  happen 
that  the  children  of  the  manufacturers  themselves  have  to  go  through  a  course  of 
schooling  as  helpers  in  the  mill,  this  almost  unexplored  territory  of  mechanics  will 
soon  make  remarkable  progress.  "Of  machinery,  perhaps  self-acting  mules  are  as 
dangerous  as  any  other  kind.  Most  of  the  accidents  from  them  happen  to  little 
children,  from  their  creeping  under  the  mules  to  sweep  the  floor  whilst  the  mules  are 
in  motion.  Several  'minders'  have  been  fined  for  this  offence,  but  without  much 
general  benefit.  If  machine  makers  would  only  invent  a  self-sweeper,  by  whose  use 
the  necessity  for  these  little  children  to  creep  under  the  machinery  might  be  pre- 
vented, it  would  be  a  happy  addition  to  our  protective  measures."  ("Reports  of 
Insp.  of  Fact."  for  31st  Oct.,  186f>,  p.  63.) 

*  So  much  then  for  Proudhon's  wonderful  idea:  he  "construes"  machinery  not 
as  a  synthesis  of  instruments  of  labour,  but  as'  a  synthesis  of'  detail  operations  for 
the  liencfit  of  the  labourer  himself. 


462  Capitalist  Production. 

man,  ^vlio  becomes  its  mere  living  appendage.  "The  miserable 
routine  of  endless  drudgery  and  toil  in  which  the  same 
mechanical  process  is  gone  through  over  and  over  again,  is  like 
the  labour  of  Sisyphus.  The  burden  of  labour,  like  the  rock, 
keeps  ever  falling  back  on  the  vs^orn-out  labourer."^  At  the 
same  time  that  factory  work  exhausts  the  nervous  system  to 
the  uttermost,  it  does  away  with  the  many-sided  play  of  the 
muscles,  and  confiscates  every  atom  of  freedom,  both  in  bodily 
and  intellectual  activity.^  The  lightening  of  the  labour,  even, 
becomes  a  sort  of  torture,  since  the  machine  does  not  free  the 
labourer  from  work,  but  deprives  the  work  of  all  interest. 
Every  kind  of  capitalist  production  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  only 
a  labour-process,  but  also  a  process  of  creating  surplus-value, 
has  this  in  common,  that  it  is  not  the  workman  that  employs 
the  instruments  of  labour,  but  the  instruments  of  labour  that 
employ  the  workman.  But  it  is  only  in  the  factory  system 
that  this  inversion  for  the  first  time  acquires  technical  and 
palpable  reality.  By  means  of  its  conversion  into  an  automa- 
ton, the  instrument  of  labour  confronts  the  labourer,  during 
the  labour-process,  in  the  shape  of  capital,  of  dead  labour,  that 
dominates,  and  pumps  dry,  living  labour-power.  The  separa- 
tion of  the  intellectual  powers  of  production  from  the  manual 
labour,  and  the  conversion  of  those  powers  into  the  might  of 
capital  over  labour,  is,  as  we  have  already  shown,  finally  com- 
pleted by  modern  industry  erected  on  the  foundation  of 
machinery.  The  special  skill  of  each  individual  insignificant 
factory  operative  vanishes  as  an  infinitesimal  quantity  before 
the  science,  the  gigantic  physical  forces,  and  the  mass  of 
labour  that  are  embodied  in  the  factory  mechanism  and, 
together  with  that  mechanism,  constitute  the  power  of  the 
"master."  This  "master,"  therefore,  in  whose  brain  the 
machinery  and  his  monopoly  of  it  are  inseparably  united, 

1  F.  Engels,  1.  c.  p.  217.  Even  an  ordinary  and  optimist  freetrader,  like  Mr. 
Molinari,  goes  so  far  as  to  say  "Un  homme  s'use  plus  vite  en  surveillant,  quinze 
heures  par  jour,  revolution  uniforme  d'un  mecanisme,  qu'en  -exergant,  dans  le  meme 
espace  de  temps,  sa  force  physique.  Ce  travail  de  surveillance  qui  servirait  peut- 
etre  d'utile  gymnastique  a  I'intelligence,  s'il  n'etait  pas  trop  prolonge,  detruit  k  la 
longue,  par  son  exces,  et  rintelligence,  et  le  corps  meme."  (G.  de  Molinari: 
fitudes  Economiques."     Paris  1840.) 

*  F.  Engels.  I.  c.  p.  216. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  463 

whenever  he  falls  out  with  his  ''hands,"  contemptuously  tells 
them :  "The  factory  operatives  should  keep  in  wholesome 
remembrance  the  fact  that  theirs  is  really  a  low  species  of 
skilled  labour ;  and  that  there  is  none  which  is  more  easily 
acquired,  or  of  its  quality  more  amply  remunerated,  or  which 
by  a  short  training  of  the  least  expert  can  be  more  quickly,  as 
well  as  abundantly,  acquired.  .  .  .  The  master's  machin- 
ery really  plays  a  far  more  important  part  in  the  business  of 
production  than  the  labour  and  the  skill  of  the  operative,  which 
six  months'  education  can  teach,  and  a  common  labourer  can 
learn." ^  The  technical  subordination  of  the  workman  to  the 
uniform  motion  of  the  instruments  of  labour,  and  the  peculiar 
composition  of  the  body  of  workpeople,  consisting  as  it  does  of 
individuals  of  both  sexes  and  of  all  ages,  give  rise  to  a  barrack 
discipline,  which  is  elaborated  into  a  complete  system  in  the 
factory,  and  which  fully  developes  the  before  mentioned  labour 
of  overlooking,  thereby  dividing  the  workpeople  into  operatives 
and  overlookers,  into  private  soldiers  and  sergeants  of  an 
industrial  army.  "The  main  difficulty  [in  the  automatic 
factory]  .  .  .  lay  .  .  .  above  all  in  training  human 
beings  to  renounce  their  desultory  habits  of  work,  and  to  iden- 
tify themselves  with  the  unvarying  regularity  of  the  complex 
automaton.  To  devise  and  administer  a  successful  code  of 
factory  discipline,  suited  to  the  necessities  of  factory  diligence, 
was  the  Herculean  enterprise,  the  noble  achievement  of  Ark- 
wright !  Even  at  the  present  day,  when  the  system  is  perfectly 
organised  and  its  labour  lightened  to  the  utmost,  it  is  found 
nearly  impossible  to  convert  persons  past  the  age  of  puberty, 
into  useful  factory  hands. "^  The  factory  code  in  which  capi- 
tal formulates,  like  a  private  legislator,  and  at  his  own  good 
will,  his  autocracy  over  his  workpeople,  unaccompanied  by  that 
division  of  responsibility,  in  other  matters  so  much  approved 

^  "The  Master  Spinners'  and  Manufacturers'  Defence  Fund.  Report  of  the  Com- 
mittee." Manchester,  1854,  p.  17.  We  shall  see  hereafter  that  the  "master"  can 
sing  quite  another  song,  when  he  is  threatened  with  the  loss  of  his  "living"  autom- 
aton. 

^  Ure,  1.  c.  p.  15.  Whoever  knows  the  life  history  of  Arkwright,  will  never  dub 
this  barber-genius  "noble."  Of  all  the  great  inventors  of  the  18th  century,  he  was 
incontestably  the  greatest  thiever  of  other  people's  inventions  and  the  meanest 
fellow. 


464  Capitalist  Production. 

of  by  the  bourgeoisie,  and  unaccompanied  by  the  still  more 
approved  representative  system,  this  code  is  but  the  capitalistic 
caricature  of  that  social  regulation  of  the  labour-process  which 
becomes  requisite  in  co-operation  on  a  great  scale,  and  in 
the  employment  in  common,  of  instruments  of  labour  and 
especially  of  machinery.  The  place  of  the  slave  driver's  lash 
is  taken  by  the  overlooker's  book  of  penalties.  All  punish- 
ments naturally  resolve  themselves  into  fines  and  deductions 
from  wages,  and  the  law-giving  talent  of  the  factory  Lycurgus 
so  arranges  matters,  that  a  violation  of  his  laws  is,  if  possible, 
more  profitable  to  him  than  the  keeping  of  them.* 

*"The  slavery  in  which  the  bourgeoisie  has  bound  the  proletariat,  comes  nowhere 
more  plainly  into  daylight  than  in  the  factory  system.  In  it  all  freedom  comes  to  an 
end  both  at  law  and  in  fact.  The  workman  must  be  in  the  factory  at  half  past  five. 
If  he  come  a  few  minutes  late,  he  is  punished;  if  he  come  10  minutes  late,  he  is  not 
allowed  to  enter  until  after  breakfast,  and  thus  loses  a  quarter  of  a  day's  wage.  He 
must  eat,  drink  and  sleep  at  word  of  command.  .  .  .  The  despotic  bell  calls  him 
from  his  bed,  calls  him  from  breakfast  and  dinner.  And  how  does  he  fare  in  the 
mill?  There  the  master  is  the  absolute  law-giver.  He  makes  what  regulations  he 
pleases;  he  alters  and  makes  additions  to  his  code  at  pleasure;  and  if  he  insert  the 
veriest  nonsense,  the  courts  say  to  the  workman:  Since  you  have  entered  into  this 
contract  voluntarily,  you  must  now  carry  it  out.  .  .  .  These  workmen  are  con- 
demned to  live,  from  their  ninth  year  till  their  death,  under  this  mental  and  bodily 
torture."  (F.  Engels  1.  c.  p.  217,  sq.)  What,  "the  courts  say,"  I  will  illustrate  by 
two  examples.  One  occurs  at  Sheffield  at  the  end  of  1866.  In  that  town  a  workman 
ha4  engaged  himself  for  2  years  in  a  steelworks.  In  consequence  of  a  quarrel  witli 
his  employer  he  left  the  works,  and  declared  that  under  no  circumstances  would  he 
work  for  that  master  any  more.  He  was  prosecuted  for  breach  of  contract,  _  and 
condemned  to  two  months'  imprisonment.  (If  the  master  break  the  contract,  he  can 
be  proceeded  against  only  in  a  civil  action,  and  risks  nothing  but  money  damages). 
After  the  workman  has  served  his  two  months,  the  master  invites  him  to  return  to 
the  works,  pursuant  to  the  contract.  Workman  says;  no:  he  has  already  been  pun- 
ished for  the  breach.  The  master  prosecutes  again,  the  court  condemns  again,  al- 
though one  of  the  judges,  Mr.  Shee,  publicly  denounces  this  as  a  legal  monstrosity, 
by  which  a  man  can  periodically,  as  long  as  he  lives,  be  punished  over  and  over  again 
for  the  same  offence  or  crime.  This  judgment  was  given  not  by  the  "Great  Unpaid," 
the  provincial   Dogberries,   but  by  one  of   the  highest   courts  of  justice   in   London. 

Note  to  the  4th  German  edition. — This  has  now  been  abolished.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  a  few  cases,  for  instance  in  public  gas  works,  the  English  laborer  has  been 
placed  on  an  equity  with  the  employers  in  cases  of  contract  breaking,  and  can  be 
proceeded  against  only  by  the  civil  courts.     F.  E.  — . 

The  second  case  occurs  in  Wiltshire  at  the  end  of  November  1863.  About  30 
power-loom  weavers,  in  the  employment  of  one  Harrup,  a  cloth  manufacturer  at 
Leower's  Mill,  Westbury  Leigh,  struck  work  because  master  Harrup  indulged  in 
the  ag^reeable  habit  of  making  deductions  from  their  wages  for  being  late  in  the  morn- 
ing; 6d.  for  2  minutes;  Is.  for  3  minutes,  and  Is.  6d.  for  ten  minutes.  This  is 
at  the  rate  of  9s.  per  hour,  and  £4  10s.  Od.  per  diem;  while  the  wages  of  the 
weavers  on  the  average  of  a  year,  never  exceed  10s.  to  12s.  weekly.  Harrup  also 
appointed  a  boy  to  announce  the  starting  time  by  a  whistle,  which  he  often  did  be- 
fore six  o'clock  in  the  morning:  and  if  the  hands  were  not  all  there  at  the  moment 
the  whistle  ceased,  the  doors  were  closed,  and  those  hands  who  were  outside  were 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  465 

We  sliall  here  merely  allude  to  the  material  conditions  nnder 
"which  factory  labour  is  carried  on.  Every  organ  of  sense  is 
injured  in  an  equal  degree  by  artificial  elevation  of  the  tem- 
perature, by  the  dust-laden  atmosphere,  by  the  deafening  noise, 
not  to  mention  danger  to  life  and  limb  among  the  thickly 
crowded  machinery,  which,  with  the  regularity  of  the  seasons, 
issues  its  list  of  the  killed  and  wounded  in  the  industrial 
battle.^     Economy  of  the  social  means  of  production,  matured 

fined:  and  as  there  was  no  clock  on  the  premises,  the  unfortunate  hands  were  at  the 
mercy  of  the  young  Harrup-inspired  time-keeper.  The  hands  on  strike,  mothers  of 
families  as  well  as  girls,  offered  to  resume  work  if  the  time-keeper  were  replaced  by 
a  clock,  and  a  more  reasonable  scale  of  fines  were  introduced.  Harrup  summoned 
19  women  and  girls  before  the  magistrates  for  breach  of  contract.  To  the  utter  in- 
dignation of  all  present,  they  were  each  mulcted  in  a  fine  of  6d.  and  2s.  Cd.  for  costs. 
Harrup  was  followed  from  the  court  by  a  crowd  of  people  who  hissed  him. — A 
favourite  operation  with  manufacturers  is  to  punish  the  v/orkpeopla  by  deductions 
made  from  their  wages  on  account  of  faults  in  the  material  worked  on.  This  method 
gave  rise  in  186G  to  a  general  strike  in  the  English  pottery  districts.  The  reports  of 
the  Ch.  Empl.  Com.  (1863-18G6),  give  cases  where  the  worker  not  only  receives  no 
wages,  but  becomes,  by  means  of  his  labour,  and  of  the  penal  regulations,  the 
debtor  to  boot,  of  his  worthy  master.  The  late  cotton  crisis  also  furnished  edifying 
examples  of  the  sagacity  shown  by  the  factory  autocrats  in  making  deductions  from 
wages.  Mr.  R.  Baker,  the  Inspector  of  Factories,  says,  "I  have  myself  had  lately 
to  direct  prosecutions  against  one  cotton  mill  occupier  for  having  in  those  pinching 
and  painful  times  deducted  lOd.  a  piece  from  some  of  the  young  workers  employed 
by  him,  for  the  surgeon's  certificate  (for  which  he  himself  had  only  paid  6d.),  when 
only  allowed  by  the  law  to  deduct  3d.,  and  by  custom  nothing  at  all  ...  . 
And  I  have  been  informed  of  another,  who,  in  order  to  keep  without  the  law,  but 
to  attain  the  same  object,  charges  the  poor  children  who  work  for  him  a  shilling 
each,  as  a  fee  for  learning  them  the  art  and  mystery  of  cotton  spinning,  so  soon 
as  they  are  declared  by  the  surgeon  fit  and  proper  persons  for  that  occupation.  There 
may  therefore  be  undercurrent  causes  for  such  extraordinary  exhibitions  as  strikes, 
not  only  wherever  they  arise,  but  particularly  at  such  times  as  the  present,  which 
without  explanation,  render  them  inexplicable  to  the  public  understanding."  He  al- 
ludes here  to  a  strike  of  power-loom  weavers  at  Darwin,  June,  1863.  ("Reports  of 
Insp.  of  Fact,  for  30  April,  1863,"  pp.  50-51.)  The  reports  always  go  beyond  their 
official  dates. 

^  The  protection  afforded  by  the  Factory  Acts  against  dangerous  machinery  has 
had  a  beneficial  effect.  "But  .  .  .  there  are  other  sources  of  accident  which  did 
not  exist  twenty  years  since;  one  especially,  viz.,  the  increased  speed  on  the  ma- 
chinery. Wheels,  rollers,  spindles  and  shuttles  are  now  propelled  at  increased  and 
increasing  rates;  fingers  must  be  quicker  and  defter  in  their  movements  to  take  up 
the  broken  thread,  for,  if  placed  with  hesitation  or  carelessness,  they  are  sacrificed. 
.  .  .  A  large  number  of  accidents  are  caused  by  the  eagerness  of  the  workpeople 
to  get  through  their  work  expeditiously.  It  must  be  remembered  that  it  is  of  the 
highest  importance  to  manufacturers  that  their  machinery  should  be  in  motion,  i.e., 
producing  yarns  and  goods.  Every  minute's  stoppage  is  not  only  a  loss  of  power, 
but  of  production,  and  the  workpeople  are  urged  by  the  overlookers,  who  are  in- 
terested in  the  quantity  of  work  turned  off,  to  keep  the  machinery  in  motion;  and 
it  is  no  less  important  to  those  of  the  operatives  who  are  paid  by  the  weight  or 
piece  that  the  machines  should  be  kept  in  motion.  Consequently,  although  it  is 
strictly   forbidden   in  many,  nay  in   most   factories,  that  machinery  should   be  clean- 

2D 


4,66  Capitalist  Production. 

and  forced  as  in  a  hothouse  by  the  factory  system,  is  turned,  in 
the  hands  of  capital  into  systematic  robbery  of  what  is  neces- 
sary for  the  life  of  the  workman  while  he  is  at  work,  robbery 
of  space,  light,  air,  and  of  protection  to  his  person  against  the 
dangerous  and  unwholesome  accompaniments  of  the  productive 
process,  not  to  mention  the  robbery  of  appliances  for  the  com- 
fort of  the  workman.^  Is  Fourier  \vTong  when  he  calls  fac- 
tories "tempered  bagnos  ?"^ 

Section  5. — the  strife  between  workman  and  machine. 

The  contest  between  the  capitalist  and  the  wage-labourer 
dates  back  to  the  very  origin  of  capital.  It  raged  on  through- 
out the  whole  manufacturing  period.^     But  only  since  the 

ed  while  in  motion,  it  is  nevertheless  the  constant  practice  in  most  if  not  in  all, 
that  the  workpeople  do,  unreproved,  pick  out  waste,  wipe  rollers  and  wheels,  &c., 
while  their    frames  are   in   motion.     Thus   from  this  cause  only,   906   accidents  have 

occurred   during  the   six  months Although   a   great   deal   of  cleaning   is 

constantly  going  on  day  by  day,  yet  Saturday  is  generally  the  day  set  apart  for  the 
thorough  cleaning  of  the  machinery,  and  a  great  deal  of  this  is  done  while  the  ma- 
chinery is  in  motion."  Since  cleaning  is  not  paid  for,  the  workpeople  seek  to  get 
done  with  it  as  speedily  as  possible.  Hence  "the  number  of  accidents  which  occur 
on  Fridays,  and  especially  on  Saturdays,  is  much  larger  than  on  any  other  day. 
On  the  former  the  excess  is  nearly  12  per  cent,  over  the  average  number  of  the 
four  first  days  of  the  week,  and  on  the  latter  day  the  excess  is  25  per  cent,  over  the 
average  of  the  preceding  five  days;  or,  if  the  number  of  working-hours  on  Satur- 
day being  taken  into  account — 7j4hours  on  Saturday  as  compared  with  10}4  on 
other  days — there  is  an  excess  of  65  per  cent,  on  Saturdays  over  the  average  of 
the  other  five  days."     ("Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,  31st  Oct.,  1866,"  p.  9,  15,  16,  17.) 

"•  In  Part  I.  of  Book  III.  I  shall  give  an  account  of  a  recent  campaign  by  the 
English  manufacturers  against  the  Clauses  in  the  Factory  Acts  that  protect  the 
"hands"  against  dangerous  machinery.  For  the  present,  let  this  one  quotation  from 
the  official  report  of  Leonard  Horner  suffice:  "I  have  heard  some  millowners  speak 
with  inexcusable  levity  of  some  of  the  accidents;  such,  for  instance,  as  the  loss  of  a 
finger  being  a  trifling  matter.  A  working-man's  living  and  prospects  depend  so 
much  upon  his  fingers,  that  any  loss  of  them  is  a  very  serious  matter  to  him. 
When  I  have  heard  such  inconsiderate  remarks  made,  I  have  usually  put  this 
question:  Suppose  you  were  in  want  of  an  additional  workman,  and  two  were  to 
apply,  both  equally  well  qualified  in  other  respects,  but  one  had  lost  a  thumb  or 
a  forefinger,  which  would  you  engage?  There  never  was  a  hesitation  as  to  the  an- 
swer." ....  The  manufacturers  have  "mistaken  prejudices  against  what  they 
have  heard  represented  as  a  pseudo-philanthropic  legislation."  ("Rep.  of  Insp.  of 
Fact.,  31st  Oct.,  1855."  These  manufacturers  are  clever  folk,  and  not  without  rea- 
son were  they  enthusiastic  for  the  slave-holder's  rebellion. 

'  In  those  factories  that  have  been  longest  subject  to  the  Factory  Acts,  with  their 
compulsory  limitation  of  the  hours  of  labour,  and  other  regulations,  many  of  the 
older  abuses  have  vanished.  The  very  improvement  of  the  machinery  demands  to  a 
certain  extent  "improved  construction  of  the  buildings,"  and  this  is  an  advantage 
to  the  workpeople.     (See  "Rep.   of   Insp.   of  Fact,   for  31st  Oct.,    1863,"  p.   109.> 

^  See  amongst  others,   John   Houghton:     "Husbandry  and  Trade  improved.     LoO- 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  467 

introduction  of  machinery  lias  the  workman  fought  against  the 
instrument  of  labour  itself,  the  material  embodiment  of  capital. 
He  revolts  against  this  particular  form  of  the  means  of  produc- 
tion, as  being  the  material  basis  of  the  capitalist  mode  of  pro- 
duction. 

In  the  I7th  century  nearly  all  Europe  experienced  revolts 
of  the  workpeople  against  the  ribbon-loom,  a  machine  for 
weaving  ribbons  and  trimmings,  called  in  Germany  Band- 
miihle,  Schnurmiihle,  and  Miihlenstuhl.  These  machines  were 
invented  in  Germany.  Abbe  Lancellotti,  in  a  work  that  ap- 
peared in  Venice  in  1636,  but  which  was  written  in  1579,  says 
as  follows :  "Anthony  Miiller  of  Danzig,  saw  about  50  years 
ago  in  that  town,  a  very  ingenious  machine,  which  weaves  4  to 
6  pieces  at  once.  But  the  Mayor  being  apprehensive  that  this 
invention  might  throw  a  large  number  of  workmen  on  the 
streets,  caused  the  inventor  to  be  secretly  strangled  or 
drowned."  In  Leyden,  this  machine  was  not  used  till  1629 ; 
there  the  riots  of  the  ribbon-weavers  at  length  compelled  the 
Town  Council  to  prohibit  it.  "In  hac  urbe,"  says  Boxhorn 
(Inst.  Pol.,  1663),  referring  to  the  introduction  of  this  ma- 
chine in  Leyden,  "ante  hos  viginti  circiter  annos  instrumentum 
quidam  invenerunt  textorium,  quo  solus  plus  panni  et  facilius 
conficere  poterat,  quam  plures  aequali  tempore.  Tlinc  turba3 
ortae  et  querulae  textorum,  tandemque  usus  hujus  instrumenti 
a  magistratu  prohibitus  est."  After  making  various  decrees 
more  or  less  prohibitive  against  this  loom  in  1632,  1639,  &c., 
the  States  General  of  Holland  at  length  permitted  it  to  be 
used,  under  certain  conditions,  by  the  decree  of  the  15th  De- 
cember, 1661.  It  was  also  prohibited  in  Cologne  in  1676,  at 
the  same  time  that  its  introduction  into  England  was  causing 
disturbances  among  the  workpeople.  By  an  imperial  Edict  of 
19th  Feb.,  1685,  its  use  was  forbidden  throughout  all  Germany. 

don,  1727."  "The  Advantages  of  the  East  India  Trade,  1720."  John  Sellers,  1. 
c.  The  masters  and  their  workmen  are,  unhappily,  in  a  perpetual  war  with  each 
other.  The  invariable  object  of  the  former  is  to  get  their  work  done  as  cheaply  as 
possible;  and  they  do  not  fail  to  employ  every  artifice  to  this  purpose,  whilst  the 
latter  are  equally  attentive  to  every  occasion  of  distressing  their  masters  into  a  com- 
pliance with  higher  demands."  ("An  Inquiry  into  the  Causes  of  the  Present  High 
Prices  of  Provisions,"  p.  61-62.  Author,  the  Rev.  Nathaniel  Forster,  quite  on  the 
side  of  the  workmen.) 


468  Capitalist  Production. 

In  Hamburg  it  was  burnt  in  public  by  order  of  the  Senate. 
The  Emperor  Charles  VI.,  on  9th  Feb.,  1719,  renewed  the 
edict  of  1685,  and  not  till  1765  was  its  use  openly  allowed  in 
the  Electorate  of  Saxony.  This  machine,  which  shook  Europe 
to  its  foundations,  was  in  fact  the  precursor  of  the  mule  and 
the  power-loom,  and  of  the  industrial  revolution  of  the  18th 
century.  It  enabled  a  totally  inexperienced  boy,  to  set  the 
whole  loom  with  all  its  shuttles  in  motion,  by  simply  moving  a 
rod  backwards  and  forwards,  and  in  its  improved  form  pro- 
duced from  40  to  50  pieces  at  once. 

About  1630,  a  wind-sawmill,  erected  near  London  by  a 
Dutchman,  succumbed  to  the  excesses  of  the  populace.  Even 
as  late  as  the  beginning  of  the  18th  century,  sawmills  driven 
by  water  overcame  the  opposition  of  the  people,  supported  as 
it  was  by  parliament,  only  with  great  difficulty.  No  sooner 
had  Everet  in  1758  erected  the  first  wool-shearing  machine 
that  was  driven  by  water-power,  than  it  was  set  on  fire  by 
100,000  people  who  had  been  thrown  out  of  work.  Fifty 
thousand  workpeople,  who  had  previously  lived  by  carding 
wool,  petitioned  parliament  against  Arkvdrright's  scribbling 
mills  and  carding  engines.  The  enormous  destruction  of 
machinery  that  occurred  in  the  English  manufacturing  dis- 
tricts during  the  first  15  years  of  this  century,  chiefly  caused 
by  the  employment  of  the  power-loom,  and  known  as  the 
Luddite  movement,  gave  the  anti-jacobin  governments  of  a 
Sidmouth,  a  Castlereagh,  and  the  like,  a  pretext  for  the  most 
re-actionary  and  forcible  measures.  It  took  both  time  and 
experience  before  the  workpeople  learnt  to  distinguish  between 
machinery  and  its  employment  by  capital,  and  to  direct  their 
attacks,  not  against  the  material  instruments  of  production, 
but  against  the  mode  in  which  they  are  used.* 

The  contests  about  wages  in  Manufacture,  presuppose  manu- 
facture, and  are  in  no  sense  directed  against  its  existence.  The 
opposition  against  the  establishment  of  new  manufactures,  pro- 
ceeds from  the  guilds  and  privileged  towns,  not  from  the  work- 

*  In  old-fashioned  manufactures  the  revolts  of  the  workpeople  against  machinery, 
even  to  this  day,  occasionally  assume  a  savage  character  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Sheffield  file  cutters  in  1865. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  469 

people.  Hence  the  writers  of  the  manufacturing  period  treat 
the  division  of  labour  chiefly  as  a  means  of  virtually  supplying 
a  deficiency  of  labourers,  and  not  as  a  means  of  actually  dis- 
placing those  in  work.  This  distinction  is  self-evident.  If  it 
be  said  that  100  millions  of  people  would  be  required  in  Eng- 
land to  spin  with  the  old  spinning-wheel  the  cotton  that  is  now 
spun  with  mules  by  500,000  people,  this  does  not  mean  that 
the  mules  took  the  place  of  those  millions  who  never  existed. 
It  means  only  this,  that  many  millions  of  workpeople  would  be 
required  to  replace  the  spinning  machinery.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  say,  that  in  England  the  power-loom  threw  800,000 
weavers  on  the  streets,  we  do  not  refer  to  existing  machinery, 
that  would  have  to  be  replaced  by  a  definite  number  of  work- 
people, but  to  a  number  of  weavers  in  existence  who  were 
actually  replaced  or  displaced  by  the  looms.  During  the  man- 
ufacturing period,  handicraft  labour,  altered  though  it  was  by 
division  of  labour,  was  yet  the  basis.  The  demands  of  the 
new  colonial  markets  could  not  be  satisfied  owing  to  the 
relatively  small  number  of  town  operatives  handed  down  from 
the  middle  ages,  and  the  manufactures  proper  opened  out  new 
fields  of  production  to  the  rural  population,  driven  from  the 
land  by  the  dissolution  of  the  feudal  system.  At  that  time, 
therefore,  division  of  labour  and  co-operation  in  the  workshops, 
were  viewed  more  from  the  positive  aspect,  that  they  made 
the  workpeople  more  productive.*  Long  before  the  period  of 
Modern  Industry,  co-operation  and  the  concentration  of  the 
instruments  of  labour  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  gave  rise,  in 
numerous  countries  where  these  methods  were  applied  in  agri- 

*  Sir  James  Stewart  also  understands  machinery  quite  in  this  sense.  "Je  con- 
sidere  done  les  machines  comme  des  moyens  d'augmenter  (virtuellement)  le  nombre 
des  gens  industrieux  qu'on  n'est  pas  oblige  de  nourrir.  .  .  .  En  quoi  I'effet  d'une 
machine  differe-t-il  de  celui  de  nouveaux  habitants?"  (French  trans,  t.  I.,  1.  I., 
ch.  XIX.)  More  naive  is  Petty,  who  says,  it  replaces  "Polygamy."  The  above 
point  of  view  is,  at  the  most,  admissible  only  for  some  parts  of  the  United  States. 
On  the  otiier  hand,  "machinery  can  seldom  be  used  with  success  to  abridge  the 
labour  of  an  individual;  more  time  would  be  lost  in  its  construction  than  could  be 
saved  by  its  application.  It  is  only  useful  when  it  acts  on  great  masses,  when  a 
single  machine  can  assist  the  work  of  thousands.  It  is  accordingly  in  the  most 
populous  countries,  where  there  are  most  idle  men,  that  it  is  most  abundant.  .  .  . 
It  is  not  called  into  use  by  a  scarcity  of  men,  but  by  the  facility  with  which  they 
can  be  brought  to  work  in  masses."  (Piercy  Ravenstone:  "Thoughts  on  the  Fund- 
ing System  and  its  Effects."     London,  1824,  p.  15.) 


470  Capitalist  Production. 

culture,  to  great,  sudden  and  forcible  revolutions  in  the  modes 
of  production,  and  consequentially,  in  the  conditions  of  exist- 
ence, and  the  means  of  employment  of  the  rural  populations. 
But  this  contest  at  first  takes  place  more  between  the  large 
and  the  small  landed  proprietors,  than  between  capital  and 
wage-labour;  on  the  other  hand,  when  the  labourers  are  dis- 
placed by  the  instruments  of  labour,  by  sheep,  horses,  &c.,  in 
this  case  force  is  directly  resorted  to  in  the  first  instance  as  the 
prelude  to  the  industrial  revolution.  The  labourers  are  first 
driven  from  the  land,  and  then  come  the  sheep.  Land  grab- 
bing on  a  great  scale,  such  as  was  perpetrated  in  England,  is 
the  first  step  in  creating  a  field  for  the  establishment  of  agri- 
culture on  a  great  scale.  ^  Hence  this  subversion  of  agriculture 
puts  on,  at  first,  more  the  appearance  of  a  political  revolution. 
The  instrument  of  labour,  when  it  takes  the  form  of  a 
machine,  immediately  becomes  a  competitor  of  the  workman 
himself.^  The  self-expansion  of  capital  by  means  of  machinery 
is  thenceforward  directly  proportional  to  the  number  of  the 
workpeople,  whose  means  of  livelihood  have  been  destroyed  by 
that  machinery.  The  whole  system  of  capitalist  production  is 
based  on  the  fact  that  the  workman  sells  his  labour-power  as  a 
commodity.  Division  of  labour  specialises  this  labour-power, 
by  reducing  it  to  skill  in  handling  a  particular  tool.  So  soon 
as  the  handling  of  this  tool  becomes  the  work  of  a  machine, 
then,  with  the  use-value,  the  exchange-value  too,  of  the  work- 
man's labour-power  vanishes;  the  workman  becomes  unsale- 
able, like  paper  money  thrown  out  of  currency  by  legal  enact- 
ment. That  portion  of  the  working  class,  thus  by  machinery 
rendered  superfluous,  i.e.,  no  longer  immediately  necessary 
for  the  self-expansion  of  capital,  either  goes  to  the  wall  in  the 
unequal  contest  of  the  old  handicrafts  and  manufactures  with 
machinery,  or  else  floods  all  the  more  easily  accessible  branches 
of  industry,  swamps  the  labour  market,  and  sinks  the  price  of 
labour-power  below  its  value.     It  is  impressed  upon  the  work- 

*  Note  to  the  4th  German  edition. — This  applies  also  to  Germany.  Wherever 
agriculture  on  a  large  scale  exists  in  Germany,  that  is,  particularly  in  the  Kast,  it 
was  made  possible  through  the  "trapping  of  peasants"  in  vogue  since  the  16tb 
century,   and   more    particularly   since    1648.     F.    E. — 

*  "Machinery   and   labour   are   in   constant  competition."     Ricardo,   1.   c,   p.    479. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  471 

people,  as  a  great  consolation,  first,  that  their  sufferings  are 
only  temporary  ("a  temporary  inconvenience"),  secondly,  that 
machinery  acquires  the  mastery  over  the  whole  of  a  given  field 
of  production,  only  by  degrees,  so  that  the  extent  and  intensity 
of  its  destructive  effect  is  diminished.  The  first  consolation 
neutralizes  the  second,  ^\'lien  machinery  seizes  on  an  industry 
by  degrees,  it  produces  chronic  misery  among  the  operatives 
who  compete  with  it.  Where  the  transition  is  rapid,  the  effect 
is  acute  and  felt  by  great  masses.  History  discloses  no  tragedy 
more  horrible  than  the  gradual  extinction  of  the  English  hand- 
loom  weavers,  an  extinction  that  was  spread  over  several  de- 
cades, and  finally  sealed  in  1838.  Many  of  them  died  of  star- 
vation, many  with  families  vegetated  for  a  long  time  on  2|  d. 
a  day.^  On  the  other  hand,  the  English  cotton  machinery  pro- 
duced an  acute  effect  in  India.  The  Governor  Greneral  re- 
ported 1834-35.  "The  misery  hardly  finds  a  parallel  in  the 
history  of  commerce.  The  bones  of  the  cotton-weavers  are 
bleaching  the  plains  of  India."  No  doubt,  in  turning  them 
out  of  this  "temporal"  world,  the  machinery  caused  them  no 
more  than  "a  temporary  inconvenience."  For  the  rest,  since 
machinery  is  continually  seizing  upon  new  fields  of  production, 
its  temporary  effect  is  really  permanent.  Hence,  the  char- 
acter of  independance  and  estrangement  which  the  capitalist 
mode  of  production  as  a  whole  gives  to  the  instruments  of 
labour  and  to  the  product,  as  against  the  workman,  is  devel- 

*  The  competition  between  hand-weaving  and  power-weaving  in  England,  before 
the  passing  of  the  Poor  Law  of  1833,  was  prolonged  by  supplementing  the  wages, 
which  had  fallen  considerably  below  the  minimum,  with  parish  relief.  "The  Rev. 
Mr.  Turner  was,  in  1827,  rector  of  Wilmslow,  in  Cheshire,  a  manufacturing  dis- 
trict. The  questions  of  the  Committee  of  Emigration,  and  Mr.  Turner's  answers, 
show  how  the  competition  of  human  labour  is  maintained  against  machinery.'  Ques- 
tion: Has  not  the  use  of  the  power-loom  superseded  the  use  of  the  hand-loom?  An- 
swer: Undoubtedly;  it  would  have  superseded  them  much  more  than  it  has  done, 
if  the  hand-loom  weavers  were  not  enabled  to  submit  to  a  reduction  of  wages. 
Question:  'But  in  submitting  he  has  accepted  wages  which  are  insufficient  to 
support  him,  and  looks  to  parochial  contribution  as  the  remainder  of  his  support? 
Answer:  Yes,  and  in  fact  the  competition  between  the  hand-loom  and  the  power- 
loom  is  maintained  out  of  the  poor-rates.  Thus  degrading  pauperism  or  expatria- 
tion, is  the  benefit  which  the  industrious  receive  from  the  introduction  of  machinery, 
to  be  reduced  from  the  respectable  and  in  some  degree  independent  mechanic,  to 
the  cringing  wretch  who  lives  on  the  debasing  bread  of  charity.  This  they  call  a 
tempory  inconvenience."  ("A  Prize  Essay  on  the  comparative  merits  of  Compe- 
tition and  Co-operation."     Lond.,   1834,  p.   29.) 


472  Capitalist  Production. 

oped  by  means  of  machiuery  into  a  thorough  antagonism.* 
Therefore,  it  is  with  the  advent  of  machinery,  that  the  work- 
man for  the  first  time  brutally  revolts  against  the  instruments 
of  labour. 

The  instrument  of  labour  strikes  down  the  labourer.  This 
direct  antagonism  between  the  two  comes  out  most  strongly, 
whenever  newly  introduced  machinery  competes  w^ith  handi- 
crafts or  manufactures,  handed  down  from  former  times.  But 
even  in  Modem  Industry  the  continental  improvement  of 
machinery,  and  liie  development  of  the  automatic  system,  has 
an  analogous  effect.  "The  object  of  improved  machinery  is  to 
diminish  manual  labour,  to  provide  for  the  performance  of  a 
process  or  the  completion  of  a  link  in  a  manufacture  by  the 
aid  of  an  iron  instead  of  the  human  apparatus."'^  "The 
adaptation  of  power  to  machinery  heretofore  moved  by  hand, 
is  almost  of  daily  occurrence  .  .  .  the  minor  improve- 
ments in  machinery  having  for  their  object  economy  of  power, 
the  production  of  better  work,  the  turning  off  more  work  in 
the  "same  time,  or  in  supplying  the  place  of  a  child,  a  female, 
or  a  man,  are  constant,  and' although  sometimes  apparently  of 
no  great  moment,  have  somewhat  important  results."^ 
"Whenever  a  process  requires  peculiar  dexterity  and  steadiness 
of  hand,  it  is  withdrawn,  as  soon  as  possible,  from  the  cunning 
workman,  who  is  prone  to  irregularities  of  many  kinds,  and  it 
is  placed  in  charge  of  a  peculiar  mechanism^  so  self-regulating 
that  a  child  can  superintend  it."^     "On  the  automatic  plan 

'  "The  same  cause  which  may  increase  the  revenue  of  the  country"  (.i.e.,  as 
Ricardo  explains  in  the  same  passage,  the  revenues  of  landlords  and  capitalists, 
■whose  wealth,  from  the  economical  point  of  view,  forms  the  Wealth  of  the  Nation), 
"may  at  the  same  time  render  the  population  redundant  and  deteriorate  the  condi- 
tion of  the  labourer."  (Ricardo,  1.  c,  p.  460.)  "The  constant  aim  and  the  ten- 
dency of  every  improvement  in  machinery  is,  in  fact,  to  do  away  entirely  with  the 
labour  of  man,  or  to  lessen  its  price  by  substituting  the  labour  of  women  and  chil- 
dren for  that  of  g^rown  up  men,  or  of  unskilled  for  that  of  skilled  workmen." 
(Ure,  1.  c,  t.  I.,  p.  35). 

*"Rep.   Insp.    Fact,    for  31st   October,   1858,"   p.    43. 

'  "Rep.  Insp.  Fact,  for  31st  October,  1856,"  p.  15. 

*  Ure,  1.  c,  p.  19.  "The  great  advantage  of  the  machinery  employed  in  brick- 
making  consists  in  this,  that  the  employer  is  made  entirely  independent  of  skilled 
labourers."  ("Ch.  Empl.  Comm.  V.  Report,"  Lond.,  1866,  p.  180,  n.  46.)  Mr.  A. 
Sturrock,  superintendent  of  the  machine  department  of  the  Great  Northern  Railway, 
says,  with  regard  to  the  building  of  locomotives,  &c. :  "Expensive  English  workmen 
are   being   less   used    every   day.     The   production    of    the   workshops   of   England   is 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  473 

skilled  labour  gets  progressively  superseded."^  "The  effect  of 
improvements  in  machinery,  not  merely  in  superseding  the 
necessity  for  the  employment  of  the  same  quantity  of  adult 
labour  as  before,  in  order  to  produce  a  given  result,  but  in 
substituting  one  description  of  human  labour  for  another,  the 
less  skilled  for  the  more  skilled,  juvenile  for  adult,  female  for 
male,  causes  a  fresh  disturbance  in  the  rate  of  wages."^  "The 
effect  of  substituting  the  self-acting  mule  for  the  common  mule, 
is  to  discharge  the  greater  part  of  the  men  spinners,  and  to 
retain  adolescents  and  children."^  The  extraordinary  power 
of  expansion  of  the  factory  system  owing  to  accumulated  prac- 
tical experience,  to  the  mechanical  means  at  hand,  and  to  con- 
stant technical  progress,  was  proved  to  us  by  the  giant  strides 
of  that  system  under  the  pressure  of  a  shortened  working  day. 
But  who,  in  1860,  the  Zenith  year  of  the  English  cotton  indus- 
try, would  have  dreamt  of  the  galloping  improvements  in  ma- 
chinery, and  the  corresponding  displacement  of  working  people, 
called  into  being  during  the  following  3  years,  under  the 
stimulus  of  the  American  Civil  War  ?  A  couple  of  examples 
from  the  Reports  of  the  Inspectors  of  Factories  will  suffice  on 
this  point.  A  Manchester  manufacturer  states :  "We  formerly 
had  75  carding  engines,  now  we  have  12,  doing  the  same  quan- 
tity of  work.  .  .  .  We  are  doing  with  fewer  hands  by  14, 
at  a  saving  in  wages  of  £10  a-week.  Our  estimated  saving  in 
waste  is  about  10%  in  the  quantity  of  cotton  consumed."  "In 
another  fine  spinning  mill  in  Manchester,  I  was  informed  that 
through  increased  speed  and  the  adoption  of  some  self-acting 
processes,  a  reduction  had  been  made,  in  number,  for  a  fourth 
in  one  department,  and  of  above  half  in  another,  and  that  the 
introduction  of  the  combing  machine  in  place  of  the  second 
carding,  had  considerably  reduced  the  number  of  hands  for- 
merly employed  in  the  carding  room."  Another  spinning  mill 
is  estimated  to  effect  a  saving  of  labour  of  10%.     The  Messrs. 

being  increased  by  the  use  of  improved  tools  and  these  tools  are  again  served  by 
a  low  class  of  labour  .  .  .  Formerly  their  skilled  labour  necessarily  produced  all 
the  i)arts  of  engines.  Now  the  parts  of  engines  are  produced  by  labour  with  less 
skill,  but  with  good  tools.  By  tools,  I  mean  engineer's  machinery,  lathes,  planing 
machines,  drills,  and  so  on.  ("Royal  Com.  on  Railways."  Lond.,  1867,  Minutes  of 
Evidence,  n.  17,862  and  17,S63.) 
I  Ure,  1.  c,  p.  20.  "  Ure,  1.  c,  p.  321.  *  Ure,  1.  c.  p.  23. 


474  Capitalist  Production. 

Gilmour,  spinners  at  Manchester,  state :  "In  our  blowing-room 
department  we  consider  our  expense  with  new  machinery  is 
fully  one-third  less  in  wages  and  hands  ...  in  the  jack- 
frame  and  drawing-frame  room,  about  one-third  less  in  ex- 
pense, and  likewise  one-third  less  in  hands;  in  the  spinning- 
room  about  one-third  less  in  expenses.  But  this  is  not  all; 
when  our  yarn  goes  to  the  manufacturers,  it  is  so  much  better 
by  the  application  of  our  new  machinery,  that  they  will  pro- 
duce a  greater  quantity  of  cloth,  and  cheaper  than  from  the 
yarn  produced  by  old  machinery."^  Mr.  Redgrave  further 
remarks  in  the  same  Report :  "The  reduction  of  hands  against 
increased  production  is,  in  fact,  constantly  taking  place;  in 
woollen  mills  the  reduction  commenced  some  time  since,  and 
is  continuing;  a  few  days  since,  the  master  of  a  school  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Rochdale  said  to  me,  that  the  great  falling 
off  in  the  girls'  school  is  not  only  caused  by  the  distress,  but  by 
the  changes  of  machinery  in  the  woollen  mills,  in  consequence 
of  which  a  reduction  of  70  short-timers  had  taken  place."^ 

The  following  table  shows  the  total  result  of  the  mechanical 
improvements  in  the  English  cotton  industry  due  to  the 
American  civil  war. 

NUMBER  OF  FACTORIES. 

1858  1861  1868 

England  and  Wales 2,046  2,715  2,405 

Scotland    152  163  131 

Ireland    12  9  13 

United   Kingdom 2,210  2,887  2,549 

NUMBER  OF  POWER-LOOMS. 

1858  1861  1868 

England  and  Wales 275,590  368,125  344,719 

Scotland    21,624  30,110  31,864 

Ireland    1,633  1,757  2,746 

United   Kingdom 298,847  399,992  379,329 

*  "Rep.  Insp.   Fact.,  31st  Oct.,  1863,"  pp.  108,  109. 

*1.  c,  p.  109.  The  rapid  improvement  of  machinery,  during  the  crisis,  allowed  the 
English  manufacturers,  immediately  after  the  termination  of  the  American  civil  war, 
and  almost  in  no  time,  to  glut  the  markets  of  the  world  again.  Cloth,  during  the 
last  six  months  of  1866,  was  almost  unsaleable.  Thereupon  began  the  consignment 
of  goods  to  India  and  China,  thus  naturally  making  the  glut  more  intense.  At  the 
beginning  of  1867  the  manufacturers  resorted  to  their  usual  way  out  of  the  difiiculty. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  475 

NUMBER  OF  SPINDLES. 

1858                   1861  1868 

England  and  Wales 25,818,576         28,352,152  30,478,228 

Scotland    2,041,129            1,915,398  1,397,546 

Ireland    150,512              119,944  124,240 


United  Kingdom 28,010,217         30,387,494         32,000,014 

NUMBER  OF  PERSONS  EMPLOYED. 

1858  1861  1868 

England  and  Wales 341,170  407,598  357,052 

Scotland    34,698                41,237  39,809 

Ireland    3,345                  2,734  4,203 

United  Kingdom 379,213  451,569  401,064 

Hence,  between  1861  and  1868,  338  cotton  factories  dis- 
appeared, in  other  words  more  productive  machinery  on  a 
larger  scale  was  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a  smaller  num- 
ber of  capitalists.  The  number  of  power-looms  decreased  by 
20,663 ;  but  since  their  product  increased  in  the  same  period, 
an  improved  loom  must  have  yielded  more  than  an  old  one. 
Lastly  the  number  of  spindles  increased  by  1,612,541,  while 
the  number  of  operatives  decreased  by  50,505.  The  "tem- 
porary" misery,  inflicted  on  the  workpeople  by  the  cotton-crisis, 
was  heightened,  and  from  being  temporary  made  permanent, 
by  the  rapid  and  persistent  progress  of  machinery. 

But  machinery  not  only  acts  as  a  competitor  who  gets  the 
better  of  the  workman,  and  is  constantly  on  the  point  of 
making  him  superfluous.  It  is  also  a  power  inimical  to  him, 
and  as  such  capital  proclaims  it  from  the  roof  tops  and  as  such 
makes  use  of  it.  It  is  the  most  powerful  weapon  for  repress- 
ing strikes,  those  periodical  revolts  of  the  working  class  against 
the  autocracy  of  capital.^     According  to  Gaskell,  the  steam 

viz.,  reducing  wages  5  per  cent.  The  workpeople  resisted,  and  said  that  the  only 
remedy  was  to  work  short  time,  4  days  a-week;  and  their  theory  was  the  correct 
one.  After  holding  out  for  some  time,  the  self-elected  captains  of  industry  had  to 
make  up  their  minds  to  short  time,  with  reduced  wages  in  some  places,  and  in  others 
without. 

"^  "The  relation  of  master  and  man  in  the  blown-flint  bottle  trades  amounts  to  a 
chronic  strike."  Hence  the  impetus  given  to  the  manufacture  of  pressed  glass,  in 
which  the  chief  operations  are  done  by  machinery.  One  firm  in  Newcastle,  who 
formerly  produced  350,000  lbs.  of  blown-flint  glass,  now  produces  in  its  place  3,000,- 
500  lbs.  of  pressed  glass.     ("Ch.   Empl.   Comm.,   Fourth  Rep.,"  1865,  pp.  262,  263.) 


476  Capitalist  Production. 

engine  was  from  the  very  first  an  antagonist  of  hanian  power, 
an  antagonist  that  enabled  the  capitalist  to  tread  under  foot 
the  growing  claims  of  the  workmen,  who  threatened  the  newly 
born  factory  system  with  a  crisis.*  It  would  be  possible  to 
write  quite  a  history  of  the  inventions,  made  since  1830,  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  supplying  capital  with  weapons  against  the 
revolts  of  the  working  class.  At  the  head  of  these  in  import- 
ance, stands  the  self-acting  mule,  because  it  opened  up  a  new 
epoch  in  the  automatic  system.^ 

ISTasmyth,  the  inventor  of  the  steam  hammer,  gives  the 
following  evidence  before  the  Trades  Union  Commission,  with 
regard  to  the  improvements  made  by  him  in  machinery  and 
introduced  in  consequence  of  the  wide-spread  and  long  strikes 
of  the  engineers  in  1851.  "The  characteristic  feature  of  our 
modern  mechanical  improvements,  is  the  introduction  of  self- 
acting  tool  machinery.  Wliat  every  mechanical  workman  has 
now  to  do,  and  what  every  boy  can  do,  is  not  to  work  himself 
but  to  superintend  the  beautiful  labour  of  the  machine.  The 
whole  class  of  workmen  that  depend  exclusively  on  their  skill, 
is  now  done  away  with.  Formerly,  I  employed  four  boys  to 
every  mechanic.  Thanks  to  these  new  mechanical  combina- 
tions, I  have  reduced  the  number  of  grown-up  men  from 
1500  to  750.  The  result  was  a  considerable  increase  in  my 
profits." 

Ure  says  of  a  machine  used  in  calico  printing:  "At  length 
capitalists  sought  deliverance  from  this  intolerable  bondage" 
[namely  the,  in  their  eyes,  burdensome  terms  of  their  contracts 
with  the  workmen]  "in  the  resources  of  science,  and  were 
speedily  re-instated  in  their  legitimate  rule,  that  of  the  head 
over  the  inferior  members."  Speaking  of  an  invention  for 
dressing  warps :  "Then  the  combined  malcontents,  who  fancied 
themselves  impregnably  intrenched  behind  the  old  lines  of 
division  of  labour,  found  their  flanks  turned  and  their  defences 
rendered  useless  by  the  new  mechanical  tactics,  and  were 
obliged  to  surrender  at  discretion."     With  regard  to  the  in- 

*Gaskell.     "The  Manufacturing  Population   of  England,  London,   1833,"   pp.   3,   4. 
*W.   Fatrbairn  discovered  several  very  important  applications  of  machinery  to -the 
construction  of  machines,  in  consequence  of  strikes  in  his  own  workshops. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  477 

vention  of  tlie  self-acting  mule,  lie  says :  "A  creation  destined 
to  restore  order  among  the  industrious  classes,  .  .  .  This 
invention  confirms  the  great  doctrine  already  propounded,  that 
when  capital  enlists  science  into  her  service,  the  refractory 
hand  of  labour  will  always  be  taught  docility."^  Although 
Ure's  work  appeared  30  years  ago,  at  a  time  when  the  factory 
system  was  comparatively  but  little  developed,  it  still  perfectly 
expresses  the  spirit  of  the  factory,  not  only  by  its  undisguised 
cynicism,  but  also  by  the  naivete  with  which  it  blurts  out  the 
stupid  contradictions  of  the  capitalist  brain.  For  instance, 
after  propounding  the  "doctrine"  stated  above,  that  capital, 
with  the  aid  of  science  taken  into  its  pay,  always  reduces  the 
refractory  hand  of  labour  to  docility,  he  grows  indignant  be- 
cause "it  (physico-mechanical  science)  has  been  accused  of 
lending  itself  to  the  rich  capitalist  as  an  instrument  for 
harrassing  the  poor."  After  preaching  a  long  sermon  to  show 
how  advantageous  the  rapid  development  of  machinery  is  to 
the  working  classes,  he  warns  them,  that  by  their  obstinacy 
and  their  strikes  they  hasten  that  development.  "Violent  re- 
vulsions of  this  nature,"  he  says,  "display  short-sighted  man  in 
the  contemptible  character  of  a  self -tormentor."  A  few  pages 
before  he  states  the  contrary,  "flad  it  not  been  for  the 
violent  collisions  and  interruptions  resulting  from  erroneous 
views  among  the  factory  operatives,  the  factory  system  would 
have  been  developed  still  more  rapidly  and  beneficially  for  all 
concerned."  Then  he  exclaims  again:  "Fortunately  for  the 
state  of  society  in  the  cotton  districts  of  Great  Britain,  the 
improvements  in  machinery  are  gradual."  "It"  (improve- 
ment in  machinery)  "is  said  to  lower  the  rate  of  earnings  of 
adults  by  displacing  a  portion  of  them,  and  thus  rendering 
their  number  superabundant  as  compared  with  the  demand 
for  their  labour.  It  certainly  augments  the  demand  for  the 
labour  of  children  and  increases  the  rate  of  their  wages."  On 
the  other  hand,  this  same  dispenser  of  consola,tion  defends  the 
lowness  of  the  children's  wages  on  the  ground  that  it  pre- 
vents parents  from  sending  their  children  at  too  early  an  age 
into  the  factory.     The  whole  of  his  book  is  a  vindication  of  a 

»Ure,  1.  c,   pp.  368-370. 


478  Capitalist  Production. 

working  day  of  unrestricted  length;  that  Parliament  should 
forbid  children  of  13  years  to  be  exhausted  by  working  12 
hours  a  day,  reminds  his  liberal  soul  of  the  darkest  days  of  the 
middle  ages.  This  does  not  prevent  him  from  calling  upon  the 
factory  operatives  to  thank  Providence,  who  by  means  of 
machinery  has  given  them  the  leisure  to  think  of  their  "im- 
mortal interests."^ 

SECTION   6. THE  THEORY  OF  COMPENSATION  AS  BEGAEDS  THE 

WORKPEOPLE    DISPLACED    BY    MACHINERY. 

James  Mill,  MacCulloch,  Torrens,  Senior,  John  Stuart  Mill, 
and  a  whole  series  besides,  of  bourgeois  political  economists, 
insist  that  all  machinery  that  displaces  workmen,  simul- 
taneously and  necessarily  sets  free  an  amount  of  capital 
adequate  to  employ  the  same  identical  workmen.^ 

Suppose  a  capitalist  to  employ  100  workmen,  at  £30  a  year 
each,  in  a  carpet  factory.  The  variable  capital  annually 
laid  out  amounts,  therefore,  to  £3000.  Suppose,  also,  that  he 
discharges  50  of  his  workmen,  and  employs  the  remaining  50 
with  machinery  that  costs  him  £1500.  To  simplify  matters, 
we  take  no  account  of  buildings,  coal,  &c.  Further  suppose 
that  the  raw  material  annually  consumed  costs  £3000,  both 
before  and  after  the  change.^  Is  any  capital  set  free  by  this 
metamorphosis?  Before  the  change,  the  total  sum  of  £6000 
consisted  half  of  constant,  and  half  of  variable  capital.  After 
the  change  it  consists  of  £4500  constant  (£3000  raw  material 
and  £1500  machinery),  and  £1500  variable  capital.  The  vari- 
able capital,  instead  of  being  one  half,  is  only  one  quarter,  of 
the  total  capital.  Instead  of  being  set  free,  a  part  of  the 
capital  is  here  locked  up  in  such  a  way  as  to  cease  to  be  ex- 
changed against  labour-power:  variable  has  been  changed  into 
constant  capital.  Other  things  remaining  unchanged,  the 
capital  of  £6000,  can,  in  future,  employ  no  more  than  50  men. 

*  Urc,  1.  c.  pp.  868,   7,  370,  280,  321,  281,  370,  475. 

*  Ricardo  originally  was  also  of  this  opinion,  but  afterwards  expressly  disclaimed 
it,  with  the  scientific  impartiality  and  love  of  truth  characteristic  of  him.  See  1.  c. 
ch.  xxxi.  "On  Machinery." 

*  Nota  bene.  My  illustration  is  entirely  on  the  lines  of  those  given  by  the  above- 
named  economists. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  479 

With  each  improvement  in  the  machinery,  it  will  employ  fewer. 
If  the  newly  introduced  machinery  had  cost  less  than  did  the 
labour-power  and  implements  displaced  by  it,  if,  for  instance, 
instead  of  costing  £1500,  it  had  cost  only  £1000,  a  variable 
capital  of  £1000  would  have  been  converted  into  constant 
capital,  and  locked  up ;  and  a  capital  of  £500  would  have  been 
set  free.  The  latter  sum,  supposing  wages  unchanged,  would 
form  a  fund  sufficient  to  employ  about  16  out  of  the  50  men 
discharged ;  nay,  less  than  16,  for,  in  order  to  be  employed  as 
capital,  a  part  of  this  £500  must  now  become  constant  capital, 
thus  leaving  only  the  remainder  to  be  laid  out  in  labour- 
power. 

But,  suppose,  besides,  that  the  making  of  the  new  machinery 
affords  employment  to  a  greater  number  of  mechanics,  can 
that  be  called  compensation  to  the  carpet  makers,  thrown  on 
the  streets  ?  At  the  best,  its  construction  employs  fewer  men 
than  its  employment  displaces.  The  sum  of  £1500  that 
formerly  represented  the  wages  of  the  discharged  carpet- 
makers,  now  represents  in  the  shape  of  machinery:  (1)  the 
value  of  the  means  of  production  used  in  the  construction  of 
that  machinery,  (2)  the  wages  of  the  mechanics  employed  in 
its  construction,  and  (3)  the  surplus-value  falling  to  the  share 
of  their  "master."  Further,  the  machinery  need  not  be  re- 
newed till  it  is  worn  out.  Hence,  in  order  to  keep  the  in- 
creased number  of  mechanics  in  constant  employment,  one 
carpet  manufacturer  after  another  must  displace  workmen  by 
machines. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  apologists  do  not  mean  this  sort  of 
setting  free.  They  have  in  their  minds  the  means  of  sub- 
sistence of  the  liberated  workpeople.  It  cannot  be  denied,  in 
the  above  instance,  that  the  machinery  not  only  liberates  50 
men,  thus  placing  them  at  others'  disposal,  but,  at  the  same 
time,  it  withdraws  from  their  consumption,  and  sets  free, 
means  of  subsistence  to  the  value  of  £1500.  The  simple  fact, 
by  no  means  a  new  one,  that  machinery  cuts  off  the  workmen 
from  their  means  of  subsistence  is,  therefore,  in  economical 
parlance  tantamount  to  this,  that  machinery  liberates  means  of 
subsistence  for  the  workman,   or  converts  those  means  into 


480  Capitalist  Production. 

capital  for  his  employment.     The  mode  of  expression,  you  see, 
is  everything.     Nominibus  mollire  licet  mala. 

This  theory  implies  that  the  £1500  worth  of  means  of  sub- 
sistence was  capital  that  was  being  expanded  by  the  labour  of 
the  50  men  discharged.  That,  consequently,  this  capital  falls 
out  of  employment  so  soon  as  they  commence  their  forced 
holidays,  and  never  rests  till  it  has  found  a  fresh  investment, 
where  it  can  again  be  productively  consumed  by  these  same  50 
men.  That  sooner  or  later,  therefore,  the  capital  and  the 
workmen  must  come  together  again,  and  that,  then,  the  com- 
pensation is  complete.  That  the  sufferings  of  the  workmen 
displaced  by  machinery  are  therefore  as  transient  as  are  the 
riches  of  this  world. 

In  relation  to  the  discharged  workmen,  the  £1500  worth  of 
means  of  subsistence  never  was  capital.  What  really  con- 
fronted them  as  capital,  was  the  sum  of  £1500,  afterwards  laid 
out  in  machinery.  On  looking  closer  it  will  be  seen  that  this 
sum  represented  part  of  the  carpets  produced  in  a  year  by  the 
50  discharged  men,  which  part  they  received  as  wages  from 
their  employer  in  money  instead  of  in  kind.  With  the  carpets 
in  the  form  of  money,  they  bought  means  of  subsistence  to  the 
value  of  £1500.  These  means,  therefore,  were  to  them,  not 
capital,  but  commodities,  and  they^  as  regards  these  com- 
modities, were  not  wage-labourers,  but  buyers.  The  circum- 
stance that  they  were  "freed"  by  the  machinery,  from  the 
means  of  purchase,  changed  them  from  buyers  into  non-buyers. 
Hence  a  lessened  demand  for  those  commodities — ^voila  tout. 
If  this  diminution  be  not  compensated  by  an  increase  from 
some  other  quarter,  the  market  price  of  the  commodities  falls. 
If  this  state  of  things  lasts  for  some  time,  and  extends,  there 
follows  a  discharge  of  workmen  employed  in  the  production  of 
these  commodities.  Some  of  the  capital  that  was  previously 
devoted  to  production  of  necessary  means  of  subsistence,  has 
to  become  reproduced  in  another  form.  While  prices  fall,  and 
capital  is  being  displaced,  the  labourers  employed  in  the  pro- 
duction of  necessary  means  of  subsistence  are  in  their  turn 
"freed"  from  a  part  of  their  wages.  Instead,  therefore,  of 
proving  that,  when  machinery  frees  the  workman  from  his 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  481 

means  of  subsistence,  it  simultaneously  converts  those  means 
into  capital  for  his  further  employment,  our  apologists,  with 
their  cut-and-dried  law  of  supply  and  demand,  prove,  on  the 
contrary,  that  machinery  throws  workmen  on  the  streets  not 
only  in  that  branch  of  production  in  which  it  is  introduced,  but 
also  in  those  branches  in  which  it  is  not  introduced. 

The  real  facts,  which  are  travestied  by  the  optimism  of 
economists,  are  as  follows :  The  labourers,  when  driven  out  of 
the  workshop  by  the  machinery,  are  thrown  upon  the  labour 
market,  and  there  add  to  the  number  of  workmen  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  capitalists.  In  Part  VII.  of  this  book  it  will  be 
seen  that  this  effect  of  machinery,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is 
represented  to  be  a  compensation  to  the  working  class,  is  on 
the  contrary  a  most  frightful  scourge.  For  the  present  I  will 
only  say  this:  The  labourers  that  are  thrown  out  of  work  in 
any  branch  of  industry,  can  no  doubt  seek  for  employment  in 
some  other  branch.  If  they  find  it,  and  thus  renew  the  bond 
between  them  and  the  means  of  subsistence,  this  takes  place 
only  by  the  intermediary  of  a  new  and  additional  capital  that 
is  seeking  investment;  not  at  all  by  the  intermediary  of  the 
capital  that  formerly  employed  them  and  was  afterwards  con- 
verted into  machinery.  And  even  should  they  find  employ- 
ment, what  a  poor  look-out  is  theirs !  Crippled  as  they  are  by 
division  of  labour,  these  poor  devils  are  worth  so  little  outside 
their  old  trade,  that  they  cannot  find  admission  into  any  indus- 
tries, except  a  few  of  inferior  kind,  that  are  over-supplied  with 
underpaid  workmen.^  Further,  every  branch  of  industry 
attracts  each  year  a  new  stream  of  men,  who  furnish  a  con- 
tingent from  which  to  fill  up  vacancies,  and  to  draw  a  supply 
for  expansion.  So  soon  as  machinery  sets  free  a  part  of  the 
workmen  employed  in  a  given  branch  of  industry,  the  reserve 

*  A  disciple  of  Ricardo,  in  answer  to  the  insipidities  of  J.  B.  Say,  remarks  on  this 
point:  "Where  division  of  labour  is  well  developed,  the  skill  of  the  labourer  is 
available  only  in  that  particular  branch  in  which  it  has  been  acquired;  he  himself  is 
a  sort  of  machine.  It  does  not  therefore  help  matters  one  jot,  to  repeat  in  parrot 
fashion,  that  things  have  a  tendency  to  find  their  level.  On  looking  around  us  we 
cannot  but  see,  that  they  are  unable  to  find  their  level  for  a  long  time;  and  that 
when  they  do  find  it,  the  level  is  always  lower  than  at  the  commencement  of  the 
process."  ("An  Inquiry  into  those  Principles  respecting  the  Nature  of  Demand," 
&c.     Lend.  1821,  p.  72.)  ^ 


482  Capitalist  Production. 

men  Jlre  also  diverted  into  new  channels  of  employment,  and 
become  absorbed  in  other  branches;  meanwhile  the  original 
victims,  during  the  period  of  transition,  for  the  most  part 
starve  and  perish. 

It  is  an  undoubted  fact  that  machinery,  as  such,  is  not  re- 
sponsible for  "setting  free"  the  workman  from  the  means  of 
subsistence.   .  It   cheapens   and   increases   production   in   that 
branch  which  it  seizes  on,  and  at  first  makes  no  change  in  the 
mass  of  the  means  of  subsistence  produced  in  other  branches. 
Ilence,  after  its  introduction,  the  society  possesses  as  much,  if 
not  more,  of  the  necessaries  of  life  than  before,  for  the  la- 
bourers thrown  out  of  work;  and  that  quite  apart  from  the 
enormous  share  of  the  annual  produce  wasted  by  the  non-. 
workers.     And  this  is  the  point  relied  on  by  our  apologists! 
The  contradictions  and  antagonisms  inseparable  from  the  capi- 
talist employment  of  machinery,  do  not  exist,  they  say,  since 
they  do  not  arise  out  of  machinery,  as  such,  but  out  of  its 
capitalist  employment!     Since  therefore  machinery,   consid- 
ered alone,  shortens  the  hours  of  labour,  but,  when  in  the 
service  of  capital,  lengthens  them ;  since  in  itself  it  lightens 
labour,  but  when  employed  by  capital,  heightens  the  intensity 
of  labour ;  since  in  itself  it  is  a  victory  of  man  over  the  forces 
of  nature,  but  in  the  hands  of  capital,  makes  man  the  slave 
of  those  forces;  since  in  itself  it  increases  the  wealth  of  the 
producers,  but  in  the  hands  of  capital,  makes  them  paupers — • 
for  all  these  reasons  and  others  besides,  says  the  bourgeois 
economist  without  more  ado,  it  is  clear  as  noonday  that  all 
these  contradictions  are  a  mere  semblance  of  the  reality,  and 
that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  have  neither  an  actual  nor  a 
theoretical  existence.     Thus  he  saves  himself  from  all  further 
puzzling  of  the  brain,  and  what  is  more,  implicitly  declares  his 
opponent  to  be  stupid  enough  to  contend  against,  not  the  capi- 
talistic employment  of  machinery,  but  machinery  itself. 

No  doubt  he  is  far  from  denying  that  temporary  incon- 
venience may  result  from  the  capitalist  use  of  machinery.  But 
where  is  the  medal  without  its  reverse !  Any  employment 
of  machinery,  except  by  capital,  is  to  him  an  impossibility. 
Exploitation  of  the  workman  by  the  machine  is  therefore,  with 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  483 

him,  identical  with  exploitation  of  the  machine  by  the  work- 
man. Whoever,  therefore,  exposes  the  real  state  of  things  in 
the  capitalistic  employment  of  machinery,  is  against  its  em- 
ployment in  any  way,  and  is  an  enemy  of  social  progress!^ 
Exactly  the  reasoning  of  the  celebrated  Bill  Sykes.  "Gentle- 
men of  the  jury,  no  doubt  the  throat  of  this  commercial 
traveller  has  been  cut.  But  that  is  not  my  fault,  it  is  the  fault 
of  the  knife !  Must  we,  for  such  a  temporary  inconvenience, 
abolish  the  use  of  the  knife  ?  Only  consider !  where  would 
agriculture  and  trade  be  without  the  knife  ?  Is  it  not  as 
salutary  in  surgery,  as  it  is  knowing  in  anatomy  ?  And  in 
addition  a  willing  help  at  the  festive  board  ?  If  you  abolish, 
the  knife — ^you  hurl  us  back  into  the  depths  of  barbarism."^ 

Although  machinery  necessarily  throws  men  out  of  work  in 
those  industries  into  which  it  is  introduced,  yet  it  may,  not- 
withstanding this,  bring  about  an  increase  of  employment  in 
other  industries.  This  effect,  however,  has  nothing  in  common 
with  the  so-called  theory  of  compensation.  Since  every  article 
produced  by  a  machine  is  cheaper  than  a  similar  article  pro- 
duced by  hand,  we  deduce  the  following  infallible  law :  If  the 
total  quantity  of  the  article  produced  by  machinery,  be  equal 
to  the  total  quantity  of  the  article  previously  produced  by  a 
handicraft  or  by  manufacture,  and  now  made  by  machinery, 
then  the  total  labour  expended  is  diminished.  The  new  labour 
spent  on  the  instruments  of  labour,  on  the  machinery,  on  the 
coal,  and  so  on,  must  necessarily  be  less  than  the  labour  dis- 
placed by  the  use  of  the  machinery ;  otherwise  the  product  of 
the  machine  would  be  as  dear,  or  dearer,  than  the  product  of 
the  manual  labour.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  total  quantity 
of  the  article  produced  by  machinery  with  a  diminished  num- 

*  MacCulloch,  amongst  others,  is  a  past  master  in  this  pretentious  cretinism. 
"If,"  he  says,  with  the  affected  naivete  of  a  child  of  8  years,  "if  it  be  advantageous, 
to  develope  the  skill  of  the  workman  more  and  more,  so  that  he  is  capable  of  produc- 
ing, with  the  same  or  with  a  less  quantity  of  labour,  a  constantly  increasing  quantity 
of  commodities,  it  must  also  be  advantageous,  that  he  should  avail  himself  of  the  help 
of  such  machinery  as  will  assist  him  most  effectively  in  the  attainment  of  this  result." 
(MacCulloch:    "Princ.    of    Pol.    Econ.,"    Lond.    1830,    p.    166.) 

"  "The  inventor  of  the  spinning  machine  has  ruined  India,  a  fact,  however,  that 
touches  us  but  little."  A.  Thiers:  De  la  propriete. — M.  Thiers  here  confounds  the 
spinning  machine  with  tlie  power-loom,  "a  fact,  however,  th:it  touches  us  but 
little." 


484  Capitalist  Production. 

ber  of  workmen,  instead  of  remaining  equal  to,  by  far  exceeds 
the  total  quantity  of  the  hand-made  article  that  has  been  dis- 
placed. Suppose  that  400,000  yards  of  cloth  have  been  pro- 
duced on  power-looms  by  fewer  weavers  than  could  weave 
100,000  yards  by  hand.  In  the  quadrupled  product  there  lies 
four  times  as  much  raw  material.  Hence  the  production  of 
raw  material  must  be  quadrupled.  But  as  regards  the  instini- 
ments  of  labour,  such  as  buildings,  coal,  machinery,  and  so  on, 
it  is  different;  the  limit  up  to  which  the  additional  labour 
required  for  their  production  can  increase,  varies  with  the 
difference  between  the  quantity  of  the  machine-made  article, 
and  the  quantity  of  the  same  article  that  the  same  number  of 
workmen  could  make  by  hand. 

Plence,  as  the  use  of  machinery  extends  in  a  given  industry, 
the  immediate  effect  is  to  increase  production  in  the  other  in- 
dustries that  furnisli  the  first  with  means  of  production.  How 
far  employment  is  thereby  found  for  an  increased  number  of 
men,  depends,  given  the  length  of  the  working-day  and  the 
intensity  of  labour,  on  the  composition  of  the  capital  employed, 
i.e.,  on  the  ratio  of  its  constant  to  its  variable  component. 
This  ratio,  in  its  turn,  varies  considerably  with  the  extent  to 
which  machinery  has  already  seized  on,  or  is  then  seizing  on, 
those  trades.  The  number  of  the  men  condemned  to  work  in 
coal  and  metal  mines  increased  enormously  owing  to  the 
progress  of  the  English  factory  system;  but  during  the  last 
few  decades  this  increase  of  number  has  been  less  rapid,  owing 
to  the  use  of  new  machinery  in  mining.^  A  new  type  of 
workman  springs  into  life  along  with  the  machine,  namely,  its 
maker.  We  have  already  learnt  that  machinery  has  possessed 
itself  even  of  this  branch  of  production  on  a  scale  that  grows 
greater  every  day.^     As  to  raw  material,^  there  is  not  the 

*  According  to  the  census  of  1861  (Vol.  II.,  Lond.,  1863),  the  number  of  people 
employed  in  coal  mines  in  England  and  Wales,  amounted  to  246,613,  of  which  73,545 
■were  under,  and  173,067  were  over  20  years.  Of  those  under  20,  835  were  between 
S  and  10  years.  30,701  lytween  10  and  ^R  years.  42.010  between  l.'S  and  19  years. 
The  number  employed  in  iron,  copper,  lead,  tin,  and  other  mines  of  every  descrip- 
tion,  was  319,222. 

*  In  England  and  Wales,  in  1861,  there  were  employed  in  making  machinery, 
60,807  persons,  including  the  masters  and  their  clerks,  &c.,  also  all  agents  and 
business  people  connected  with  this  industry,  but  excluding  the  makers  of  small 
machines,  such  as  sewing  machines,  &c.,  as  also  the  makers  of  the  operative  parts 
of  machines,  such  as  spindles.  The  total  number  of  civil  engineers  amounted  vO 
S329. 

*  Since  iron  is  one  of  the  most  important  raw  materials,  let  me  here  state  that,  in 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  485 

least  doubt  that  the  rapid  strides  of  cotton  spinning,  not  only 
pushed  on  with  tropical  luxuriance  the  growth  of  cotton  in  the 
United  States,  and  with  it  the  African  slave  trade,  but  also 
made  the  breeding  of  slaves  the  chief  business  of  the  border 
slave-states.  When,  in  1790,  the  first  census  of  slaves  was 
taken  in  the  United  States,  their  number  was  697,000  ;  in  1861 
it  had  nearly  reached  four  millions.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
is  no  less  certain  that  the  rise  of  the  English  woollen  factories, 
together  with  the  gradual  conversion  of  arable  land  into  sheep 
pasture,  brought  about  the  superfluity  of  agricultural  labourers 
that  led  to  their  being  driven  in  masses  into  the  towns.  Ire- 
land, having  during  the  last  twenty  years  reduced  its  popula- 
tion by  nearly  one  half,  is  at  this  moment  undergoing  the  pro- 
cess of  still  further  reducing  the  number  of  its  inhabitants,  so 
as  exactly  to  suit  the  requirements  of  its  landlords  and  of  the 
English  woollen  manufacturers. 

When  machinery  is  applied  to  any  of  the  preliminary  or 
intermediate  stages  through  which  the  subject  of  labour  has 
to  pass  on  its  way  to  completion,  there  is  an  increased  yield 
of  material  in  those  stages,  and  simultaneously  an  increased 
demand  for  labour  in  the  handicrafts  or  manufactures  supplied 
by  the  produce  of  the  machines.  Spinning  by  machinery,  for 
example,  supplied  yarn  so  cheaply  and  so  abundantly  that  the 
hand-loom  weavers  were,  at  first,  about  to  work  full  time  with- 
out increased  outlay.  Their  earnings  accordingly  rose.^ 
Hence  a  flow  of  people  into  the  cotton-weaving  trade,  till  at 
length  the  800,000  Aveavers,  called  into  existence  by  the  Jenny, 
the  throstle  and  the  mule,  were  overwhelmed  by  the  power- 
loom.  So  also,  owing  to  the  abundance  of  clothing  materials 
produced  by  machinery,  the  number  of  tailors,  seamtresses  and 
needle-women,  went  on  increasing  until  the  appearance  of  the 
sewing  machine. 

1861,  there  were  in  England  and  Wales  125,771  operative  iron  founders,  of  whom 
123,430  were  males,  2341  females.  Of  the  former  30,810  were  under,  and  92,620 
over  20  years. 

'  "A  family  of  four  grown  up  persons,  with  two  children  as  winders,  earned  at 
the  end  of  the  last,  and  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  by  ten  hours'  daily 
labour,  £4  a  week.  If  the  work  was  very  pressing,  they  could  earn  more  .  .  . 
Before  that  they  had  always  suffered  from  a  deficient  supply  of  yarn."  (Gaskell, 
I.   c,   pp.   25-27.) 


486  Capitalist  Production. 

In  proportion  as  machinery,  with  the  aid  of  a  relatively 
small  number  of  workpeople,  increases  the  mass  of  raw 
materials,  intermediate  products,  instruments  of  labour,  &c., 
the  working-up  of  these  raw  materials  and  intermediate  pro- 
ducts becomes  split  up  into  numberless  branches ;  social  pro- 
duction increases  in  diversity.  The  factory  system  carries  the 
social  division  of  labour  immeasurably  further  than  does 
manufacture,  for  it  increases  the  productiveness  of  the  in- 
dustries it  seizes  upon,  in  a  far  higher  degree. 

The  immediate  result  of  machinery  is  to  augment  surplus- 
value  and  the  mass  of  products  in  which  surplus-value  is 
embodied.  And,  as  the  substances  consumed  by  the  capitalists 
and  their  dependants  become  more  plentiful,  so  too  do  these 
orders  of  society.  Their  growing  wealth,  and  the  relatively 
diminished  number  of  workmen  required  to  produce  the  neces- 
saries of  life  beget,  simultaneously  vnth  the  rise  of  new  and 
luxurious  wants,  the  means  of  satisfying  those  wants.  A 
larger  portion  of  the  produce  of  society  is  changed  into  surplus 
produce,  and  a  larger  part  of  the  surplus  produce  is  supplied 
for  consumption  in  a  multiplicity  of  refined  shapes.  In  other 
words,  the  production  of  luxuries  increases.^  The  refined  and 
varied  forms  of  the  products  are  also  due  to  new  relations  with 
the  markets  of  the  world,  relations  that  are  created  by  Modern 
Industry.  Not  only  are  greater  quantities  of  foreign  articles 
of  luxury  exchanged  for  home  products,  but  a  greater  mass  of 
foreign  raw  materials,  ingredients,  and  intermediate  products, 
are  used  as  means  of  production  in  the  home  industries. 
Owing  to  these  relations  with  the  markets  of  the  world  the 
demand  for  labour  increases  in  the  carrying  trades,  which 
split  up  into  numerous  varieties.^ 

The  increase  of  the  means  of  production  and  subsistence, 
accompanied  by  a  relative  diminution  in  the  number  of 
labourers,  causes  an  increased  demand  for  labour  in  making 
canals,  docks,  tunnels,  bridges,  and  so  on,  works  that  can  only 

*  F.  Engels  in  "Lage,  &c.,"  points  out  the  miserable  condition  of  a  large  number 
of  those  who  work  on  these  very  articles  of  luxury.  See  also  numerous  instances  in 
the   "Reports  of   tbe   Children's   Employment   Commission." 

»In  1861,  in  England  and  Wales,  there  were  94,665  sailors  in  the  merchant 
service. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  487 

bear  fruit  in  the  far  future.  Entirely  new  branches  of  pro- 
duction, creating  new  fields  of  labour,  are  also  formed,  as  the 
direct  result  either  of  machinery  or  of  the  general  industrial 
changes  brought  about  by  it.  But  the  place  occupied  by  these 
branches  in  the  general  production  is,  even  in  the  most  de- 
veloped countries,  far  from  important.  The  number  of 
labourers  that  find  employment  in  them  is  directly  propor- 
tional to  the  demand,  created  by  those  industries,  for  the 
crudest  form  of  manual  labour.  The  chief  industries  of  this 
kind  are,  at  present,  gas  works,  telegraphs,  photography, 
steam  navigation,  and  railways.  According  to  the  census  of 
ISGl  for  England  and  Wales,  we  find  in  the  gas  industry 
(gasworks,  production  of  mechanical  apparatus,  servants  of 
the  gas  companies  &c.),  15,211  persons;  in  telegraphy,  2399; 
in  photography,  2366 ;  steam  navigation,  3570 ;  and  in  rail- 
ways, 70,599,  of  whom  the  unskilled  "navvies,"  more  or  less 
permanently  employed,  and  the  whole  administrative  and  com- 
mercial staff,  make  up  about  28,000.  The  total  number  of 
persons,  therefore,  employed  in  these  five  new  industries 
amounts  to  94,145. 

Lastly,  the  extraordinary  productiveness  of  modem  indus- 
try, accompanied  as  it  is  by  both  a  more  extensive  and  a 
inore  intense  exploitation  of  labour-power  in  all  other  spheres 
of  production,  allows  of  the  unproductive  employment  of  a 
larger  and  larger  part  of  the  working  class,  and  the  consequent 
reproduction,  on  a  constantly  extending  scale,  of  the  ancient 
domestic  slaves  under  the  name  of  a  servant  class,  including 
men-servants,  women-servants,  lackeys,  &c.  According  to  the 
census  of  1861,  the  population  of  England  and  Wales  was 
20,066,244;  of  these,  9,776,259  males,  and  10,289,965  female. 
If  we  deduct  from  this  population  all  who  are  too  old  or  too 
young  for  work,  all  unproductive  women,  young  persons  and 
children,  the  "ideological"  classes,  such  as  government  officials, 
priests,  lawyers,  soldiers,  &c. ;  further,  all  who  have  no  occu- 
pation but  to  consume  the  labour  of  others  in  the  form  of 
rent,  interest,  &c. ;  and,  lastly,  paupers,  vagabonds,  and 
criminals,  there  remain  in  round  numbers  eight  millions  of 
the  two  sexes  of  every  age,  including  in  that  number  every 


488  Capitalist  Production. 

capitalist  who  is  iu  any  way  engaged  in  industry,  coix»iijeroc',  or 
finance.     Among  these,  8  millions  are : 

Agricultural  labourers  (including  shep~      peksons. 
herds,   farm  servants,   and  maidserv- 
ants living  in  the  houses  of  farmers),     1,098,261 

All  who  are  employed  in  cotton,  woollen, 
worsted,  flax,  hemp,  silk,  and  jute  fac- 
tories, in  stocking  making  and  lace 
making  by  machinery,        .         .         .        642,607' 

All  who  are  employed  in  coal  mines  and 

metal  mines,     .....        565,835 

All  who  are  employed  in  metal  works 
(blast-furnaces,  rolling  mills,  &c.), 
and  metal  manufactures  of  every  kind,        396,998^ 

The   servant   class,  ....     1,208,648* 

All  the  persons  employed  in  textile  factories  and  in  mines, 
taken  together,  number  1,208,442 ;  those  employed  in  textile 
factories  and  metal  industries,  taken  together,  number  1,039,- 
605;  in  both  cases  less  than  the  number  of  modern. domestic 
slaves.  What  a  splendid  result  of  the  capitalist  exploitation 
of  machinery ! 

SECTION  7. EEPULSION  AND  ATTRACTION  OF  WORKPEOPLE  BY 

THE   FACTORY  SYSTEM.       CRISIS   IN   THE  COTTON   TRADE. 

All  political  economists  of  any  standing  admit  that  the 
introduction  of  new  machinery  has  a  baneful  effect  on  the 
workmen  in  the  old  handicrafts  and  manufactures  with  which 
tliis  machinery  at  first  competes.  Almost  all  of  them  bemoan 
the  slavery  of  the  factory  operative.  And  what  is  the  great 
trump-card    that    they    play  ?     That    machinery,    after    the 

*  Of  these   only  177,596   are   males  above  13   years  of  age. 

*  Of  these,  30,501   are   females. 

*  Of  these,  137,447  males.  None  are  included  in  the  1,208,648  who  do  not  serve 
in  private  houses.  Between  1861  and  1870  the  number  of  male  servants  nearly 
doubled  itself.  It  increased  to  267,671.  In  the  year  1847  there  were  2694  game- 
keepers (for  the  landlords'  preserves),  in  1869  there  were  4921.  The  young  servant 
girls  in  the  houses  of  the  London  lower  middle  class  are  in  common  parlance  called 
"slaveys." 


Machinery  mid  Modern  Industry.  489 

horrors  of  the  period  of  iotroductioii  and  development  have 
subsided,  instead  of  diminishing^  in  the  long  run  increases 
the  number  of  the  slaves  of  labour !  Yes,  political  economy 
revels  in  the  hideous  theory,  hideous  to  every  "  philanthro- 
pist "  who  believes  in  the  eternal  nature-ordained  necessity  for 
capitalist  production,  that  after  a  period  of  growth  and  transi- 
tion, even  its  crowning  success,  the  factory  system  based  on 
machinery,  grinds  down  more  workpeople  than  on  its  first 
introduction  it  throws  on  the  streets.^ 

It  is  true  that  in  some  cases,  as  we  saw  from  instances  of 
English  worsted  and  silk  factories,  an  extraordinary  extension 
of  the  factory  system  may,  at  a  certain  stage  of  its  develop- 
ment, be  accompanied  not  only  by  a  relative,  but  by  an 
absolute  decrease  in  the  number  of'  operatives  employed.  In 
the  year  1860,  when  a  special  census  of  all  the  factories  in  the 
United  Kingdom  was  taken  by  order  of  Parliament,  the  fac- 
tories in  those  parts  of  Lancashire,  Cheshire,  and  Yorkshire, 
included  in  the  district  of  Mr.  Baker,  the  factory  inspector, 
numbered  652 ;  570  of  these  contained  85,622  power-looms, 
6,819,146  spindles  (exclusive  of  doubling  spindles),  employed 
27,439  horse-power  (steam),  and  1390  (water),  and  94,119 
persons.  In  the  year  1865,  the  same  factories  contained, 
looms  95,163,  spindles  7,025,031,  had  a  steam-power  of 
28,925  horses,  and  a  water-power  of  1445  horses,  and  em- 
ployed 88,913  persons.     Between  1860  and  1865,  therefore, 

*  Ganilh,  on  the  contrary,  considers  the  final  result  of  the  factory  system  to  be  an 
absolutely  less  number  of  operatives,  at  whose  expense  an  increased  number  of 
"gens  honnetes"  live  and  develop  their  well-known  "perfectibilite  perfectible."  Lit- 
tle as  he  understands  the  movement  of  production,  at  least  he  feels,  that  machinery 
must  needs  be  a  very  fatal  institution,  if  its  introduction  converts  busy  workmen 
into  paupers,  and  its  development  calls  more  slaves  of  labour  into  existence  than  it 
has  suppressed.  It  is  not  possible  to  bring  out  the  cretinism  of  his  standpoint,  ex- 
cept by  his  own  words:  "Les  classes  condamnees  a  produire  et  a  consommer 
dimtnuent,  et  les  classes  qui  dirigent  le  travail,  qui  soulagent,  consolent,  et  eclairent 
toute  la  population,  se  multiplient.  .  .  .  et  s'approprient  tons  les  bienfaits  qui 
resultcnt  de  la  diminution  des  frais  du  travail,  de  I'abondance  des  productions,  et  du 
bon  marche  des  consommations.  Dans  cette  direction,  I'espece  humaine  s'eleve  aux 
plus  hautes  conceptions  du  genie,  penetre  dans  les  profondeurs  mysterieuses  de  la 
religion,  etablit  les  principes  salutaires  de  la  morale  (which  consists  in  's'approprier 
tons  les  bienfaits,'  &c.),  les  lois  tutelaires  de  la  liberte  (liberty  of  'les  classes  con- 
damnees a  produire?')  et  du  pouvoir,  de  I'obeissance  et  de  la  justice,  du  devoir  et 
de  I'humanite."  For  this  twaddle  see  "Des  Systemes  d'Economie  Politique,  &c.. 
Par  M.  Ch.  Ganilh."     2eme  ed.,   Paris,  1821,  t.  II.,  p.  234,  and  see  p.  212. 


490  Capitalist  Production. 

the  increase  in  looms  was  11%,  in  spindles  3%,  and  in  engine- 
power  3%,  while  the  number  of  persons  employed  decreased 
5^%.^  Between  1852  and  1862,  considerable  extension  of  the 
English  woollen  manufacture  took  place,  while  the  number  of 
hands  employed  in  it  remained  almost  stationary,  showing  how 
greatly  the  introduction  of  new  machines  had  superseded  the 
labour  of  preceding  periods.^  In  certain  cases,  the  increase  in 
the  number  of  hands  employed  is  only  apparent ;  that  is,  it  is 
not  due  to  the  extension  of  the  factories  already  established, 
but  to  the  gi'adual  annexation  of  connected  trades;  for  in- 
stance, the  increase  in  power-looms,  and  in  the  hands  em- 
ployed by  them  between  1838  and  1856,  was,  in  the  cotton 
trade,  simply  owing  to  the  extension  of  this  branch  of  in- 
dustry; but  in  the  other  trades  to  the  application  of  steam- 
power  to  the  cai"pet-loom,  to  the  ribbon-loom,  and  to  the  linen- 
loom,  which  previously  had  been  worked  by  the  power  of 
men.^  Hence  the  increase  of  the  hands  in  these  latter  trades 
was  merely  a  symptom  of  a  diminution  in  the  total  number 
employed.  Finally,  we  have  considered  this  question  entirely 
apart  from  the  fact,  that  everywhere,  except  in  the  metal 
industries,  young  persons  (under  18),  and  women  and  children 
form  the  preponderating  element  in  the  class  of  factory 
hands. 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  the  mass  of  hands  actually  dis- 
placed and  virtually  replaced  by  machinery,  we  can  under- 
stand how  the  factory  operatives,  through  the  building  of 
more  mills  and  the  extension  of  old  ones  in  a  given  industry, 
may  become  more  numerous  than  the  manufacturing  work- 

*  "Reports  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,  31  Oct.,  1865,"  p.  68,  sq.  At  the  same  time,  how- 
ever, means  of  employment  for  an  increased  number  of  hands  was  ready  in  110  new 
mills  with  11,625  looms,  628,756  spindles  and  2695  total  horse-power  of  steam  and 
water    (1  c). 

*  "Reports,  &c.,  for  31  Oct.,  1862,"  p.  79.  At  the  end  of  1871,  Mr.  A.  Redgrave, 
the  factory  inspector,  in  a  lecture  given  at  Bradford,  in  the  New  Mechanics'  Insti- 
tution, said:  "What  has  struck  me  for  some  time  past  is  the  altered  appearance  of 
the  woollen  factories.  Formerly  they  were  filled  with  women  and  children,  now 
machinery  seems  to  do  all  the  work.  At  my  asking  for  an  explanation  of  this  from 
a  manufacturer,  he  gave  me  the  following:  'Under  the  old  system  I  employed  63 
persons;  after  the  introduction  of  improved  machinery  I  reduced  my  hands  to  33, 
and  lately,  in  consequence  of  new  and  extensive  alterations,  I  have  been  in  a  position 
to    reduce    those    33    to    13.' " 

"See  "Reports,  &c.,  31   Oct.,  1856,"  p.  16. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  491 

men  and  handicraftsmen  that  have  been  displaced.  Suppose, 
for  example,  that  in  the  old  mode  of  production,  a  capital  of 
£500  is  employed  weekly,  two-fifths  being  constant  and  three- 
fifths  variable  capital,  i.e.,  £200  being  laid  out  in  means  of 
production,  and  £300,  say  £1  per  man,  in  labour-power.  On 
the  introduction  of  machinery  the  composition  of  this  capital 
becomes  altered.  We  will  suppose  it  to  consist  of  four-fifths 
constant  and  one-fifth  variable,  which  means  that  only  £100  is 
now  laid  out  in  labour-power.  Consequently,  two-thirds  of 
the  workmen  are  discharged.  If  now  the  business  extends, 
and  the  total  capital  employed  grows  to  £1500  under  un- 
changed conditions,  the  number  of  operatives  employed  will 
increase  to  300,  just  as  many  as  before  the  introduction  of  the 
machinery.  If  the  capital  further  grows  to  £2000,  400  men 
will  be  employed,  or  one-third  more  than  under  the  old  system. 
Their  numbers  have,  in  point  of  fact,  increased  by  100,  but 
relatively,  i.e.,  in  proportion  to  the  total  capital  advanced, 
they  have  diminished  by  800,  for  the  £2000  capital  would,  in 
the  old  state  of  things,  have  employed  1200  instead  of  400 
men.  Hence,  a  relative  decrease  in  the  number  of  hands  is 
consistent  with  an  actual  increase.  We  assumed  above  that 
while  the  total  capital  increases,  its  composition  remains  the 
same,  because  the  conditions  of  production  remain  constant. 
But  we  have  already  seen  that,  with  every  advance  in  the  use 
of  machinery,  the  constant  component  of  capital,  that  part 
which  consists  of  machinery,  raw  material,  &c.,  increases, 
while  the  variable  component,  the  part  laid  out  in  labour- 
power,  decreases.  We  also  know  that  in  no  other  system  of 
production  is  improvement  so  continuous,  and  the  composition 
of  tlie  capital  employed  so  constantly  changing  as  in  the 
factory  system.  These  changes  are,  however,  continually  inter- 
rupted by  periods  of  rest,  during  which  there  is  a  mere  quanti- 
tative extension  of  the  factories  on  the  existing  technical  basis. 
During  such  periods  the  operatives  increase  in  number.  Thus, 
in  1835,  the  total  number  of  operatives  in  the  cotton,  woollen, 
worsted,  flax,  and  silk  factories  in  the  United  Kingdom  was 
only  354,684;  while  in  1861  the  number  of  the  power-loom 
weavers  alone  (of  both  sexes  and  of  all  ages,  from  eight  years 


492  Capitalist  Production. 

upwards),  amounted  to  230,654.  Certainly,  this  growth  ap- 
pears less  important  when  we  consider  that  in  1838  the  hand- 
loom  weavers  with  their  families  still  numbered  800,000,^  not 
tj  mention  those  thrown  out  of  work  in  Asia,  and  on  the 
Continent  of  Europe. 

In  the  few  remarks  I  have  still  to  make  on  this  point,  I 
shall  refer  to  some  actually  existing  relations,  the  existence  of 
which  our  theoretical  investigation  has  not  yet  disclosed. 

So  long  as,  in  a  given  branch  of  industry,  the  factory  system 
extends  itself  at  the  expense  of  the  old  handicrafts  or  of  manu- 
facture, the  result  is  as  sure  as  is  the  result  of  an  encounter  be- 
tween any  army  furnished  with  breach-loaders,  and  one  armed 
with  bows  and  arrows.  This  first  period,  during  which  ma- 
chinery conquers  its  field  of  action,  is  of  decisive  importance 
owing  to  the  extraordinary  profits  that  it  helps  to  produce. 
These  profits  not  only  form  a  source  of  accelerated  accumu- 
lation, but  also  attract  into  the  favoured  sphere  of  production 
a  large  part  of  the  additional  social  capital  that  is  being 
constantly  created,  and  is  ever  on  the  look-out  for  new  in- 
vestments. The  special  advantages  of  this  first  period  of  fast 
and  furious  activity  are  felt  in  every  branch  of  production 
that  machinery  invades.  So  soon,  however,  as  the  factory 
system  has  gained  a  certain  breadth  of  footing  and  a  definite 
degree  of  maturity,  and,  especially,  so  soon  as  its  technical 
basis,  machinery,  is  itself  produced  by  machinery ;  so  soon  as 
coal  mining  and  iron  mining,  the  metal  industries,  and  the 
means  of  transport  have  been  revolutionised ;  so  soon,  in  short, 
as  the  general  conditions  requisite  for  production  by  the 
modem  industrial  system  have  been  established,  this  mode 
of  production  acquires  an  elasticity,  a  capacity  for  sudden 
extension  by  leaps  and  bounds  that  finds  no  hindrance  except 
in  the  supply  of  raw  material  and  in  the  disposal  of  the  pro- 
duce.    On  the  one  hand,  the  immediate  effect  of  machinery  is 

^  "The  sufferings  of  the  hand-loom  weavers  were  the  subject  of  an  inquiry  by  a 
Royal  Commission,  but  although  their  distress  was  acknowledged  and  lamented,  the 
amelioration  of  their  condition  was  left,  and  probably  necessarily  so,  to  the  chances 
and  changes  of  time,  which  it  roay  now  be  hoped"  fSO  years  later  11  "have  nearly 
obliterated  those  miseries,  and  not  improbably  by  the  present  great  extension  of 
the   power-loom."     ("Rep.    Insp.    of    Fct.,    31    Oct.,    1856,"    p.    15.) 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  493 

to  increase  the  supply  of  raw  material  in  tlie  same  way,  for 
example,  as  the  cotton  gin  augmented  the  production  of 
cotton.^  On  the  other  hand^  the  cheapness  of  the  articles  pro- 
duced by  machinery,  and  the  improved  means  of  transport 
and  communication  furnish  the  weapons  for  conquering  foreign 
markets.  By  ruining  handicraft  production  in  other  countries, 
machinery  forcibly  converts  them  into  fields  for  the  supply  of 
its  raw  material.  In  this  way  East  India  was  compelled  to 
produce  cotton,  wool,  hemp,  jute,  and  indigo  for  Great 
Britain.^  By  constantly  making  a  part  of  the  hands  "super- 
numerary," modern  industry,  in  all  countries  where  it  has 
taken  root,  gives  a  spur  to  emigration  and  to  the  colonization 
of  foreign  lands,  which  are  thereby  converted  into  settlements 
for  growing  the  raw  material  of  the  mother  country;  just  as 
Australia,  for  example,  was  converted  into  a  colony  for  grow- 
ing wooh^  A  new  and  international  division  of  labour,  a 
division  suited  to  the  requirements  of  the  chief  centres  of 
modern  industry  springs  up,  and  converts  one  part  of  the  globe 
into  a  chiefly  agricultural  field  of  production,  for  supplying 
the  other  part  which  remains  a  chiefly  industrial  field.  This 
evolution  hangs  together  with  radical  changes  in  agriculture 
v/hich  we  need  not  here  further  inquire  into.^ 

*  Other  ways  in  which  machinery  affects  the  production  of  raw  material  will  be 
mentioned   ifl   the    third   book. 

^  EXPORT    OF     COTTON     FROM     INDIA    TO    GREAT    BRITAIN. 

1846.-34,540,143    lbs.     1800.-204,141,168    lbs.     1865.-445,947,600    lbs. 

'  EXPORT      OP      WOOL      FROM       INDIA      TO      GREAT      BRITAIN. 

1846.-4,570,581    lbs.     1860.-20,214,173    lbs.     1865.-20,679,111    lbs. 

EXPORT    OF    WOOL    FROM    THE    CAPE    TO    GREAT    BRITAIN. 

—2,958,457    lbs.     1860.-16,574,345     lbs.     1865.-29,920,623    lbs. 

EXPORT    OF    WOOL    FROM    AUSTRALIA    TO    GRBAT    BRITAIN. 

1846.-21,789,346   lbs.     1860.-59,166,616   lbs.     1865.-109,734,261   lbs. 

*  The  economical  development  of  the  United  States  is  itself  a  product  of  European, 
more  especially  of  English  modern  industry.  In  their  present  form  (1866)  the 
States  must  still  be  considered  a  European  colony.  Note  to  the  4th  German 
edition. — Since  then  the  United  States  has  developed  into  the  second  industrial 
country  of  the  world,  without  thereby  losing  its  colonial  character  entirely.     F.  E. — 

EXPORT    OF    COTTON    FROM    THE    UNITED    STATES    TO    GREAT    BRITAIN. 

1846.— 401,949,393  lbs.  1852.-765,630,543  lbs.  1859.-961,707,264  lbs.  I860.— 
1,115,890,008    lbs. 


494 


Capitalist  Production. 


On  the  motion  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  House  of  Commons 
ordered,  on  the  I7th  February,  1867,  a  return  of  the  total 
quantities  of  grain,  corn,  and  flour,  of  all  sorts,  imported  into, 
and  exported  from,  the  United  Kingdom,  between  the  years 
1831  and  1866.  I  give  below  a  summary  of  the  result.  The 
flour  is  given  in  quarters  of  com. 


QUINQUENNIAL  PERIODS  AND  THE  YEAR  1866. 


Annual  Average. 

1831-1835. 

1836-1840. 

1841-1845. 

1846-1850. 

Import   (Qrs.)     -     - 

1,096,373 

2,389,729 

2,843,865 

8,776,552 

Export       "         -    - 

225,363 

251,770 

139,056 

155,461 

Excess     of     Import 
over  export      -    - 

871,110 

2,137,959 

2,704,809 

8,621,091 

Population. 

Yearly     average     in 
each  period,     -     - 

24,621,107 

25,929,507 

27,262,569 

27,797,598 

Average  quantity  of 
corn,  &c.,  in  qrs., 
consumed       annu- 
ally per  head  over 
and       ahove      the 
home  produce  con- 
sumed,    -    -    -    - 

0  036 

0-082 

0-099 

0-310 

EXPORT    OK    COR 

1,    &C.,    FROM    T 

HE    UNITED    STA- 

rES    TO    GREAT    BRITAIN. 

1850. 

1862. 

Wheat,  cwts. 

Barley,     " 

Oats, 

Rye, 

Flour, 

Buckwheat,  cwt 

S. 

16,202,312 

3,669,653 

3,174,801 

388,749 

3,819,440 

1054 

41,033,503 

6,624,800 

4,426,994 

7,108 

7,207.113 

19,571 

1850. 

1862. 

Maize,  cwts. 
Bere  or  Bigg    ( 
Barley),  cwts 
Peas,  cwts. 
Beans,   " 

I    sort    of  "J 

5.473,161 
2039 

811,620 
1,822,972 

11,694,818 

7676 

1,024,722 

2,037,137 

Total  exports 

34,366,801 

74, 

383,351 

Machinery  and  Modern  Industry. 


495 


QUINQUENNIAL  PERIODS,  Ac- 

-  (  Continued.  ) 

Annual  Average. 

1851-1855. 

1856-1860. 

1861-1865. 

1866. 

Import    (Qrs.)     -     - 

8,345,237 

10,912,612 

15,009,871 

16,457,340 

Export       "          -     - 

307,491 

341,150 

302,754 

216,218 

Excess      of      Import 
over  export 

8,037,746 

10,572,462 

14,707,117 

16,241,122 

Population. 

Yearly     average     in 
each  period,     -     - 

27,572,923 

28,391,544 

29,381,460 

29,935,404 

Average  quantity  of 

corn,  &c.,  in  qrs., 
consumed       annu- 

ally per  head  over 
and      above      the 

home  produce  con- 
sumed,    -     -     -     - 

0-291 

0-372 

0-543 

0-543 

The  enormous  power,  inherent  in  the  factory  system,  of  ex- 
panding by  jumps,  and  the  dependence  of  that  system  on  the 
markets  of  the  world,  necessarily  beget  feverish  production, 
followed  by  over-filling  of  the  markets,  whereupon  contraction 
of  the  markets  brings  on  crippling  of  production.  The  life  of 
modern  industry  becomes  a  series  of  periods  of  moderate 
activity,  prosperity,  over-production,  crisis  and  stagnation. 
The  uncertainty  and  instability  to  whicJi  machinery  subject'^ 
the  employment,  and  consequently  the  conditions  of  existence, 
of  the  operatives  become  normal,  owing  to  these  periodic 
changes  of  the  industrial  cycle.  Except  in  the  periods  of  pros- 
perity, there  rages  between  the  capitalists  the  most  furious 
combat  for  the  share  of  each  in  the  markets.  This  share  is 
directly  proportional  to  the  cheapness  of  the  product.  Besides 
the  rivalry  that  this  struggle  begets  in  the  application  of 
improved  machinery  for  replacing  labour-power,  and  of  new 
methods  of  production,  there  also  comes  a  time  in  every  indus- 
trial cycle,  when  a  forcible  reduction  of  wages  beneath  the 


496  Capitalist  Production. 

value  of  labour-power,  is  attempted  for  the  purpose  of  cheap- 
ening commodities.^ 

A  necessary  condition,  therefore,  to  the  growth  of  the  num- 
ber of  factory  hands,  is  a  proportionally  much  more  rapid 
growth  of  the  amount  of  capital  invested  in  mills.  This 
growth,  however,  is  conditioned  by  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the 
industrial  cycle.  It  is,  besides,  constantly  interrupted  by  the 
technical  progress  that  at  one  time  virtually  supplies  the  place 
of  new  workmen,  at  another,  actually  displaces  old  ones.  This 
qualitative  change  in  mechanical  industry  continually  dis- 
charges hands  from  the  factory,  or  shuts  its  doors  against  the 
fresh  stream  of  recruits,  while  the  purely  quantitative  exten- 
sion of  the  factories  absorbs  not  only  the  men  thrown  out  of 
work,  but  also  fresh  contingents.  The  workpeople  are  thus 
continually  both  repelled  and  attracted,  hustled  from  pillar  to 
post,  while,  at  the  same  time,  constant  changes  take  place  in 
the  sex,  age,  and  skill  of  the  levies. 

The  lot  of  the  factory  operatives  will  be  best  depicted  by  tak- 
ing a  rapid  survey  of  the  course  of  the  English  cotton  industry. 

From  1770  to  1815  this  trade  was  depressed  or  stagnant  for 

'  In  an  appeal  made  in  July,  1866,  to  the  Trade  Societies  of  England,  by  the 
shoemakers  of  Leicester,  who  had  been  thrown  on  the  streets  by  a  lock-out,  it  is 
stated:  "Twenty  years  ago  the  Leicester  shoe  trade  was  revolutionised  by  the 
introduction  of  riveting  in  the  place  of  stitching.  At  that  time  good  wages  could 
be  earned.  Great  competition  was  shown  between  the  different  firms  as  to  which 
could  turn  out  the  neatest  article.  Shortly  afterwards,  however,  a  worse  kind  of 
competition  sprang  up,  namely,  that  of  underselling  one  another  in  the  market. 
The  injurious  consequences  soon  manifested  themselves  in  reductions  of  wages, 
and  so  sweepingly  quick  was  the  fall  in  the  price  of  labour,  that  many  firms  now 
pay  only  one  half  of  the  original  wages.  And  yet,  though  wages  sink  lower  and 
lower,  profits  appear,  with  each  alteration  in  the  scale  of  wages,  to  increase."  Even 
bad  times  are  utilized  by  the  manufacturers,  for  making  exceptional  profits  by  ex- 
cessive lowering  of  wages,  i.e.,  by  a  direct  robbery  of  the  labourer's  means  of  sub- 
sistence. One  example  (it  has  reference  to  the  crisis  in  the  Coventry  silk  weaving) : 
"From  information  I  have  received  from  manufacturers  as  well  as  workmen,  there 
seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  wages  have  been  reduced  to  a  greater  extent  than  either 
the  competition  of  the  foreign  producers,  or  other  circumstances  have  rendered 
necessary  ...  the  majority  of  weavers  are  working  at  a  reduction  of  30  to  40 
per  cent,  in  their  wages.  A  piece  of  ribbon  for  making  which  the  weaver  got  6s. 
or  7s.  five  years  back,  now  only  brings  them  3s.  3d.  or  3s.  6d.;  other  work  is  now 
priced  at  2s.  and  2s.  3d.  which  was  formerly  priced  at  4s.  and  4s.  3d.  The 
reduction  in  wage  seems  to  have  been  carried  to  a  greater  extent  than  is  neces- 
sary for  increasing  demand.  Indeed,  the  reduction  in  the  cost  of  weaving,  in 
the  case  of  many  descriptions  of  ribbons,  has  not  been  accompanied  by  any  cor- 
responding reduction  in  the  selling  price  of  the  manufactured  article."  (Mr.  F.  D. 
Longe's   Report.     "Ch.   Emp.    Com.,   V.    Rep.,   1866,"   p.    114,   l.) 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  497 

5  years  only.  During  tins  period  of  45  years  the  English 
manufacturers  had  a  monopoly  of  machinery  and  of  the  mark- 
ets of  the  world.  From  1815  to  1821  depression ;  1822  and 
1823  prosperity;  1824  abolition  of  the  laws  against  Trades' 
Unions,  great  extension  of  factories  everywhere;  1825  crisis; 

1826  great  misery  and  riots  among  the  factory  operatives ; 

1827  slight  improvement ;  1828  great  increase  in  power-looms, 
and  in  exports;  1829  exports,  especially  to  India,  surpass  all 
former  years;  1830  glutted  markets,  great  distress;  1831  to 

1833  continued  depression,  the  monopoly  of  the  trade  with 
India  and  China  withdrawn  from  the  East  India  Company ; 

1834  great  increase  of  factories  and  machinery,  shortness  of 
hands.  The  new  poor  law  furthers  the  migration  of  agricul- 
tural labourers  into  the  factory  districts.  The  country  districts 
swept  of  children.  White  slave  trade;  1835  great  prosperity, 
contemporaneous  starvation  of  the  handloom  weavers;  1836 
great  prosperity;  1837  and  1838  depression  and  crisis;  1839 
revival ;  1840  great  depression,  riots,  calling  out  of  the  mili- 
tary; 1841  and  1842  frightful  suffering  among  the  factory 
operatives ;  1842  the  manufacturers  lock  the  hands  out  of  the 
factories  in  order  to  enforce  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws. 
The  operatives  stream  in  thousands  into  the  towns  of  Lanca- 
shire and  Yorkshire,  are  driven  back  by  the  military,  and 
their  leaders  brought  to  trial  at  Lancaster;  1843  great  misery; 
1844  revival;  1845  great  prosperity;  1846  continued  improve- 
ment at  first,  then  reaction.  Repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws;  1847 
crisis,  general  reduction  of  wages  by  10  and  more  per  cent, 
in  honour  of  the  "big  loaf;"  1848  continued  depression; 
Manchester  under  military  protection;  1849  revival;  1850 
prosperity;  1851  falling  prices,  low  wages,  frequent  strikes; 
1852  improvement  begins,  strikes  continue,  the  manufacturers 
threaten  to  import  foreign  hands;  1853  increasing  exports. 
Strike  for  8  months,  and  great  misery  at  Preston;  1854 
prosperity,  glutted  markets;  1855  news  of  failures  stream  in 
from  the  United  States,  Canada,  and  the  Eastern  markets; 
1856  great  prosperity;  1857  crisis;  1858  improvement;  1859 
great  prosperity,   increase  in   factories;    1860   Zenith  of  the 

English  cotton  trade,  the  Indian,  Australian,  and  other  mark- 

2  F 


498  Capitalist  Production. 

cts  so  glutted  with  goods  that  even  in  1863  they  had  not  ab- 
sorbed the  whole  lot ;  the  French  Treaty  of  Commerce,  enorm- 
ous growth  of  factories  and  machinery ;  1861  prosperity  con- 
tinues for  a  time,  reaction,  the  American  civil  war,  cotton 
famine;  1862  to  1863  complete  collapse. 

The  history  of  the  cotton  famine  is  too  characteristic  to  dis- 
pense with  dwelling  upon  it  for  a  moment.     From  the  indi- 
cations as  to  the  condition  of  the  markets  of  the  world  in  1860 
and  1861,  we  see  that  the  cotton  famine  came  in  the  nick  of 
time  for  the  manufacturers,  and  was  to  some  extent  advan- 
tageous to  them,  a  fact  that  was  acknowledged  in  the  reports 
of  the  Manchester  Chamber  of  Commerce,  proclaimed  in  Par- 
liament by  Palmerston  and  Derby,  and  confirmed  by  events.^ 
No  doubt,  among  the  2887  cotton  mills  in  the  United  Kingdom 
in  1861,  there  were  many  of  small  size.     According  to  the 
report  of  Mr.  A.  Redgrave,  out  of  the  2109  mills  included  in 
his  district,  392  or  19%  employed  less  than  ten  horse-power 
each ;  345,  or  16%  employed  10  II.  P.,  and  less  than  20  II.  P. ; 
while  1372  employed  upwards  of  20  H.  P.^     The  majority  of 
the  small  mills  were  weaving  sheds,  built  during  the  period  pf 
prosperity  after  1858,  for  the  most  part  by  speculators,  of 
whom  one  supplied  the  yarn,  another  the  machinery,  a  third 
the  buildings,  and  were  worked  by  men  who  had  been  over- 
lookers, or  by  other  persons  of  small  means.     These  small 
manufacturers  mostly  went  to  the  wall.     The  same  fate  would 
have  overtaken  them  in  the  commercial  crisis  that  was  staved 
off  only  by  the  cotton  famine.     Although  they  formed  one- 
third  of  the  total  number  of  manufacturers,  yet  their  mills 
absorbed  a  much  smaller  part  of  the  capital  invested  in  the 
cotton  trade.     As  to  the  extent  of  the  stoppage,  it  appears 
from  authentic  estimates,  that  in  October  1862,  60.3%  of  the 
spindles,  and  58%  of  the  looms  were  standing.    This  refers  to 
the  cotton  trade  as  a  whole,  and,  of  course,  requires  consider- 
able modification  for  individual  districts.     Only  very  few  mills 
worked  full  time  (60  hours  a  week),  the  remainder  worked  at 
intervals.     Even    in    those    few    cases   where   full    time   was 
worked,  and  at  the  Customary  rate  of  piece-wage,  the  weekly 

»  Conf.   Reports   of   Insp.   of   Fact.     31st  October,   1862,   p.   30.         ^  i_   ^^  p    jg^ 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  499 

"wages  of  the  operatives  necessarily  shrank,  owing  to  good 
cotton  being  replaced  by  bad,  Sea  Island  by  Egyptian  (in  fine 
spinning  mills),  American  and  Egyptian  by  Surat,  and  pure 
cotton  by  mixing  of  waste  and  Siirat.  The  shorter  fibre  of 
the  Surat  cotton  and  its  dirty  condition,  the  greater  fragility 
of  the  thread,  the  substitution  of  all  sorts  of  heavy  ingredients 
for  flour  in  sizing  the  warps,  all  these  lessened  the  speed  of  the 
machinery,  or  the  number  of  looms  that  could  be  superin- 
tended by  one  weaver,  increased  the  labour  caused  by  defects 
in  the  machinery,  and  reduced  the  piece-wage  by  reducing  the 
mass  of  the  product  turned  off.  Where  Surat  cotton  was  used 
the  loss  to  the  operatives  when  on  full  time,  amounted  to  20, 
30,  and  more  per  cent.  But  besides  this,  the  majority  of  the 
manufacturers  reduced  the  rate  of  piece-wage  by  5,  T^,  and  10 
per  cent.  We  can  therefore  conceive  the  situation  of  those 
hands  who  were  employed  for  only  3,  3^  or  4  days  a  week,  of 
foj'  only  6  hours  a  day.  Even  in  1863,  after  a  comparative 
improvement  had  set  in,  the  weekly  wages  of  spinners  and  of 
weavers  were  3s.  4d.,  3s.  lOd.,  4s.  6d.  and  5s.  Id.^  Even  in 
this  miserable  state  of  things,  however,  the  inventive  spirit  of 
the  master  never  stood  still,  but  was  exercised  in  making 
deductions  from  wages.  These  were  to  some  extent  inflicted 
as  a  penalty  for  defects  in  the  finished  article  that  were  really 
due  to  his  bad  cotton  and  to  his  unsuitable  machinery.  More- 
over, where  the  manufacturer  owned  the  cottages  of  the  work- 
people, he  paid  himself  his  rents  by  deducting  the  amount 
from  these  miserable  wages.  Mr.  Redgrave  tells  us  of  self- 
acting  minders  (operatives  who  manage  a  pair  of  self-acting 
mules)  "earning  at  the  end  of  a  fortnight's  full  work  8s.  lid., 
and  that  from  this  sum  was  deduced  the  rent  of  the  house, 
the  manufacturer,  however,  returning  half  the  rent  as  a  gift. 
The  minders  took  away  the  sum  of  6s.  lid.  In  many  places 
the  self-acting  minders  ranged  from  5s.  to  9s.  per  week,  and 
the  weavers  from  2s.  to  6s.  ptr  week,  during  the  latter  part  of 
1862."^  Even  when  working  short  time  the  rent  was  fre- 
quently  deducted   from   the   wages   of  the   operatives.^     No 

i"Rep.    Insp.    of    Fact.,    31st    October,    1865,"    pp.    41-46. 

«  "Rep.   Insp.   of  Fact.,  31st  October,   1863."  '  1.  c,  p.  61. 


500  Capitalist  Production. 

"wonder  that  in  some  parts  of  Lancashire  a  kind  of  famine 
fever  broke  out.  But  more  characteristic  than  all  this,  was 
the  revolution  that  took  place  in  the  process  of  production  at 
the  expense  of  the  workpeople.  Experimenta  in  corpore  vili, 
like  those  of  anatomists  on  frogs,  were  formally  made.  "Al- 
though," says  Mr.  Eedgrave,  "I  have  given  the  actual  earnings 
of  the  operatives  in  the  several  mills,  it  does  not  follow  that 
they  earn  the  same  amount  week  by  week.  The  operatives 
are  subject  to  great  fluctuation  from  the  constant  experi- 
mentalizing of  the  manufacturers  ....  the  earnings  of  the 
operatives  rise  and  fall  with  the  quality  of  the  cotton  mixings ; 
sometimes  they  have  been  within  15  per  cent,  of  former 
earnings,  and  then,  in  a  week  or  two,  they  have  fallen  off  from 
50  to  60  per  cent."^  These  experiments  were  not  made  solely 
at  the  expense  of  the  workman's  means  of  subsistence.  His 
five  senses  also  had  to  pay  the  penalty.  "The  people  who  are 
employed  in  making  up  Surat  cotton  complain  very  much. 
They  inform  me,  on  opening  the  bales  of  cotton  there  is  an 
intolerable  smell,  which  causes  sickness  ....  In  the  mixing, 
scribbling  and  carding  rooms,  the  dust  and  dirt  which  are 
disengaged,  irritate  the  air  passages,  and  give  rise  to  cough 
and  difficulty  of  breathing.  A  disease  of  the  skin,  no  doubt 
from  the  irritation  of  the  dirt  contained  in  the  Surat  cotton, 
also  prevails  .  .  .  The  fibre  being  so  short,  a  great  amount  of 
size,  both  animal  and  vegetable,  is  used  ....  Bronchitis  is 
more  prevalent  owing  to  the  dust.  Inflammatory  sore  throat 
is  common,  from  the  same  cause.  Sickness  and  dyspepsia  are 
produced  by  the  frequent  breaking  of  the  weft,  when  the 
weaver  sucks  the  weft  through  the  eye  of  the  shuttle."  On 
the  other  hand,  the  substitutes  for  flour  were  a  Fortunatus' 
purse  to  the  manufacturers,  by  increasing  the  weight  of  the 
yarn.  They  caused  "15  lbs.  of  raw  material  to  weigh  26  lbs. 
after  it  was  woven."^  In  the  Keport  of  Inspectors  of  Factories 
for  30th  April,  1864,  we  read  as  follows:  "The  trade  is  avail- 
ing itself  of  this  resource  at  present  to  an  extent  which  is 
even  discreditable.  I  have  heard  on  good  authority  of  a  cloth 
weighing  8  lbs.  which  was  made  of  5^  lbs.  cotton  and  2f  lbs. 

»1.   c,   pp.    60-51.  M.   c,    pp.    62-63. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  501 

size;  and  of  another  cloth  weighing  5^  lbs.,  of  which  2  lbs. 
was  size.  These  were  ordinary  export  shirtings.  In  cloths  of 
other  descriptions,  as  much  as  50  per  cent,  size  is  sometimes 
added ;  so  that  a  manufacturer  may,  and  does  truly  boast,  that 
he  is  getting  rich  by  selling  cloth  for  less  money  per  pound 
than  he  paid  for  the  mere  yarn  of  which  they  are  composed."^ 
But  the  workpeople  had  to  suffer,  not  only  from  the  experi- 
ments of  the  manufacturers  inside  the  mills,  and  of  the  muni- 
cipalities outside,  not  only  from  reduced  wages  and  absence  of 
work,  from  Avant  and  from  charity,  and  from  the  eulogistic 
speeches  of  lords  and  commons.  "Unfortunate  females  who, 
in  consequence  of  the  cotton  famine,  were  at  its  commence- 
ment thrown  out  of  employment,  and  have  thereby  become 
outcasts  of  society;  and  now  though  trade  has  revived,  and 
work  is  plentiful,  continue  members  of  that  unfortunate  class, 
and  are  likely  to  continue  so.  There  are  also  in  the  borough 
more  youthful  prostitutes  than  I  have  known  for  the  last  25 
years."^ 

We  find  then,  in  the  first  45  years  of  the  English  cotton 
trade,  from  1770  to  1815,  only  5  years  of  crisis  and  stagna- 
tion ;  but  this  was  the  period  of  monopoly.  The  second  period 
from  1815  to  1863  counts,  during  its  48  years,  only  20  years 
of  revival  and  prosperity  against  28  of  depression  and  stag- 
nation. Between  1815  and  1830  the  competition  with  the 
continent  of  Europe  and  with  the  United  States  sets  in. 
After  1833,  the  extension  of  the  Asiatic  markets  is  enforced 
by  "destruction  of  the  human  race"  (the  wholesale  extinction 
of  Indian  handloom  weavers).  After  the  repeal  of  the  Com 
Laws,  from  1846  to  1863,  there  are  8  years  of  moderate 
activity  and  prosperity  against  9  years  of  depression  and  stag- 
nation. The  condition  of  the  adult  male  operatives,  even 
during  the  years  of  prosperity,  may  be  judged  from  the  note 
subjoined.^ 

» Rep.    &c.     30th    April,    1864,   p.    27. 

^  From  a  letter  of  Mr.  Harris,  Chief  Constable  of  Bolton,  in  Rep.  of  Insp.  of 
Fact.,   31st   October,    1805,    pp.    61-62. 

*  In  an  appeal,  dated  1863,  of  the  factory  operatives  of  Lancashire,  &c.,  for  the 
purpose  of  forming  a  society  for  organised  emigration,  we  find  the  following:  "That 
a    large    emigration    of    factory    workers    is    now    absolutely   essential    to    raise    them 


502  Capitalist  Production. 

SECTION       8. EEVOLUTION       EFFECTED        IN       MANUFACTURE, 

HANDICRAFTS.     AND     DOMESTIC     INDUSTRY     BY     MODERN     IN- 
DUSTRY. 

a.  Overthrow  of  Co-operation  based  on  Handicraft  and  on  the 
Division  of  Labour. 

We  have  seen  how  machinery  does  away  with  co-operation 
based  on  handicrafts,  and  with  manufacture  based  on  the  divi- 
sion of  handicraft  labour.  An  example  of  the  first  sort  is  the 
mowing-machine;  it  replaces  co-operation  between  mowers. 
A  striking  example  of  the  second  kind,  is  the  needle-making 
machine.  According  to  Adairi  Smith,  10  men,  in  his  day, 
made  in  co-operation,  over  48,000  needles  a-day.  On  the 
other  hand,  a  single  needle-machine  makes  145,000  in  a  work- 
ing day  of  11  hours.  One  woman  or  one  girl  superintends 
four  such  machines,  and  so  produces  near  upon  600,000 
needles  in  a  day,  and  upwards  of  3,000,000  in  a  week.^  A 
single  machine,  when  it  takes  the  place  of  co-operation  or  of 
manufacture,  may  itself  serve  as  the  basis  of  an  industry  of  a 

from  their  present  prostrate  .condition,  few  will  deny;  but  to  show  that  a  con- 
tinuous stream  of  emigration  is  at  all  times  demanded,  and,  without  which  it  is 
impossible  for  them  to  maintain  their  position  in  ordinary  times,  we  beg  to  call 
attention  to  the  subjoined  facts: — In  1814  the  official  value  of  cotton  goods  ex- 
ported was  £17,665,378,  whilst  the  real  marketable  value  was  £20,070,824.  In 
1858  the  official  value  of  cotton  goods  exported,  was  £182,221,681;  but  the  real 
or  marketable  value  was  only  £43,001,322,  being  a  ten-fold  quantity  sold  for  little 
more  than  double  the  former  price.  To  produce  results  so  disadvantageous  to  the 
country  generally,  and  to  the  factory  workers  in  particular,  several  causes  have 
co-operated,  which,  had  circumstances  permitted,  we  should  have  brought  more 
prominently  under  your  notice;  suffice  it  for  the  present  to  say  that  the  most 
obvious  one  is  the  constant  redundancy  of  labour,  without  which  a  trade  so  ruinous 
in  its  effects  never  could  have  been  carried  on,  and  which  requires  a  constantly 
extending  market  to  save  it  from  annihilation.  Our  cotton  mills  may  be  brought 
to  a  stand  by  the  periodical  stagnations  of  trade,  which,  under  present  arrange- 
ments, are  as  inevitable  as  death  itself;  but  the  human  mind  is  constantly  at 
work,  and  although  we  believe  we  are  under  the  mark  in  stating  that  six  millions 
of  persons  have  left  these  shores  during  the  last  25  years,  yet,  from  the  natural 
increase  of  population,  and  the  displacement  of  labour  to  cheapen  production,  a 
large  percentage  of  the  male  adults  in  the  most  prosperous  times  find  it  impossible 
to  obtain  work  in  factories  on  any  conditions  whatever."  ("Reports  of  Insp.  of 
Fact.,  30th  April,  1863,"  pp.  61-52.  We  shall,  in  a  later  chapter,  see  how  our 
friends,  the  manufacturers,  endeavored,  during  the  catastrophe  in  the  cotton  trade, 
to  prevent  by  every  means,  including  State  interference,  the  emigration  of  the 
operatives. 

»"Ch.   Empl.  Comm.  IV.  Report,  1864,"  p.  108,  n.  447. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  503 

handicraft  character.  Still,  such  a  return  to  handicrafts 
is  but  a  transition  to  the.  factory  system,  which,  as  a  rule, 
makes  its  appearance  so  soon  as  the  human  muscles  are  re- 
placed, for  the  purpose  of  driving  the  machines,  by  a  me- 
chanical motive  power,  such  as  steam  or  Avater.  Here  and 
there,  but  in  any  case  only  for  a  time,  an  industry  may  be 
carried  on,  on  a  small  scale,  by  means  of  mechanical  power. 
This  is  effected  by  hiring  steam  power,  as  is  done  in  some 
of  the  Birmingham  trades,  or  by  the  use  of  small  caloric- 
engines,  as  in  some  branches  of  weaving.^  In  the  Coventry 
silk  weaving  industry  the  experiment  of  "cottage  factories" 
was  tried.  In  the  centre  of  a  square  surrounded  by  rows  of 
cottages,  an  engine-house  was  built  and  the  engine  connected 
by  shafts  with  the  looms  in  the  cottages.  In  all  cases  the 
power  was  hired  at  so  much  per  loom.  The  rent  was  pay- 
able weekly,  whether  the  looms  worked  or  not.  Each  cottage 
held  from  2  to  6  looms ;  some  belonged  to  the  weaver,  some 
were  bought  on  credit,  some  were  hired.  The  struggle  be- 
tween these  cottage  factories  and  the  factory  proper,  lasted 
over  12  years.  It  ended  with  the  complete  ruin  of  the  300 
cottage-factories.^  Wherever  the  nature  of  the  process  did 
not  involve  production  on  a  large  scale,  the  new  industries 
that  have  sprung  up  in  the  last  few  decades,  such  as  envelope 
making,  steel-pen  making,  &c.,  have,  as  a  general  rule,  first 
passed  through  the  handicraft  stage,  and  then  the  manufactur- 
ing stage,  as  short  phases  of  transition  to  the  factory  stage. 
The  transition  is  very  difficult  in  those  cases  where  the  pro- 
duction of  the  article  by  manufacture  consists,  not  of  a  series 
of  graduated  processes,  but  of  a  great  number  of  discon- 
nected ones.  This  circumstance  formed  a  great  hindrance  to 
15  years  ago,  a  machine  was  invented  that  automatically  per- 
formed 6  separate  operations  at  once.  The  first  steel-pens 
were  supplied  by  the  handicraft  system,  in  the  year  1820,  at 
£7  4s,  the  gross;  in  1830  they  were  supplied  by  manufacture 

1  In  the  United  States  the  restoration  in  this  way,  of  handicrafts  based  on 
machinery  is  frequent;  and  therefore,  when  the  inevitable  transition  to  the  factory 
system  shall  take  place,  the  ensuing  concentration  will,  compared  with  Europe  and 
even  with  England,   stride  on   in  seven-league  boots. 

'  See   "Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,  31st   Oct.,   1865,"  p.   64. 


504  Capitalist  Production. 

at  8s.,  and  to-day  the  factory  system  supplies  them  to  the 
trade  at  from  2s.  to  6d.  the  gross.  ^ 

b.  Re-action  of  the  Factory  System  on  Manufacture  and 
Domestic  Industries. 

Along  with  the  development  of  the  factory  system  and  of 
the  revolution  in  agriculture  that  accompanies  it,  production 
in  all  the  other  branches  of  industry  not  only  extends,  but 
alters  its  character.  The  principle,  carried  out  in  the  factory 
system,  of  analysing  the  process  of  production  into  its  con- 
stituent phases,  and  of  solving  the  problems  thus  proposed  by 
the  application  of  mechanics,  of  chemistry,  and  of  the  whole 
range  of  the  natural  sciences,  becomes  the  determining  prin- 
ciple everywhere.  Hence,  machinery  squeezes  itself  into  the 
manufacturing  industries  first  for  one  detail  process,  then  for 
another.  Thus  the  solid  crystal  of  their  organisation,  based 
on  the  old  division  of  labour,  becomes  dissolved,  and  makes 
way  for  constant  changes.  Independently  of  this,  a  radical 
change  takes  place  in  the  composition  of  the  collective  labourer, 
a  change  of  the  persons  working  in  combination.  In  contrast 
with  the  manufacturing  period,  the  division  of  labour  is 
thenceforth  based,  wherever  possible,  on  the  employment  of 
women,  of  children  of  all  ages,  and  of  unskilled  labourers, 
in  one  word,  on  cheap  labour,  as  it  is  characteristically  called 
in  England.  This  is  the  case  not  only  with  all  production  on 
a  large  scale,  whether  employing  machinery  or  not,  but  also 
with  the  so-called  domestic  industry,  whether  carried  on  in 
the  houses  of  the  workpeople  or  in  small  workshops.  This 
modern  so-called  domestic  industry  has  nothing,  except  the 
name,  in  common  with  the  old-fashioned  domestic  industry, 
the  existence  of  which  presupposes  independent  urban  handi- 
crafts, independent  peasant  farming,  and  above  all,  a  dwell- 
ing-house for  the  labourer  and  his  family.     That  old-fash- 

*  Mr.  Gillott  erected  in  Birminghani  the  first  steel-pen  factory  on  a  large  scale.  It 
produced,  so  early  as  ISjI,  over  180,000,000  of  pens  yearly,  and  consumed  120  tons 
of  steel.  Birmingham  has  the  monopoly  of  this  industry  in  the  United  Kingdom, 
and  at  present  produces  thousands  of  millions  of  steel  pens.  According  to  the 
Census  of  1861,  the  number  of  persons  employed  was  1428,  of  whom  1268  were 
females  from  5  years  of  age  upwards. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  505 

ioned  industry  has  now  been  converted  into  an  outside  de- 
partment of  the  factory,  the  manufactory,  or  the  warehouse. 
Besides  the  factory  operatives,  the  manufacturing  workmen 
and  the  handicraftsmen,  whom  it  concentrates  in  large  masses 
at  one  spot,  and  directly  commands,  capital  also  sets  in  mo- 
tion, by  means  of  invisible  threads,  another  army ;  that  of  the 
workers  in  the  domestic  industries,  who  dwell  in  the  large 
towns  and  are  also  scattered  over  the  face  of  the  country.  An 
example :  The  shirt  factory  of  Messrs.  Tille  at  Londonderry, 
which  employs  1000  operatives  in  the  factory  itself,  and  9000 
people  spread  up  and  down  the  country  and  working  in  their 
own  houses.^ 

The  exploitation  of  cheap  and  immature  labour-power  is 
carried  out  in  a  more  shameless  manner  in  modern  Manu- 
facture than  in  the  factory  proper.  This  is  because  the  tech- 
nical foundation  of  the  factory  system,  namely,  the  substi- 
tution of  machines  for  muscular  power,  and  the  light  char- 
acter of  the  labour,  is  almost  entirely  absent  in  Manufacture, 
and  at  the  same  time  women  and  over-young  children  are 
subjected,  in  a  most  unconscionable  way,  to  the  influence  of 
poisonous  or  injurious  substances.  This  exploitation  is  more 
shameless  in  the  so-called  domestic  industry  than  in  manu- 
factures, and  that  because  the  power  of  resistance  in  the 
labourers  decreases  with  their  dissemination ;  because  a  whole 
series  of  plundering  parasites  insinuate  themselves  between 
the  employer  and  the  workman ;  because  a  domestic  industry 
has  always  to  compete,  either  with  the  factory  system,  or  with 
manufacturing  in  the  same  branch  of  production ;  because 
poverty  robs  the  workman  of  the  conditions  most  essential  to 
his  labour,  of  space,  light  and  ventilation;  because  employ- 
ment becomes  more  and  more  irregular;  and,  finally,  because 
in  these  the  last  resorts  of  the  masses  made  "redundant"  by 
Modern  Industry  and  Agriculture,  competition  for  work  at- 
tains its  maximum.  Economy  in  the  means  of  production, 
first  systematically  carried  out  in  the  factory  system,  and 
there,  from  the  very  beginning,  coincident  with  the  most  reck- 
less squandering  of  labour-power,   and   robbery  of  the  con- 

1  Cli.    Empl.    Comm.,    II.    Rep.    18C4,    p.    LXVIII.,    n.    415. 


5o6  Capitalist  Production. 

ditions  normally  requisite  for  labour — this  economy  now 
shows  its  antagonistic  and  murderous  side  more  and  more  in 
a  given  branch  of  industry,  the  less  the  social  productive 
power  of  labour  and  the  technical  basis  for  a  combination  of 
processes  are  developed  in  that  branch. 

c.  Modem  Manufacture. 

T  now  proceed,  by  a  few  examples,  to  illustrate  the  prin- 
ciples laid  down  above.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  reader  is 
already  familiar  with  numerous  instances  given  in  the  chapter 
on  the  working  day.  In  the  hardware  manufactures  of 
Birmingham  and  the  neighborhood,  there  are  employed, 
mostly  in  very  heavy  work,  30,000  children  and  young  per- 
sons, besides  10,000  women.  There  they  are  to  be  seen  in 
the  unwholesome  brass-foundries,  button  factories,  enamelling, 
galvanizing,  and  lackering  works.  ^  Owing  to  the  excessive 
labour  of  their  workpeople,  both  adult  and  non-adult,  certain 
London  houses  where  newspapers  and  books  are  printed  have 
got  the  ill-omened  name  of  "slaughter-houses."^  Similar  ex- 
cesses are  practised  in  bookbinding,  where  the  victims  are 
chiefly  women,  girls,  and  children ;  young  persons  have  to  do 
heavy  work  in  rope-walks  and  night-work  in  salt  mines,  candle 
manufactories,  and  chemical  works;  young  people  are  Avorked 
to  death  at  turning  the  looms  in  silk  weaving,  when  it  is  not 
carried  on  by  machinery.^  One  of  the  most  shameful,  the 
most  dirty,  and  the  worst  paid  kinds  of  labour,  and  one  on 
which  women  and  young  girls  are  by  preference  employed,  is 
the  sorting  of  rags.  It  is  well  known  that  Great  Britain, 
apart  from  its  own  immense  store  of  rags,  is  the  emporium 
for  the  rag  trade  of  the  whole  world.  They  flow  in  from 
Japan,  from  the  most  remote  States  of  South  America,  and 
from  the  Canary  Islands.  But  the  chief  sources  of  their 
supply  are  Germany,  France,  Russia,  Italy,  Egypt,  Turkey, 
Belgium,  and  Holland.     They  are  used  for  manure,  for  mak- 

*  And   now   forsooth   children   are   employed   at   file-cutting  in   Sheffield. 

'  Ch.    Empl.  Comm.  V.   Rep.   1866,   p.  3,  n.  24,  p.  C,  n.   55,   56,  p.   7,  n.   59,  60. 

*  L.  c  pp.  114,  115,  n.  6,  7.  The  commissioner  justly  remarks  that  though  as 
a  rule  machines  take  the  place  of  men,  here  literally  young  persons  replace 
machines. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  507 

ing  bed-flocks,  for  shoddy,  and  they  serve  as  the  raw  material 
of  paper.  The  rag-sorters  are  the  medium  for  the  spread 
of  small-pox  and  other  infectious  diseases,  and  they  themselves 
are  the  first  victims.-^  A  classical  example  of  over-work,  of 
hard  and  inappropriate  labour,  and  of  its  brutalising  effects 
on  the  workman  from  his  childhood  upwards,  is  afforded  not 
only  by  coal-mining  and  miners  generally,  but  also  by  tile  and 
brick  making,  in  which  industry  the  recently  invented  ma- 
chinery is,  in  England,  used  only  here  and  there.  Between 
May  and  September  the  work  lasts  from  5  in  the  morning  till 
8  in  the  evening,  and  where  the  drying  is  done  in  the  open 
air,  it  often  lasts  from  4  in  the  morning  till  9  in  the  even- 
ing. Work  from  5  in  the  morning  till  7  in  the  evening  is 
considered  "reduced"  and  "moderate."  Both  boys  and  girls 
of  6  and  even  of  4  years  of  age  are  employed.  They  work  for 
the  same  number  of  hours,  often  longer,  than  the  adults.  The 
work  is  hard  and  the  summer  heat  increases  the  exhaustion. 
In  a  certain  tile  field  at  Mosley,  e.g.,  a  young  woman,  24 
years  of  age,  was  in  the  habit  of  making  2000  tiles  a  day,  with 
the  assistance  of  2  little  girls,  who  carried  the  clay  for  her, 
and  stacked  the  tiles.  These  girls  carried  daily  10  tons  up 
the  slippery  sides  of  the  clay  pits,  from  a  depth  of  30  feet, 
and  then  for  a  distance  of  210  feet.  "It  is  impossible  for  a 
child  to  pass  through  the  purgatory  of  a  tile-field  without 
great  moral  degradation  .  .  .  the  low  language,  which 
they  are  accustomed  to  hear  from  their  tenderest  years,  the 
filthy,  indecent,  and  shameless  habits,  amidst  which,  unknow- 
ing, and  half  wild,  they  grow  up,  make  them  in  after  life 
lawless,  abandoned,  dissolute.  ...  A  frightful  source  of 
demoralization  is  the  mode  of  living.  Each  moulder,  who  is 
always  a  skilled  labourer,  and  the  chief  of  a  group,  supplies 
his  7  subordinates  with  board  and  lodging  in  his  cottage. 
Whether  members  of  his  family  or  not,  the  men,  boys,  and 
girls  all  sleep  in  the  cottage,  which  contains  generally  two, 
exceptionally  3  rooms,  all  on  the  ground  floor,  and  badly  venti- 
lated.    These  people  are  so  exhausted  after  the  day's  work, 

*  See  the  Report  on  the  rag  trade,  and  numerous  details  in  Public  Health,  VIII. 
Rep.    Lond.    1S66,    app.    pp.    196,   208. 


gog  Capitalist  Prodtcction. 

that  neither  the  rules  of  health,  of  cleanliness,  nor  of  decency 
are  in  the  least  observed.  Many  of  these  cottages  are  models 
of  untidiness,  dirt,  and  dust  .  .  .  The  greatest  evil  of 
the  system  that  employs  young  girls  on  this  sort  of  work,  con- 
sists in  this,  that,  as  a  rule,  it  chains  them  fast  from  child- 
hood for  the  whole  of  their  after-life  to  the  most  abandoned 
rabble.  They  become  rough,  foul-mouthed  boys,  before  Na- 
ture has  taught  them  that  they  are  v^omen.  Clothed  in  a 
few  dirty  rags,  the  legs  naked  far  above  the  knees,  hair  and 
face  besmeared  with  dirt,  they  learn  to  treat  all  feelings  of 
decency  and  of  shame  with  contempt.  During  meal-times 
they  lie  at  full  length  in  the  fields,  or  watch  the  boys  bathing 
in  a  neighboring  canal.  Their  heavy  day's  work  at  length 
completed,  they  put  on  better  clothes,  and  accompany  the  men 
to  the  public  houses."  That  excessive  insobriety  is  prevalent 
from  childhood  upwards  among  the  whole  of  this  class,  is 
only  natural.  "The  worst  is  that  the  brickmakers  despair  of 
themselves.  You  might  as  well,  said  one  of  the  better  kind 
to  a  chaplain  of  Southallfield,  try  to  raise  and  improve  the 
devil  as  a  brickie,  sir!"* 

As  to  the  manner  in  which  capital  effects  an  economy  in 
the  requisites  of  labour,  in  modern  Manufacture  (in  which  I 
include  all  workshops  of  larger  size,  except  factories  proper), 
official  and  most  ample  material  bearing  on  it  is  to  be  found 
in  the  Public  Health  Eeports  IV.  (1863)  and  VI.  (1864). 
The  description  of  the  workshops,  more  especially  those  of  the 
London  printers  and  tailors,  surpasses  the  most  loathsome 
phantasies  of  our  romance  writers.  The  effect  on  the  health 
of  the  workpeople  is  self-evident.  Dr.  Simon,  the  chief 
medical  officer  of  the  Privy  Council  and  the  official  editor  of 
the  "Public  Health  Report,"  says:  "In  my  fourth  Report 
(1863)  I  showed,  how  it  is  practically  impossible  for  the 
workpeople  to  insist  upon  that  which  is  their  first  sanitary 
right,  viz.,  the  right  that,  no  matter  what  the  work  for  which 
their  employer  brings  them  together,  the  labour,  so  far  as  it 
depends  upon  him,  should  be  freed  from  all  avoidably  un- 

*  Ch.  Empl.  Cotnm.  V.  Rep.,  1866,  xvi.,  n.  96,  97,  and  p.  130,  n.  39,  61.  See  also 
III.   Rep.,    1864,    p.    48,    56. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  509 

wholesome  conditions.  I  pointed  out^  that  while  the  work- 
people are  practically  incapable  of  doing  themselves  this  sani^ 
tary  justice,  they  are  unable  to  obtain  any  effective  support 
from  the  paid  adminstrations  of  the  sanitary  police.  .  .  . 
The  life  of  myriads  of  workmen  and  workwomen  is  now  use- 
lessly tortured  and  shortened  by  the  never-ending  physical 
suffering  that  their  mere  occupation  begets."^  In  illustration 
of  the  way  in  which  the  workrooms  influence  the  state  of 
health,  Dr.  Simon  gives  the  following  table  of  mortality.^ 


Number  of  persons  of  all 
ages  employed  in  the  re- 
spective  industries. 

Industries  compared 

as    regards 

health. 

Death    rate    per    100,000    men    in 

the    respective    industries    between 

the   stated  ages. 

958,265 

Agriculture  in 
England  &   Wales 

Age  25-35. 
743 

Age  35-45. 
805 

Age  45-55. 
1,145 

22,301  men             1 
12,379  women        J 

London  tailors 

958 

1,262 

2,093 

13,803 

London  printers 

894 

1,747 

2,367 

h.  Modem  Domestic  Industry. 

I  now  come  to  the  so-called  domestic  industry.  In  order  to 
get  an  idea  of  the  horrors  of  this  sphere,  in  which  capital 
conducts  its  exploitation  in  the  background  of  modem  me- 
chanical industry,  one  must  go  to  the  apparently  quiet  idyllic 
trade  of  nail-making,^  carried  on  in  a  few  remote  villages  of 
England.     In  this  place,  however,  it  will  be  enough  to  give  a 


»  Public  Health.  Sixth  Rep.  Lond.  1864,  p.  81. 

'  1.  c,  p.  30.  Dr.  Simon  remarks  that  the  mortality  among  the  London  tailors  and 
printers  between  the  ages  of  25  and  35  is  in  fact  much  greater,  because  the  em- 
ployers in  London  obtain  from  the  country  a  great  number  of  young  people  up  to  30 
years  of  age,  as  "apprentices"  and  "improvers,"  who  come  for  the  purpose  of  being 
perfected  in  their  trade.  These  figure  in  the  census  as  Londoners,  they  swell  out 
the  number  of  heads  on  which  the  London  death-rate  is  calculated,  without  adding 
proportionally  to  the  number  of  deaths  in  that  place.  The  greater  part  of  them 
in   fact  return  to  the  country,  and  especially  in  cases  of  severe  illness.      (1.  c.) 

*  I  allude  here  to  hammered  nails,  as  distinguished  from  nails  cut  out  and  made 
by  machinery.  See  Child.  Empl.  Comm.,  Third  Rep.  p.  xi,  p.  xix,  n.  126-130,  p. 
63,  n.  11,  p.  114,  n.  487,  p.  137,  n.  674. 


5 10  Capitalist  Production. 

few  examples  from  those  branches  of  the  lace-making  and 
straw-plaiting  industries  that  are  not  yet  carried  on  by  the 
aid  of  machinery,  and  that  as  yet  do  not  compete  with 
branches  carried  on  in  factories  or  in  manufactories. 

Of  the  150,000  persons  employed  in  England  in  the  pro- 
duction of  lace,  about  10,000  fall  under  the  authority  of  the 
Factory  Act,  1861.  Almost  the  whole  of  the  remaining  140,- 
000  are  women,  young  persons,  and  children  of  both  sexes, 
'the  male  sex,  however,  being  weakly  represented.  The  state 
of  health  of  this  cheap  material  for  exploitation  will  be  seen 
from  the  following  table,  computed  by  Dr.  Trueman,  physi- 
cian to  the  Nottingham  General  Dispensary.  Out  of  686  fe- 
male patients  who  were  lace  makers,  most  of  them  between 
the  ages  of  lY  and  24,  the  number  of  consumptive  ones  were : 

1852.— 1  in  45.     1855.— 1  in  18.  1858.— 1  in  15. 

1853.-1  in  28.     1856. — 1  in  15.  1859.— 1  in    9. 

1854.— 1  in  17.     1857.-1  in  13.  1860.-1  in    8. 

1861.-1  in    8.1 

This  progress  in  the  rate  of  consumption  ought  to  suffice  for 
the  most  optimist  of  progressists,  and  for  the  biggest  hawker 
of  lies  among  the  Free  Trade  bagmen  of  Germany. 

The  Factory  Act  of  1861  regulates  the  actual  making  of  the 
lace,  so  far  as  it  is  done  by  machinery,  and  this  is  the  rule  in 
England.  The  branches  that  we  are  now  about  to  examine, 
solely  with  regard  to  those  of  the  workpeople  who  work  at 
homo,  and  not  those  who  work  in  manufactories  or  ware- 
houses, fall  into  two  divisions,  viz.,  (1),  finishing;  (2),  mend- 
ing. The  former  gives  the  finishing  touches  to  the  machine- 
made  lace,  and  includes  numerous  sub-divisions. 

The  lace  finishing  is  done  either  in  what  are  called  "Mis- 
tresses' Houses,"  or  by  women  in  their  own  houses,  with  or 
without  the  help  of  their  children.  The  women  who  keep  the 
"Mistresses'  Houses"  are  themselves  poor.  The  workroom  is 
in  a  private  house.  The  mistresses  take  orders  from  manu- 
facturers, or  from  warehousemen,  and  employ  as  many  women, 

Ch.    Empl.    Comm.,    II.    Rep.,    p.    xxii.,    n.    166. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  511 

girls,  and  joinig  children  as  tlie  size  of  their  rooms  and  the 
fluctuating  demand  of  the  business  will  allow.  The  number 
of  the  workwomen  employed  in  these  workrooms  varies  from 
20  to  40  in  some,  and  from  10  to  20  in  others.  The  average 
age  at  which  the  children  commence  work  is  six  years,  but  in 
many  cases  it  is  below  five.  The  usual  working  hours  are 
from  8  in  the  moi'ning  till  eight  in  the  evening,  with  1^  hours 
for  meals,  which  are  taken  at  irregular  intervals,  and  often  in 
the  foul  workrooms.  When  business  is  brisk,  the  labour  fre- 
quently lasts  from  8  or  even  6  o'clock  in  the  morning  till  10, 
11,  or  12  o'clock  at  night.  In  English  barracks  the  regulation 
space  allotted  to  each  soldier  is  500-600  cubic  feet,  and  in  the 
military  hospitals  1200  cubic  feet.  But  in  those  finishing 
styes  there  are  but  67  to  100  cubic  feet  to  each  person.  At 
the  same  time  the  oxygen  of  the  air  is  consumed  by  gas-lights. 
In  order  to  keep  the  lace  clean,  and  although  the  floor  is  tiled 
or  flagged,  the  children  are  often  compelled,  even  in  winter,  to 
pull  off  their  shoes.  "It  is  not  at  all  uncommon  in  Notting- 
ham to  find  li  to  20  children  huddled  together  in  a  small 
room,  of,  perhaps,  not  more  than  12  feet  square,  and  employed 
for  15  hours  out  of  the  24,  at  work  that  of  itself  is  exhausting, 
from  its  weariness  and  monotony,  and  is  besides  carried  on 
under  every  possible  unwholesome  condition.  .  .  .  Even 
the  very  youngest  children  work  with  a  strained  attention  and 
a  rapidity  that  is  astonishing,  hardly  ever  giving  their  fingers 
rest  or  slowering  their  motion.  If  a  question  be  asked  them, 
they  never  raise  their  eyes  from  their  work  for  fear  of  losing 
a  single  moment."  The  "long  stick"  is  used  by  the  mistresses 
as  a  stimulant  more  and  more  as  the  working  hours  are  pro- 
longed. "The  children  gradually  tire  and  becomes  as  restless 
as  birds  towards  the  end  of  their  long  detention  at  an  occupa- 
tion that  is  monotonous,  eye-straining,  and  exhausting  from 
the  uniformity  in  the  posture  of  the  body.  Their  work  is  like 
slavery."^  When  women  and  their  children  work  at  home, 
which  now-a-days  means  in  a  hired  room,  often  in  a  garret, 
the  state  of  things  is,  if  possible,  still  worse.  This  sort  of 
work  is  giving  out  within  a  circle  of  80  miles  radius  from  l^oir 

^  Ch.    Empl.    Cotnm.,    II.    Rep.,    1864,    pp.    xix.,    xx.,    xxi. 


ei2  Capitalist  Production. 

tingham.  On  leaving  the  warehouses  at  9  or  10  o'clock  at 
night,  the  children  are  often  given  a  bundle  of  lace  to  take 
home  with  them  and  finish.  The  Pharisee  of  a  capitalist 
represented  by  one  of  his  servants,  accompanies  this  action,  of 
course,  with  the  unctuous  phrase :  "That's  for  mother,"  yet  he 
knows  well  enough  that  the  poor  children  must  sit  up  and 
help.1 

Pillow  lace  making  is  chiefly  carried  on  in  England  in  two 
agricultural  districts  one,  the  Honiton  lace  district,  extending 
from  20  to  30  miles  along  the  south  coast  of  Devonshire,  and 
including  a  few  places  in  Xorth  Devon ;  the  other  comprising 
a  great  part  of  the  counties  of  Buckingham,  Bedford,  and 
Northampton,  and  also  the  adjoining  portions  of  Oxfordshire 
and  Huntingdonshire.  The  cottages  of  the  agricultural  la- 
bourers are  the  places  where  the  work  is  usually  carried  on. 
Many  manufacturers  employ  upwards  of  3000  of  these  lace 
makers,  who  are  chiefly  children  and  young  persons  of  the  fe- 
male sex  exclusively.  The  state  of  things  described  as  in- 
cidental to  lace  finishing  is  here  repeated,  save  that  instead 
of  tlie  "mistresses'  houses,"  we  find  what  are  called  "lace 
schools,"  kept  by  poor  women  in  their  cottages.  From  their 
fifth  year  and  often  earlier,  until  their  twelfth  or  fifteenth 
year,  the  children  work  in  these  schools ;  during  the  first  year 
the  very  young  ones  work  from  four  to  eight  hours,  and  later 
on,  from  six  in  the  morning  till  eight  and  ten  o'clock  at  night. 
"The  rooms  are  generally  the  ordinary  living  rooms  of  small 
cottages,  the  chimney  stopped  up  to  keep  out  draughts,  the 
inmates  kept  warm  by  their  own  animal  heat  alone,  and  this 
frequently  in  winter.  In  other  cases,  these  so-called  school- 
rooms are  like  small  store-rooms  without  fire-places.  .  .  . 
The  overcrowding  in  these  dens  and  the  consequent  vitiation 
of  the  air  are  often  extreme.  Added  to  this  is  the  injurious 
effect  of  drains,  privies,  decomposing  substances,  and  other 
filth  usual  in  the  purileus  of  the  smaller  cottages."  With  re- 
gard to  space:  "In  one  lace  school  18  girls  and  a  mistress, 
35  cubic  feet  to  each  person ;  in  another,  where  the  smell  was 
unbearable,  18  persons  and  24^  cubic  feet  per  head.     In  this 

*1.  c,  pp.  xxi.,  xxvi. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  513 

industry   are  to  be  found  employed   children   of  2   and   2| 
years."  ^ 

Wliere  lace-making  ends  in  the  counties  of  Buckingham  and 
Bedford,  straw-plaiting  begins,  and  extends  over  a  large  part 
of  Hertfordshire  and  the  westerly  and  northerly  parts  of 
Essex.  In  1861,  there  were  40,043  persons  employed  in 
straw-plaiting  and  straw-hat  making;  of  these  3815  were 
males  of  all  ages,  the  rest  females,  of  whom  14,913,  includ- 
ing about  7000  children,  were  under  20  years  of  age.  In 
the  place  of  the  lace-schools  we  find  here  the  "straw-plait 
schools."  The  children  commence  their  instruction  in  straw- 
plaiting  generally  in  their  4th,  often  between  their  3rd  and 
4th  year.  Education,  of  course,  they  get  none.  The  children 
themselves  call  the  elementary  schools,  "natural  schools,"  to 
distinguish  them  from  these  blood-sucking  institutions,  in 
which  they  are  kept  at  work  simply  to  get  through  the  task, 
generally  30  yards  daily,  prescribed  by  their  half-starved 
mothers.  These  same  mothers  often  make  them  work  at 
home,  after  school  is  over,  till  10,  11,  and  12  o'clock  at  night. 
The  straw  cuts  their  mouths,  with  which  they  constantly 
moisten  it,  and  their  fingers.  Dr.  Ballard  gives  it  as  the 
general  opinion  of  the  whole  body  of  medical  officers  in  Lon- 
don, that  300  cubic  feet  is  the  minimum  space  proper  for 
each  person  in  a  bedroom  or  work-room.  But  in  the  straw- 
plait  schools  space  is  more  sparingly  allotted  than  in  the 
lace-schools,  "12§,  17,  18^  and  below  22  cubic  feet  for 
each  person."  The  smaller  of  these  numbers,  says  one  of 
the  commissioners,  Mr.  White,  represents  less  space  than  the 
half  of  what  a  child  would  occupy  if  packed  in  a  box  measur- 
ing 3  feet  in  each  direction.  Thus  do  the  children  enjoy  life 
till  the  age  of  12  or  14.  The  wretched  half -starved  parents 
think  of  nothing  but  getting  as  much  as  possible  out  of  their 
children.  The  latter,  as  soon  as  they  are  grown  up,  do  not 
care  a  farthing,  and  naturally  so,  for  their  parents,  and  leave 
them.  "It  is  no  wonder  that  ignorance  and  vice  abound  in  a 
population  so  brought  up.  .  .  .  Their  morality  is  at  the 
lowest  ebb,     ...     a  great  number  of  the  women  have  il- 

^  1.  c,  pp.  xxix.,  XXX. 

2G 


514  Capitalist  Production. 

legitimate  children,  and  that  at  such  an  immature  age  that 
even  those  most  conversant  with  criminal  statistics  are  as- 
tounded."* And  the  native  land  of  these  model  families 
is  the  pattern  Christian  country  of  Europe  so  says  at  least 
Count  Montalembert,  certainly  a  competent  au;tliority  on 
Christianity ! 

Wages  in  the  above  industries,  miserable  as  they  are  (the 
maximum  wages  of  a  child  in  the  straw-plait  schools  rising 
in  rare  cases  to  3  shillings,  are  reduced  far  below  their 
nominal  amount  by  the  prevalence  of  the  truck  system  every- 
where, but  especially  in  the  lace  districts.^ 

e.  Passage  of  modern  Manufacture,  and  Domestic  Industry 
into  Modern  Mechanical  Industry.  The  hastening  of 
this  revolution  by  the  application  of  the  Factory  Acts  to 
those  Industries. 

The  cheapening  of  labour-power,  by  sheer  abuse  of  the 
labour  of  women  and  children,  by  sheer  robbery  of  every  nor- 
mal condition  requisite  for  working  and  living,  and  by  the 
sheer  brutality  of  over-work  and  night-work,  meets  at  last 
with  natural  obstacles  that  cannot  be  overstepped.  So  also, 
when  based  on  these  methods,  do  the  cheapening  of  com- 
modities and  capitalist  exploitation  in  general.  So  soon  as 
this  point  is  at  last  reached — and  it  takes  many  years — the 
hour  has  struck  for  the  introduction  of  machinery,  and  for  the 
thenceforth  rapid  conversion  of  the  scattered  domestic  indus- 
tries and  also  of  manufactures  into  factory  industries. 

An  example,  on  the  most  colossal  scale,  of  this  movement  is 
afforded  by  the  production  of  wearing  apparel.  This  in- 
dustry, according  to  the  classification  of  the  Childrens'  Em- 
ployment Commission,  comprises  straw-hat  makers,  ladies'-hat 
makers,  cap-makers,  tailors,  milliners  and  dressmakers,  shirt- 
makers,  corset-makers,  glove-makers,  shoemakers,  besides 
many  minor  branches,  such  as  the  making  of  neck-ties,  collars, 
&c.  In  1861,  the  number  of  females  employed  in  these  in- 
dustries,  in  England   and  Wales,   amounted  to   586,299,   of 

*  1.   c.   pp.   xl,   xli. 

*  Child,    Empl.    Comm.   I.   Rep.   1863,   p.   185. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  515 

tliese  115,242  at  the  least  were  under  20,  and  16,650  under  15 
years  of  age.  The  number  of  these  workwomen  in  the  United 
Kingdom  in  1861,  was  750,33-1.  The  number  of  males  em- 
ployed in  England  and  Wales,  in  hatrmaking,  shoe-making, 
glove-making  and  tailoring  was  437,969;  of  these  14,964 
under  15  years,  89,285  between  15  and  20,  and  333,117  over 
20  years.  Many  of  the  smaller  branches  are  not  included  in 
these  figures.  But  take  the  figures  as  they  stand;  we  then 
have  for  England  and  Wales  alone,  according  to  the  census 
of  1861,  a  total  of  1,024,277  persons,  about  as  many  as  are 
absorbed  by  agriculture  and  cattle  breeding.  We  begin  to 
understand  what  becomes  of  the  immense  quantities  of  goods 
conjured  up  by  the  magic  of  machinery,  and  of  the  enormous 
masses  of  workpeople,  which  that  machinery  sets  free. 

The  production  of  wearing  apparel  is  carried  on  partly  in 
manufactories  in  whose  workrooms  tliere  is  but  a  reproduction 
of  that  division  of  labour,  the  membra  disjecta  of  which  were 
found  ready  to  hand ;  partly  by  small  master-handicraftsmen ; 
these,  however,  do  not,  as  formerly,  work  for  individual  con- 
sumers, but  for  manufactories  and  warehouses,  and  to  such 
an  extent  that  often  whole  towns  and  stretches  of  country 
carry  on  certain  branches,  such  as  shoe-making,  as  a  specialty; 
finally,  on  a  very  great  scale  by  the  so-called  domestic  workers, 
who  form  an  external  department  of  the  manufactories,  ware- 
houses, and  even  of  the  workshops  of  the  smaller  masters.^ 

The  raw  material,  &c.,  is  supplied  by  mechanical  industry, 
the  mass  of  cheap  human  material  (taillable  a  merci  et  miseri- 
corde)  is  composed  of  the  individuals  "liberated"  by  me- 
chanical industry  and  improved  agriculture.  The  manu- 
factures of  this  class  owed  their  origin  chiefly  to  the  .capital- 
ist's need  of  having  at  hand  an  army  ready  equipped  to  meet 
any  increase  of  demand.^  These  manufactures,  nevertheless, 
allowed  the  scattered  handicrafts  and  domestic  industries  to 

^  In  England  millinery  and  dressmaking  are  for  the  most  part  carried  on,  on  the 
premises  of  the  employer,  partly  by  workwomen  who  live  there,  partly  by  women 
who   live   off   the    premises. 

'  Mr.  White,  a  commissioner,  visited  a  military  clothing  manufactory  that  employed 
1000  to  1200  persons,  almost  all  females,  and  a  shoe  manufactory  with  1300  persons; 
oi  these  nearly  one  half  were  children  and  young  persons. 


5i6  Capitalist  Production. 

continue  tx>  exist  as  a  broad  foundation.  The  great  production 
of  surplus-value  in  these  branches  of  labour,  and  the  pro- 
gressive cheapening  of  their  articles,  were  and  are  chiefly  due 
to  the  minimum  wages  paid,  no  more  than  requisite  for  a 
miserable  vegetation,  and  to  the  extension  of  working  time 
up  to  the  maximum  endurable  by  the  human  organism.  It 
was  in  fact  by  the  cheapness  of  the  human  sweat  and  the 
human  blood,  which  were  converted  into  commodities,  that 
the  markets  were  constantly  being  extended,  and  continue 
daily  to  be  extended;  more  especially  was  this  the  case  with 
England's  colonial  markets,  where,  besides,  English  tastes  and 
habits  prevail.  At  last  the  critical  point  was  reached.  The 
basis  of  the  old  method,  sheer  brutality  in  the  exploitation  of 
the  workpeople,  accompanied  more  or  less  by  a  systematic  di- 
vision of  labour,  no  longer  sufficed  for  the  extending  markets 
and  for  the  still  more  rapidly  extending  competition  of  the 
capitalists.  The  hour  struck  for  the  advent  of  machinery. 
The  decisively  revolutionary  machine,  the  machine  which  at- 
tacks in  an  equal  degree  the  whole  of  the  numberless  branches 
of  this  sphere  of  production,  dressmaking,  tailoring,  shoe- 
making,  sewing,  hat-making,  and  many  others,  is  the  sewing- 
machine. 

Its  immediate  effect  on  the  workpeople  is  like  that  of  all 
machinery,  which,  since  the  rise  of  modem  industry,  has 
seized  upon  new  branches  of  trade.  Children  of  too  tender 
an  age  are  sent  adrift.  The  wage  of  the  machine  hands  rises 
compared  with  that  of  the  house-workers,  many  of  whom  be- 
long to  the  poorest  of  the  poor.  That  of  the  better  situated 
handicraftsmen,  with  whom  the  machine  competes,  sinks. 
The  new  machine  hands  are  exclusively  girls  and  young 
women.  With  the  help  of  mechanical  force,  they  destroy 
the  monopoly  that  male  labour  had  of  the  heavier  work,  and 
they  drive  off  from  the  lighter  work  numbers  of  old  women 
and  very  young  children.  The  overpowering  competition 
crushes  the  weakest  of  the  manual  labourers.  The  fearful  in- 
crease in  death  from  starvation  during  the  last  10  years  in 
London  runs  parallel  with  the  extension  of  machine  sewing.* 

*  An  instance.     The  weekly  report  of  deaths  by  the  Registrar  General  dated  26th 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  517 

The  new  workwomen  turn  tlie  machine  by  hand  and  foot,  or 
by  hand  alone^  sometimes  sitting,  sometimes  standing,  ac- 
cording to  the  weight,  size  and  special  make  of  the  machine, 
and  expend  a  great  deal  of  labour-power.  Their  occupation 
is  unwliolesome,  owing  to  the  long  hours,  although  in  most 
cases  they  are  not  so  long  as  under  the  old  system.  Wher- 
ever the  sewing  machine  locates  itself  in  narrow  and  already 
over-crowded  workrooms,  it  adds  to  the  unwholesome  in- 
fluences. "The  effect,"  says  Mr.  Lord,  "on  entering  low- 
ceiled  workrooms  in  which  30  to  40  machine  hands  are  work- 
ing is  unbearable.  .  .  .  The  heat,  partly  due  to  the  gas 
stoves  used  for  warming  the  irons,  is  horrible.  .  .  .  Even 
when  moderate  hours  of  work,  i.e.^  from  8  in  the  morning  tOl 
6  in  the  evening,  prevail  in  such  places,  yet  3  or  4  persons 
fall  into  a  sAvoon  regularly  every  day."^ 

The  revolution  ia  the  industrial  methods  which  is  the 
necessary  result  of  the  revolution  in  the  instruments  of  pro- 
duction, is  effected  by  a  medley  of  transition  forms.  These 
forms  vary  according  to  the  extent  to  which  the  sewing  ma- 
chine has  become  prevalent  in  one  branch  of  industry  or  the 
other,  to  the  time  during  which  it  has  been  in  operation,  to  the 
previous  condition  of  the  workpeople,  to  the  preponderance 
of  manufacture,  of  handicrafts  or  of  domestic  industry,  to  the 
rent  of  the  workrooms,  &c.^  In  dressmaking,  for  instance, 
where  the  labour  for  the  most  part  was  already  organised, 
chiefly  by  simple  co-operation,  the  sewing  machine  at  first 
formed  nearly  a  new  factor  in  that  manufacturing  industry. 
In  tailoring,  shirtmaking,  shoemaking,  &c.,  all  the  forms  are 
intermingled.  Here  the  factory  system  proper.  There  mid- 
dlemen receive  the  raw  material  from,  the  capitalist  en  chef, 
and  group  around  their  sewing  machines,  in  "chambers"  and 
"garrets,"  from  10  to  50  or  more  workwomen.     Finally,  as  is 

Feb.,  1S64,  contains  5  cases  of  death  from  starvation.  On  the  same  day  the  "Times" 
reports  another  case.     Six  victims  of  starvation  in  one  week! 

1  Child.  Empl.  Comm.,  Second  Rep.,  1864,  p.  Ixvii.  n.  406-9,  p,  84,  n.  124,  p. 
Ixxiii.,   n.   441,   p.   66,   n.   6,  p.   84,   n.   126,   p.    78,  n.   76,   n.    69,   p.   Ixxii.,    n.   483. 

'  "The  rental  of  premises  required  for  workrooms  seems  the  element  which 
ultimately  determines  the  point;  and  consequently  it  is  in  the  metropolis,  that  the 
old  system  of  giving  work  out  to  small  employers  and  families  has  been  longest  re- 
tained, and  earliest  returned  to."  (1.  c.  p.  83,  n.  123.)  The  concluding  statement 
in    this   quotation    refers   exclusively    to    shoemaking. 


5i8  Capitalist  Production. 

always  the  case  with  machinery  when  not  organised  into  a 
system,  and  when  it  can  also  be  used  in  dwarfish  proportions, 
handicraftsmen  and  domestic  workers,  along  with  their  fam- 
ilies, or  with  a  little  extra  labour  from  without,  makes  use  of 
their  own  sewing  machines,^  The  system  actually  prevalent 
in  England  is,  that  the  capitalist  concentrates  a  large  number 
of  machines  on  his  premises,  and  then  distributes  the  pro- 
duce of  those  machines  for  further  manipulation  amongst  the 
domestic  workers.^  The  variety  of  the  transition  forms,  how- 
ever, does  not  conceal  the  tendency  to  conversion  into  the 
factor}'  system  proper.  '  This  tendency  is  nurtured  by  the  very 
nature  of  the  sewing  machine,  the  manifold  uses  of  which 
push  on  the  concentration,  under  one  roof,  and  one  manage- 
ment, of  previously  separated  branches  of  a  trade.  It  is  also 
favoured  by  the  circumstance  that  preparatory  needlework, 
and  certain  other  operations,  are  most  conveniently  done  on 
the  premises  where  the  machine  is  at  work ;  as  well  as  by  the 
inevitable  expropriation  of  the  hand  sewers,  and  of  the  do- 
mestic workers  who  work  with  their  own  machines.  This 
fate  has  already  in  part  overtaken  them.  The  constantly 
increasing  amount  of  capital  invested  in  sewing  machines,* 
gives  the  spur  to  the  production  of,  and  gluts  the  markets 
with,  machine-made  articles,  thereby  giving  the  signal  to  the 
domestic  workers  for  the  sale  of  their  machines.  The  over- 
production of  sewing  machines  themselves,  causes  their  pro- 
ducers, in  bad  w'ant  of  a  sale,  to  let  them  out  for  so  much  a 
week,  thus  crushing  by  their  deadly  competition  the  small 
owners  of  machines.^  Constant  changes  in  the  construction 
of  the  machines,  and  their  ever-increasing  cheapness,  de- 
preciate day  by  day  the  older  makes,  and  allow  of  their  being 
sold  in  great  numbers,  at  absurd  prices,  to  large  capitalists, 
who  alone  can  thus  employ  them  at  a  profit.  Finally,  the  sub- 
stitution of  the  steam-engine  for  man  gives  in  this,  as  in  all 
similar  revolutions,  the  finishing  blow.     At  first,  the  use  of 

*  In   glove-making  and  other  industries  where  the  condition   of  the  workpeople   is 
hardly  distinguishable  from  that  of  paupers,  this  does  not  occur. 

*1.  c.  p.  2,  n.  122. 

*  In   the  wholesale  boot   and  shoe   trade   of  Leicester  alone,   there   were  in   1864, 
800  sewing  machines  already  in  use. 

*1.  c.  p.  84,  n.  124. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  519 

steam  power  meets  with  mere  technical  difficulties,  such  as 
unsteadiness  in  the  machines,  difficulty  in  controlling  their 
speed,  rapid  wear  and  tear  of  the  lighter  machines,  &c.,  all 
of  which  are  soon  overcome  by  experience.^  If,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  concentration  of  many  machines  in  large  manu- 
factories leads  to  the  use  of  steam  power,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  competition  of  steam  with  human  muscles  hastens  on  the 
concentration  of  workpeople  and  machines  in  large  factories. 
Thus  England  is  at  present  experiencing,  not  only  in  the 
colossal  industry  of  making  wearing  apparel,  hut  in  most  of 
the  other  trades  mentioned  above,  the  conversion  of  manu- 
facture, of  handicrafts,  and  of  domestic  work  into  the  factory 
system,  after  each  of  those  forms  of  production,  totally 
changed  and  disorganized  under  the  influence  of  modern  in- 
dustry, has  long  ago  reproduced,  and  even  overdone,  all  the 
horrors  of  the  factory  system,  without  participating  in  any  of 
the  elements  of  social  progress  it  contains.^ 

This  industrial  revolution  which  takes  place  spontaneously, 
is  artificially  helped  on  by  the  extension  of  the  Factory  Acts 
to  all  industries  in  which  women,  young  persons  and  children 
are  employed.  The  compulsory  regulation  of  the  working 
day  as  regards  its  length,  pauses,  beginning  and  end,  the  sys- 
tem of  relays  of  children,  the  exclusion  of  all  children  under  a 
certain  age,  &c.,  necessitates  on  the  one  hand  more  machinery^ 
and  the  substitution  of  steam  as  a  motive  power  in  the  place 

'  Instances:  The  Army  Clothing  Depot  at  Pimlico,  London,  the  Shirt  factory  of 
Tillie  and  Henderson  at  Londonderry,  and  the  clothes  factory  of  Messrs.  Tait  at 
Limerick  which  employs  about  1200  hands. 

'  "Tendency  to  factory  system"  (1.  c.  p.  Ixvii.).  "The  whole  employment  is  at 
this  time  in  a  state  of  transition,  and  is  undergoing  the  same  change  as  that  effected 
in  the  lace  trade,  weaving,  &c."  (1.  c.  n.  405.)  "A  complete  revolution"  (1.  c.  p. 
xlvi.  n.  318).  At  the  date  of  the  Child.  Empl.  Comm.  of  1840,  stocking  making  was 
still  done  by  manual  labour.  Since  1846  various  sorts  of  machines  have  been  in- 
troduced, which  are  now  driven  by  steam.  The  total  number  of  persons  of  both 
sexes  and  of  all  ages  from  3  years  upwards,  employed  in  stocking  making  in  Eng- 
land, was  in  1862  about  129,000.  Of  these  only  4063  were,  according  to  the  Parlia- 
mentary Return  of  the  11th  February,  1862,  working  under  the   Factory  Acts. 

3  Thus,  e.g.,  in  the  earthenware  trade,  Messrs.  Cochrane,  of  the  Britain  Pottery, 
Glasgow,  report:  "To  keep  up  our  quantity  we  have  gone  extensively  into  machines 
wrought  by  unskilled  labour,  and  every  day  convinces  us  that  we  can  produce  a 
greater  quantity  than  by  the  old  method."  ("Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,  31st  Oct., 
1865,"  p.  13.)  "The  effect  of  the  Fact.  Acts  is  to  force  on  the  further  introduc- 
tion of  machinery"   (1.  c,   p.   13-14). 


520  Capitalist  Production. 

of  muscles.^  On  the  other  hand,  in  order  to  make  up  for  the 
loss  of  time,  an  expansion  occurs  of  the  means  of  production 
used  in  common,  of  the  furnaces,  buildings,  &c. ;  in  one  word, 
greater  concentration  of  the  means  of  production  and  a  corres- 
pondingly greater  concourse  of  workpeople.  The  chief  objec- 
tion, repeatedly  and  passionately  urged  on  behalf  of  each 
manufacture  threatened  with  the  Factory  Act,  is  in  fact  this, 
that  in  order  to  continue  the  business  on  the  old  scale  a 
greater  outlay  of  capital  will  be  necessary.  But  as  regards 
labour  in  the  so-called  domestic  industries  and  the  inter- 
mediate forms  between  them  and  Manufacture,  so  soon  as 
limits  are  put  to  the  working  day  and  to  the  employment  of 
children,  those  industries  go  to  the  wall.  Unlimited  exploita- 
tion of  cheap  labour-power  is  the  sole  foundation  of  their 
power  to  compete. 

One  of  the  essential  conditions  for  the  existence  of  the  fac- 
tory system,  especially  when  the  length  of  the  working  day  is 
fixed,  is  certainty  in  the  result,  i.e.,  the  production  in  a  given 
time  of  a  given  quantity  of  commodities,  or  of  a  given  useful 
effect.  The  statutory  pauses  in  the  working  day,  moreover, 
imply  the  assumption  that  periodical  and  sudden  cessation  of 
the  work  does  no  harm  to  the  article  undergoing  the  process  of 
production.  This  certainty  in  the  result,  and  this  possibility 
of  interrupting  the  work  are,  of  course,  easier  to  be  attained 
in  the  purely  mechanical  industries  than  in  those  in  which 
chemical  and  physical  processes  play  a  part;  as,  for  instance, 
in  the  earthenware  trade,  in  bleaching,  dyeing,  baking,  and  in 
most  of  the  metal  industries.  Wherever  there  is  a  working 
day  without  restriction  as  to  length,  wherever  there  is  night 
work  and  unrestricted  waste  of  human  life,  there  the  slightest 
obstacle  presented  by  the  nature  of  the  work  to  a  change  for 
the  better  is  soon  looked  upon  as  an  everlasting  barrier  erected 
by  Nature.  No  poison  kills  vermin  with  more  certainty  than 
the  Factory  Act  removes  such  everlasting  barriers.  Xo  one 
made  a  greater  outcry  over  "impossibilities"  than  our  friends 
the  earthenwares   manufacturers.     In    1864,   however,    they 

*  Thus,  after  the  extension  of  the  Factory  Act  to  the  potteries,  great  increase  of 
.power- jiggers  in  place  of  hand-moved  jiggers. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry...  521 

were  brought  under  the  Act,  and  witliin  sixteen  months  every 
"impossibility"  had  vanished.  "The  improved  method," 
called  forth  by  the  Act,  "of  making  slip  by  pressure  instead 
of  by  exaporation,  the  newly-constructed  stoves  for  drying 
the  ware  in  its  green  state,  &c.,  are  each  events  of  great  im- 
portances in  'the  pottery  art,  and  mark  an  advance  which  the 
preceding  century  could  not  rival.  ...  It  has  even  con- 
siderably reduced  the  temperature  of  the  stoves  themselves 
with  a  considerable  saving  of  fuel,  and  with  a  readier ,  effect 
on  the  ware."^  In  spite  of  every  prophecy,  the  cost  price  of 
earthenware  did  not  rise,  but  the  quantity  produced  did,  and 
to  such  an  extent  that  the  export  for  the  twelve  months,  end- 
ing 'December,  1865,  exceeded  in  value  by  £138,628  the 
average  of  tlie  preceding  three  years.  In  the  manufacture  of 
matches  it  was  thought  to  be  an  indispensable  requirement, 
that  boys,  even  while  bolting  their  dinner,  should  go  on  dip- 
ping the  matches  in  melted  phosphorus,  the  poisonous  vapour 
from  which  rose  into  their  faces.  The  Factory  Act  (1864) 
made  the  saving  of  time  a  necessity,  and  so  forced  into  ex- 
istence a  dipping  machine,  the  vapour  from  which  could  not 
come  in  contact  with  the  workers.^  So,  at  the  present  time, 
in  those  branches  of  the  lace  manufacture  not  yet  subject  to 
the  Factory  Act,  it  is  maintained  that  the  meal  times  cannot 
be  regular  owing  to  the  different  periods  required  by  the 
various  kinds  of  lace  for  drying,  which  periods  vary  from 
three  minutes  up  to  an  hour  and  more.  To  this  the  Children's 
Employment  Commissioners  answer:  "The  circumstances  of 
this  case  are  precisely  analogous  to  that  of  the  paper-stainers, 
dealt  with  in  our  first  report.  Some  of  the  principal  manu- 
facturers in  the  trade  urged  that  in  consequence  of  the  nature 
of  the  materials  used,  and  their  various  processes,  they  w^ould 
be  unable,  without  serious  loss,  to  stop  for  meal  times  at  any 
given  moment.  But  it  was  seen  from  the  evidence  that,  by 
due  care  and  previous  arrangement,  the  apprehended  difficulty 

i"Report  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,  31st  Oct.,   1865,"  pp.  96  and  127. 

'  The  introduction  of  this  and  other  machinery  into  match-making  caused  in  one 
department  alone  230  young  persons  to  be  replaced  by  32  boys  and  girls  of  14  to  17 
years  of  age.  This  saving  in  labour  was  carried  still  further  in  1865,  by  the  em- 
ployment of  steam  power. 


522  Capitalist  Production. 

would  be  got  over;  and  accordingly,  by  clause  G  of  section  6 
of  the  Factory  Acts  Extension  Act,  passed  during  this  Session 
of  Parliament,  an  interval  of  eighteen  months  is  given  to 
thcni  from  the  passing  of  the  Act  before  they  are  required 
to  conform  to  the  meal  hours,  specified  by  the  Factory  Acts."^ 
Hardly  had  the  Act  been  passed  when  our  friends  the  manu- 
facturers found  out:  "The  inconveniences  we  expected  to 
arise  from  the  introduction  of  the  Factory  Acts  into  our 
branch  of  manufacture,  I  am  happy  to  say,  have  not  arisen. 
We  do  not  find  the  production  at  all  interfered  with ;  in 
short,  we  produce  more  in  the  same  time."^  It  is  evident 
that  the  English  legislature,  which  certainly  no  one  will 
venture  to  reproach  with  being  overdosed  with  genius,  has 
been  led  by  experience  to  the  conclusion  that  a  simple  com- 
pulsory law  is  sufficient  to  enact  away  all  the  so-called  im- 
pediments, opposed  by  the  nature  of  the  process,  to  the  re- 
striction and  regulation  of  the  working  day.  Hence,  on 
the  introduction  of  the  Factory  Act  into  a  given  industry, 
a  period  varying  from  six  to  eighteen  months  is  fixed  within 
which  it  is  incumbent  on  the  manufacturers  to  remove  all 
technical  impediments  to  the  working  of  the  Act.  Mira- 
beau's  "Impossible!  ne  me  dites  jamaisce  bete  do  mot!"  is  par- 
ticularly applicable  to  modern  technology.  But  though  the 
Factory  Acts  thus  artificially  ripen  the  material  elements 
necessary  for  the  conversion  of  the  manufacturing  system  into 
the  factory  system,  yet  at  the  same  time,  owing  to  the  neces- 
sity they  impose  for  greater  outlay  of  capital,  they  hasten 
on  the  decline  of  the  small  masters,  and  the  concentration  of 
capital.^ 

Besides  the  purely  technical  impediments  that  are  remov- 
able by  technical  means,  the  irregular  habits  of  the  work- 

» "Ch.   Empl.   Comm.,    II.    Rep.,   1864,"  p.   ix.,   n.   50. 

»"Rep.   of  Insp.   of  Fact.,  31st  Oct.   1865,"  p.   22. 

*  "But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  those  improvements,  though  carried  out  fully 
1.1  some  establishments,  are  by  no  means  general,  and  are  not  capable  of  being 
brought  into  use  in  many  of  the  old  manufactories  without  an  expenditure  of  capital 
beyond  the  means  of  many  of  the  present  occupiers."  "I  cannot  but  rejoice,"  writes 
Sub-Insp.  May,  "that  notwithstanding  the  temporary  disorganization  which  in- 
evitably follows  the  introduction  of  such  a  measure  (as  the  Factory  Act  Extension 
.\ct),  and  is,  indeed,  directly  indicative  of  the  evils  which  it  was  intended  to  rem- 
t<!y.  &c."     (Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,  31st  Oct.,  1865.) 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  523 

people  tliem selves  obstruct  the  regulation  of  the  hours  of 
labour.  This  is  especially  the  case  where  piece  wage  pre- 
dominates, and  where  loss  of  time  in  one  part  of  the  day  or 
week  can  be  made  good  by  subsequent  overtime,  or  by  night 
work,  a  process  which  brutalises  the  adult  workman,  and 
ruins  his  wife  and  children.^  Although  thisi  absence  of 
regularity  in  the  expenditure  of  labour-power  is  a  natural 
and  rude  reaction  against  the  tedium  of  monotonous  drudgery, 
it  originates,  also,  to  a  much  greater  degree  from  anarchy 
in  production,  anarchy  that  in  its  turn  pre-supposes  un- 
bridled exploitation  of  labour-power  by  the  capitalist.  Be- 
sides the  general  periodic  changes  of  the  industrial  cycle,  and 
the  special  fluctuations  in  the  markets  to  which  each  industry 
is  subject,  we  may  also  reckon  what  is  called  "the  season," 
dependent  either  on  the  periodicity  of  favourable  seasons 
of  the  year  for  navigation ;  or  on  fashion,  and  the  sudden 
placing  of  large  orders  that  have  to  be  executed  in  the  shortest 
possible  time.  The  habit  of  giving  such  orders  becomes  more 
frequent  with  the  extension  of  railways  and  telegraphs, 
"The  extension  of  the  railway  system  throughout  the  coun- 
try has  tended  very  much  to  encourage  giving  short  notice. 
Purchasers  now  come  up  from  Glasgow,  Manchester,  and  Ed- 
inburgh once  every  fortnight  or  so  to  the  wholesale  city 
warehouses  which  we  supply,  and  give  small  orders  requiring 
immediate  execution,  instead  of  buying  from  stock  as  they 
used  to  do.  Years  ago  we  were  always  able  to  work  in  the 
slack  times,  so  as  to  meet  the  demand  of  the  next  season, 
but  now  no  one  can  say  beforehand  what  will  be  the  de- 
mand then."^ 

^  With  blast  furnaces,  for  instance,  "work  towards  the  end  of  the  week  being 
generally  much  increased  in  duration  in  consequence  of  the  habit  of  the  men  of 
idling  on  Monday  and  occasionally  during  a  part  or  the  whole  of  Tuesday  also." 
(Child.  Empl.  Comm.,  III.  Rep.,  p.  vi.)  "The  little  masters  generally  have  very 
irregular  hours.  They  lose  two  or  three  days,  and  then  work  all  night  to  make  it 
up.  .  .  .  They  always  employ  their  own  children,  if  they  have  any."  (1.  c,  p. 
vii.)  "The  want  of  regularity  in  coming  to  work,  encouraged  by  the  possibility  and 
practice  of  making  up  for  this  by  working  longer  hours."  (1.  c,  p.  xviii.)  "In 
Birmingham  ....  an  enormous  amount  of  time  is  lost  ....  idling  part 
of  the  time,  slaving  the  rest."      (1.  c,  p.   xi.) 

2  "Child  Empl.  Comm.,  IV.  Rep.  p.  xxxii.,"  "The  extension  of  the  railway  sys- 
tem is  said  to  have  contributed  greatly  to  this  custom  of  giving  sudden  orders,  and 
the  consequent  hurry,  neglect  of  meal  times,  and  late  hours  of  the  workpeople." 
(1.  c,  p.  xxxi.) 


524  Capitalist  Production. 

In  those  factories  and  manufactories  that  are  not  yet  sub- 
ject to  the  Factory  Acts,  the  most  fearful  overwork  prevails 
periodically  during  what  is  called  the  season,  in  consequence 
of  sudden  orders.  In  the  outside  department  of  the  factory, 
of  the  manufactory,  and  of  the  warehouse,  the  so-called  do- 
mestic workers,  whose  employment  is  at  the  best  irregular, 
are  entirely  dependent  for  their  raw  material  and  their  orders 
on  the  caprice  of  the  capitalist,  who,  in  this  industry,  is  not 
hampered  by  any  regard  for  depreciation  of  his  buildings 
and  machinery,  and  risks  nothing  by  a  stoppage  of  work, 
but  the  skin  of  the  worker  himself.  Here  then  he  sets  him- 
self systematically  to  work  to  form  an  industrial  reserve  force 
that  shall  be  ready  at  a  moment's  notice;  during  one  part  of 
the  year  he  decimates  this  force  by  the  most  inhuman  toil, 
during  the  other  part,  he  lets  it  starve  for  want  of  work. 
"The  employers  avail  themselves  of  the  habitual  irregularity 
in  the  home-work,  when  any  extra  work  is  wanted  at  a  push, 
so  that  the  work  goes  on  till  11,  and  12  p.m.  or  2  a.m.,  or  as 
the  usual  phrase  is,  "all  hours,"  and  that  in  localities  where 
"the  stench  is  enough  to  knock  you  dov«m,  you  go  to  the  door, 
perhaps,  and  open  it,  but  shudder  to  go  further."^  "They 
are  curious  men,"  said  one  of  the  witnesses,  a  shoemaker, 
speaking  of  the  masters,  "they  think  it  does  a  boy  no  harm  to 
work  too  hard  for  half  the  year,  if  he  is  nearly  idle  for  the 
other  half."2 

In  the  same  way  as  technical  impediments,  so  too,  those 
"usages  which  have  grown  with  the  growth  of  trade"  were 
and  still  are  proclaimed  by  interested  capitalists  as  obstacles 
due  to  the  nature  of  the  work.  This  was  a  favorite  cry  of  the 
cotton  lords  at  the  time  they  were  first  threatened  with  the 
Factory  Acts.  Although  their  industry  more  than  any  other 
depends  on  navigation,  yet  experience  has  given  them  the  lie. 
Since  then,  every  pretended  obstruction  to  business  has  been 
treated   by  the   Factory  inspectors   as   a   mere  sham.^     The 

*  Ch.    Empl.   Comm.   IV.    Rep.   p.   xxxv.   n.   236,   237. 
»Ch.  Empl.  Comm.   IV.  Rep.  p.  127,  n.  56. 

*  "With  respect  to  the  loss  of  trade  by  non-completion  of  shipping  orders  in  time, 
I  remember  that  this  was  the  pet  argument  of  the  factory  masters  in  1832  and  1833. 
Nothing  that  can  be  advanced  now  on  this  subject,  could  have  the  force  that  it  had 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  525 

tlioroughly  conscientious  investigations  of  the  Children's  Em- 
ployment Commission  prove  that  the  effect  of  the  regulation 
of  the  hours  of  work,  in  some  industries,  was  to  spread  the 
mass  of  labour  previously  employed  more  evenly  over  the 
whole  year;^  that  this  regulation  was  the  first  rational  bridle 
on  the  murderous,  meaningless  caprices  of  fashion,^  caprices 
that  consort  so  badly  with  the  system  of  modern  industry; 
that  the  development  of  ocean  navigation  and  of  the  means 
of  communication  generally,  has  swept  away  the  technical 
basis  on  which  season-work  was  really  supported,^  and  that 
all  other  so-called  unconquerable  difficvdties  vanish  before 
larger  buildings,  additional  machinery,  increase  in  the  num- 
ber of  workpeople  employed, "*  and  the  alterations  caused  by 
all  these  in  the  mode  of  conducting  the  wholesale  trade.  ^  But 
for  all  that,  capital  never  becomes  reconciled  to  such  changes 
• — ^and  this  is  admitted  over  and  over  again  by  its  own  repre- 
sentatives— except  "under  the  pressure  of  a  General  Act  of 

then,  before  steam  had  halved  all  distances  and  established  new  regulations  for 
transit.  It  quite  failed  at  that  time  of  proof  when  put  to  the  test,  and  again  it  will 
certainly  fail  should  it  have  to  be  tried."  (Reports  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,  31  Oct.,  1862, 
pp.    54,    55. 

*  Ch.  Empl.  Comm.  IV.  Rep.  p.  xviii.  n.  118. 

*  John  Bellers  remarked  as  far  back  as  1699:  "The  uncertainty  of  fashions  does 
increase  necessitous  poor.  It  has  two  great  mischiefs  in  it.  1st,  The  journeymen 
are  miserable  in  winter  for  want  of  work,  the  mercers  and  master  weavers  not  dar- 
ing to  lay  out  their  stocks  to  keep  the  journeymen  employed  before  the  spring 
comes,  and  they  know  what  the  fashion  will  then  be:  Sndly,  in  the  spring  the  jour- 
neymen are  not  sufficient,  but  the  master-weavers  must  draw  in  many  prentices,  that 
they  may  supply  the  trade  of  the  kingdom  in  a  quarter  or  half  a  year,  which  robs  the 
plough  of  hands,  drains  the  country  of  labourers,  and  in  a  great  part  stocks  the  city 
with  beggars,  and  starves  some  in  winter  that  are  ashamed  to  beg."  (Essays  about 
the  Poor,  Manufactures,  &c.,  p.  9.) 

3  Ch.  Empl.   Comm.  V.  Rep.  p.  171,  n.  34. 

*  The  evidence  of  some  Bradford  export-houses  is  as  follows:  "Under  these  cir- 
cumstances, it  seems  clear  that  no  boys  need  be  worked  longer  than  from  8  a.m.  to 
7  or  7.30  p.m.,  in  making  up.  It  is  merely  a  question  of  extra  hands  and  extra 
outlay.  If  some  masters  were  not  so  greedy,  the  boys  would  not  work  late;  an 
extra  machine  costs  only  £16  or  £18;  much  of  such  overtime  as  does  occur  is  to  be 
referred  to  an  insufficiency  of  appliances,  and  a  want  of  space."  Ch.  Empl.  Comm. 
V.  Rep.  p.  171,  n.  31,  36,  38. 

"  1.  c.  A  London  manufacturer,  who  in  other  respects  looks  upon  the  compulsory 
regulation  of  the  hours  of  labour  as  a  protection  for '  the  workpeople  against  the 
manufacturers,  and  for  the  manufacturers  themselves  against  the  wholesale  trade, 
states:  "The  pressure  in  our  business  is  caused  by  the  shippers,  who  want,  e.g.,  to 
send  the  goods  by  sailing  vessel  so  as  to  reach  their  destination  at  a  given  season, 
and  at  the  same  time  want  to  pocket  the  difference  in  freight  between  a  sailing 
vessel  and  a  steamship,  or  who  select  the  earlier  of  two  steamships  in  order  to  be 
in   the   foreign  market  before  their  competitors." 


526  Capitalist  Production. 

Parliament"^    for   the   compulsory   regulation   of  the    hours 
of  labour. 

SECTION    9. THE   FACTORY  ACTS.       SANITABY   AND   EDUCATION 

CLAUSES     OF     THE     SAME.       THEIR    GENERAL.     EXTENSION     IN 
ENGLAND. 

Factory  legislation,  that  first  conscious  and  methodical  re- 
action of  society  against  the  spontaneously  developed  form  of 
the  process  of  production,  is,  as  we  have  seen,  just  as  much 
the  necessary  product  of  modern  industry  as  cotton  yarn,  self- 
actors,  and  the  electric  telegraph.  Before  passing  to  the  con- 
sideration of  the  extension  of  that  legislation  in  England,  we 
shall  shortly  notice  certain  clauses  contained  in  the  Factory 
Acts,  and  not  relating  to  the  hours  of  work. 

Apart  from  their  wording,  which  makes  it  easy  for  the 
capitalist  to  evade  them,  the  sanitary  clauses  are  extremely 
meagre,  and,  in  fact,  limited  to  provisions  for  whitewashing 
the  walls,  for  insuring  cleanliness  in  some  other  matters,  for 
ventilation,  and  for  protection  against  dangerous  machinery. 
In  the  third  book  we  shall  return  again  to  the  fanatical  op- 
position of  the  masters  to  those  clauses  which  imposed  upon 
them  a  slight  expenditure  on  appliances  for  protecting  the 
limbs  of  their  workpeople,  an  opposition  that  throws  a  fresh 
and  glaring  light  on  the  free  trade  dogma,  according  to  which, 
in  a  society  with  conflicting  interests,  each  individual  neces- 
sarily furthers  the  common  weal  by  seeking  nothing  but  his 
own  personal  advantage!  One  example  is  enough.  The 
reader  knows  that  during  the  last  20  years,  the  flax  industry 
has  very  much  extended,  and  that,  with  that  extension,  the 
number  of  scutching  mills  in  Ireland  has  increased.  In 
1864  there  were  in  that  country  1800  of  these  mills.  Regu- 
larly in  autumn  and  winter  women  and  "young  persons,"  the 
wives,  sons,  and  daughters  of  the  neighboring  small  farmers, 
a  class  of  people  totally  unaccustomed  to  machinery,  are 
taken  from  field  labour  to  feed  the  rollers  of  the  scutching 

*  "This  could  be  obviated,"  says  a  manufacturer,  "at  the  expense  of  an  enlarge- 
ment of  the  works  under  the  pressure  of  a  General  Act  of  Parliament."  1.  c 
p.  X.  n.  38. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  527 

mills  with  flax.  The  accidents^  both  as  regards  number  and 
kind,  are  wholly  unexampled  in  the  history  of  machinery.  In 
one  scutching  mill,  at  Kildinan,  near  Cork,  there  occurred 
between  1852  and  1856,  six  fatal  accidents  and  sixty 
mutilations;  every  one  of  which  might  have  been  prevented 
by  the  simplest  appliances,  at  the  cost  of  a  few  shillings. 
Dr.  W.  White,  the  certifying  surgeon  for  factories  at  Down- 
patrick,  states  in  his  official  report,  dated  the  15th  December, 
1865 ;  "The  serious  accidents  at  the  scutching  mills  are  of 
the  most  fearful  nature.  In  many  cases  a  quarter  of  the 
body  is  torn  from  the  trunk,  and  either  involves  death,  or  a 
future  of  wretched  incapacity  and  suffering.  The  increase  of 
mills  in  the  country  will,  of  course,  extend  these  dreadful  re- 
sults, and  it  will  be  a  great  boon  if  they  are  brought  under 
the  legislature.  I  am  convinced  that  by  proper  supervision 
of  scutching  mills  a  vast  sacrifice  of  life  and  limb  would  be 
averted."^ 

What  could  possibly  show  better  the  character  of  the  capi- 
talist mode  of  production,  than  the  necessity  that  exists  for 
forcing  upon  it,  by  Acts  of  Parliament,  the  simplest  ap- 
pliances for  maintaining  cleanliness  and  health  ?  In  the  pot- 
teries the  Factory  Act  of  1864  "has  whitewashed  and  cleansed 
upwards  of  200  workshops,  after  a  period  of  abstinence  from 
any  such  cleaning,  in  many  cases  of  20  years,  and  in  some, 
entirely,"  (this  is  the  "abstinence"  of  the  capitalist!)  "in 
which  were  employed  27,800  artisans,  hitherto  breathing 
through  protracted  days  and  often  nights  of  labour,  a  mephitic 
atmosphere,  and  which  rendered  an  other\vise  comparatively 
innocuous  occupation,  pregnant  with  disease  and  death.  The 
Act  has  improved  the  ventilation  very  much."^  At  the  same 
time,  this  portion  of  the  Act  strikingly  shows  that  the  capi- 
talist mode  of  production,  owing  to  its  very  nature,  excludes 
all  rational  improvement  beyond  a  certain  point.  It  has 
been  stated  over  and  over  again  that  the  English  doctors  are 
unanimous  in  declaring  that  where  the  work  is  continuous, 
600  cubic  feet  is  the  very  least  space  that  should  be  allowed 

*  1.  c.  p.  XV.  n.  72.  sqq. 

«  Rep.  Insp.   Fact.,  31st  October,  1865,  p.  127. 


528  Capitalist  Production. 

for  each  person.  Now,  if  the  Factory  Acts,  owing  to  their 
compulsory  provisions,  indirectly  hasten  on  the  conversion  of 
small  workshops  into  factories,  thus  indirectly  attacking  the 
proprietary  rights  of  the  smaller  capitalists,  and  assuring  a 
monopoly  to  the  great  ones,  so,  if  it  were  made  obligatory  to 
provide  the  proper  space  for  each  workman  in  every  work- 
shop, thousands  of  small  employers  would,  at  one  full  swoop, 
b©  expropriated  directly !  The  very  root  of  the  capitalist 
mode  of  production,  i.e.,  the  self-expansion  of  all  capital,  large 
or  small,  by  means  of  the  "free"  purchase  and  consumption 
of  labour-power,  would  be  attacked.  Factory  legislation  is 
therefore  brought  to  a  dead-lock  before  these  500  cubic  feet 
of  breathing  space.  The  sanitary  officers,  the  industrial  in- 
quiry commissioners,  the  factory  inspectors,  all  harp,  over 
and  over  again,  upon  the  necessity  for  those  500  cubic  feet, 
and  upon  the  impossibility  of  wringing  them  out  of  capital. 
They  thus,  in  fact,  declare  that  consumption  and  other  lung 
diseases  among  the  workpeople  are  necessary  conditions  to 
the  existence  of  capital.^ 

Paltry  as  the  education  clauses  of  the  Act  appear  on  the 
whole,  yet  they  proclaim  elementary  education  to  be  an  in- 
dispensable condition  to  the  employment  of  children.^  The 
success  of  those  clauses  proved  for  the  first  time  the  possi- 
bility of  combining  education  and  gymnastics*  with  manual 

*  It  has  been  found  out  by  experiment,  that  with  each  respiration  of  average  in- 
tensity made  by  a  healthy  average  individual,  about  25  cubic  inches  of  air  are  con- 
sumed, and  that  about  20  respirations  are  made  in  each  minute.  Hence  the  air 
inhaled  in  24  hours  by  each  individual  is  about  720,000  cubic  inches,  or  416  cubic 
feet.  It  is  clear,  however,  that  air  which  has  been  once  breathed,  can  no  longer 
serve  for  the  same  process  until  it  has  been  purified  in  the  great  workshop  of 
Nature.  According  to  the  experiments  of  Valentin  and  Brunner,  it  appears  that 
a  healthy  man  gives  off  about  1300  cubic  inches  of  carbonic  acid  per  hour;  this  would 
give  about  8  ounces  of  solid  carbon  thrown  off  from  the  lungs  in  24  hours.  "Every 
man   should  have  at  least   800   cubic   feet."     (Huxley.) 

*  According  to  the  English  Factory  Act,  parents  cannot  send  their  children  under 
14  years  of  age  into  Factories  under  the  control  of  the  Act,  unless  at  the  same 
time  they  allow  them  to  receive  elementary  education.  The  manufacturer  is  re- 
sponsible for  compliance  with  the  Act.  "Factory  education  is  compulsory,  and  it 
is  a  condition  of  labour."     (Rep.   Insp.    Fact.   31st  Oct.,  1863,  p.   111. 

*  On  the  very  advantageous  results  of  combining  gymnastics  (and  drilling  in  the 
case  of  boys)  with  compulsory  education  for  factory  children  and  pauper  scholars, 
see  the  speech  of  N.  W.  Senior  at  the  seventh  annual  congress  of  "The  National 
Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Social  Science,"  in  "Report  of  Proceedings,  &c., 
Lond.  1863,"  p.  63,  64,  also  the  Rep.  Insp.  Fact.,  31st  Oct.,  1865,  p,  118,  119,  120, 
126  sqq. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  529 

labour,  and,  consequently,  of  combining  manual  labour  with 
education  and  gymnastics.  The  factory  inspectors  soon  found 
out  by  questioning  the  schoolmasters,  that  the  factory  children, 
although  receiving  only  one  half  the  education  of  the  regular 
day  scholars,  yet  learnt  quite  as  much  and  often  more.  ^'This 
can  be  accounted  for  by  the  simple  fact  that,  with  only  being 
at  school  for  one  half  of  the  day,  they  are  always  fresh,  and 
nearly  always  ready  and  willing  to  receive  instruction.  The 
system  on  which  they  work,  half  manual  labour,  and  half 
school,  renders  each  employment  a  rest  and  a  relief  to  the 
other;  consequently,  both  are  far  more  congenial  to  the  child, 
than  would  be  the  case  were  he  kept  constantly  at  one.  It  is 
quite  clear  that  a  boy  who  has  been  at  school  all  the  morning, 
cannot  (in  hot  weather  particularly)  cope  with  one  who  comes 
fresh  and  bright  from  his  work."^  Further  information  on 
this  point  will  be  found  in  Senior's  speech  at  the  Social 
Science  Congress  at  Edinburgh  in  1863.  He  there  shows, 
amongst  other  things,  how  the  monotonous  and  uselessly  long 
school  hours  of  the  children  of  the  upper  and  middle  classes, 
uselessly  add  to  the  labour  of  the  teacher,  "while  he  not  only 
fruitlessly,  but  absolutely  injuriously,  wastes  the  time,  health, 
and  energy  of  the  children."^  From  the  Factory  system 
budded,  as  Robert  Owen  has  shown  us  in  detail,  the  germ  of 
the  education  of  the  future,  an  education  that  will,  in  the 
case   of  every  child   over  a  given   age,   combine  productive 

*  Rep.  Insp.  Fact.  31st  Oct.  1865,  p.  118.  A  silk  manufacturer  naively  states  to 
the  Children's  Employment  Commissioners:  "I  am  quite  sure  that  the  true  secret 
of  producing  efficient  workpeople  is  to  be  found  in  uniting  education  and  labour 
from  a  period  of  childhood.  Of  course  the  occupation  must  not  be  too  severe,  nor 
irksome,  or  unhealthy.  But  of  the  advantage  of  the  union  I  have  no  doubt.  I  wish 
my  own  children  could  have  some  work  as  well  as  play  to  give  variety  to  their 
schooling."     (Ch.  Empl.  Comm.  V.  Rep.  p.  83.  n.  36.) 

^  Senior,  1.  c.  p.  66.  How  Modern  Industry,  when  it  has  attained  to  a  certain 
pitch,  is  capable,  by  the  revolution  it  effects  in  the  mode  of  production  and  in  the 
social  conditions  of  production,  of  also  revolutionizing  people's  minds,  is  strikingly 
shown  by  a  comparison  of  Senior's  speech  in  1863,  with  his  philippic  against  the 
Factory  Act  of  1833;  or  by  a  comparison,  of  the  views  of  the  congress  above  referred 
to,  with  the  fact  that  in  certain  country  districts  of  England  poor  parents  are  for- 
bidden, on  pain  of  death  by  starvation,  to  educate  their  children.  Thus,  e.g.,  Mr. 
Snell  reports  it  to  be  a  common  occurrence  in  Somersetshire  that,  when  a  poor  per- 
son claims  parish  relief,  he  is  compelled  to  take  his  children  from  school.  Mr. 
Wollarton,  the  clergyman  at  Feltham,  also  tells  of  cases  where  all  relief  was  denied 
to  certain  families  "because  they  were  sending  their  children  to  school!" 

2H 


530  Capitalist  Production. 

labour  with  instruction  and  gymnastics,  not  only  as  one  of 
the  methods  of  adding  to  the  efficiency  of  production,  but  as 
the  only  method  of  producing  fully  developed  human  beings. 

Modern  Industry,  as  we  have  seen,  sweeps  away  by  techni- 
cal means  the  manufacturing  division  of  labour,  under  which 
each  man  is  bound  hand  and  foot  for  life  to  a  single  detail- 
operation.  At  the  same  time,  the  capitalistic  form  of  that  in- 
dustry reproduces  this  same  division  of  labour  in  a  still  more 
monstrous  shape;  in  the  factory  proper,  by  converting  the 
workman  into  a  living  appendage  of  the  machine;  and  every- 
where outside  the  Factory,  partly  by  the  sporadic  use  of 
machinery  and  machine  workers,^  partly  by  re-establishing 
the  divisions  of  labour  on  a  fresh  basis  by  the  general  intro- 
duction of  the  labour  of  women  and  children,  and  of  cheap 
unskilled  labour. 

The  antagonism  between  the  manufacturing  division  of 
labour  and  the  methods  of  Modem  Industry  makes  itself 
forcibly  felt.  It  manifests  itself,  amongst  other  ways,  in  the 
frightful  fact  that  a  great  part  of  the  children  employed  in 
modem  factories  and  manufactures,  are  from  their  earliest 
years  riveted  to  the  most  simple  manipulations,  and  exploited 
for  years,  without  being  taught  a  single  sort  of  work  that 
would  afterwards  make  them  of  use,  even  in  the  same  manufac- 
tory or  factory.  In  the  English  letter  press  printing  trade,  for 
example,  there  existed  formerly  a  system,  corresponding  to 
that  in  the  old  manufactures  and  handicrafts,  of  advancing 
the  apprentices  from  easy  to  more  and  more  difficult  work. 
They  went  through  a  course  of  teaching  till  they  were  finished 
printers.     To  be  able  to  read  and  write  was  for  every  one  of 

^  Wherever  handicraft-machines,  driven  by  men,  compete  directly  or  indirectly 
with  more  developed  machines  driven  by  mechanical  power,  a  great  change  takes 
place  with  regard  to  the  labourer  who  drives  the  machine.  At  first  the  steam-engine 
replaces  this  labourer,  afterwards  he  must  replace  the  steam-engine.  Consequently 
the  tension  and  the  amount  of  labour-power  expended  become  monstrous,  and 
especially  so  in  the  case  of  the  children  who  are  condemned  to  this  torture.  Thus 
Mr.  Longe,  one  of  the  commissioners,  found  in  Coventry  and  the  neighbourhood 
boys  of  from  10  to  15  years  employed  in  driving  the  ribbon  looms,  not  to  mention 
younger  children  who  had  to  drive  smaller  machines.  "It  is  extraordinarily  fatiguing 
work.  The  boy  is  a  mere  substitute  for  steam-power."  (Ch.  Empl.  Comm.  V.  Rep. 
1S66,  p.  114,  n.  6.)  As  to  the  fatal  consequences  of  "this  system  of  slavery,"  as 
the  official  report  styles  it,  see  1.  c.  p.  114  sqq. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  531 

them  a  requirement  of  tlieir  trade.  All  this  was  changed  hj 
the  printing  machine.  It  employs  two  sort  of  labourers,  one 
grown  up,  tenters,  the  other,  boys  mostly  from  11  to  17  years 
of  age  whose  sole  business  is  either  to  spread  the  sheets  of 
paper  under  the  machine,  or  to  take  from  it  the  printed  sheets. 
They  perform  this  weary  task,  in  London  especially,  for  14,  15, 
and  16  hours  at  a  stretch,  during  several  days  in  the  week,  and 
frequently  for  36  hours,  with  only  2  hours'  rest  for  meals  and 
sleep  !^  A  great  part  of  them  cannot  read,  and  they  are,  as  a 
rule,  utter  savages  and  very  extraordinary  creatures.  "  To 
qualify  them  for  the  work  which  they  have  to  do,  they  require 
no  intellectual  training;  there  is  little  room  in  it  for  skill,  and 
less  for  judgment ;  their  wages,  though  rather  high  for  boys,  do 
not  increase  proportionately  as  they  grow  up,  and  the  majority 
of  them  cannot  look  for  advancement  to  the  better  paid  and 
more  responsible  post  of  machine  minder,  because  while  each 
machine  has  but  one  minder,  it  has  at  least  two,  and  often  four 
boys  attached  to  it."^  As  soon  as  they  get  too  old  for  such 
child's  work,  that  is  about  17  at  the  latest,  they  are  discharged 
from  the  printing  establishments.  They  become  recruits  of 
crime.  Several  attempts  to  procure  them  employment  else- 
where, were  rendered  of  no  avail  by  their  ignorance  and 
brutality,  and  by  their  mental  and  bodily  degradation. 

As  with  the  division  of  labour  in  the  interior  of  the  manu- 
facturing workshops,  so  it  is  with  the  division  of  labour  in 
the  interior  of  society.  So  long  as  handicraft  and  manufacture 
form  the  general  groundwork  of  social  production,  the  sub- 
jection of  the  producer  to  one  branch  exclusively,  the  breaking 
up  of  the  multifariousness  of  his  employment,^  is  a  necessary 
step  in  the  development.     On  that  ground-work  each  separate 

11.  c.  p.  8,  n.  24. 

»1.  c.  p.  7,  n.  60. 

'  "In  some  parts  of  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  not  many  years  ago,  every  peasant, 
according  to  the  Statistical  Account,  made  his  own  shoes  of  leather  tanned  by  him- 
self. Many  a  shepherd  and  cottar  too,  with  his  wife  and  children,  appeared  at 
Church  in  clothes  which  had  been  touched  by  no  hands  but  their  own,  since  they 
were  shorn  from  the  sheep  and  sown  in  the  flaxfield.  In  the  preparation  of  these, 
it  is  added,  scarcely  a.  single  article  had  been  purchased,  except  the  awl,  needle, 
thimble,  and  a  very  few  parts  of  the  iron-work  employed  in  the  weaving.  The  dyes, 
too,  were  chiefly  extracted  by  the  women  from  trees,  shrubs  and  herbs."  (Dugald 
Stewart's    Works.     Hamilton's    Ed.,    Vol.    viii.,    p.    327-328.) 


532  Capitalist  Production. 

branch  of  production  acquires  empirically  the  form  that  is 
teclinically  suited  to  it,  slowly  perfects  it,  and,  so  soon  as  a 
given  degree  of  maturity  has  been  reached,  rapidly  crystallizes 
that  form.  The  only  thing,  that  here  and  there  causes  a 
change,  besides  new  raw  material  supplied  by  commerce,  is  the 
gradual  alteration  of  the  instruments  of  labour.  But  their 
form,  too,  once  definitely  settled  by  experience,  petrifies,  as  is 
proved  by  their  being  in  many  cases  handed  down  in  the  same 
form  by  one  generation  to  another  during  thousands  of  years. 
A  characteristic  feature  is,  that,  even  down  into  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  different  trades  were  called  "  mysteries  "  (mys- 
teres)  ^ ;  into  their  secrets  none  but  those  duly  initiated  could 
penetrate.  Modern  Industry  rent  the  veil  that  concealed  from 
men  their  own  social  process  of  production,  and  that  turned 
the  various,  spontaneously  divided  branches  of  production  into 
so  many  riddles,  not  only  to  outsiders,  but  even  to  the  initiated. 
The  principle  which  it  pursued,  of  resolving  each  process  into 
its  constituent  movements,  without  any  regard  to  their  possible 
execution  by  the  hand  of  man,  created  the  new  modern  science 
of  technology.  The  varied,  apparently  unconnected,  and  pet- 
rified forms  of  the  industrial  processes  now  resolved  themselves 
into  so  man  conscious  and  systematic  applications  of  natural 
science  to  the  attainment  of  given  useful  effects.  Technology 
also  discovered  the  few  main  fundamental  forms  of  motion, 
which,  despite  the  diversity  of  the  instruments  used,  are  neces- 
sarily taken  by  every  productive  action  of  the  human  body; 
just  as  the  science  of  mechanics  sees  in  the  most  complicated 
machinery  nothing  but  the  continual  repetition  of  the  simple 
mechanical  powers. 

Modem  Industry  never  looks  upon  and  treats  the  existing 
form  of  a  process  as  final.  The  technical  basis  of  that  industry 
is  therefore  revolutionary,  while  all  earlier  modes  of  produc- 
tion were  essentially  conservative.^     By  means  of  machinery, 

*  In  the  celebrated  "Ltvre  des  metiers"  of  Etienne  Boileau,  we  find  it  prescribed 
that  a  journeyman  on  being  admitted  among  the  masters  had  to  swear  "to  love  his 
brethren  with  brotherly  love,  to  support  them  in  their  respective  trades,  not  wilfully 
to  betray  the  secrets  of  the  trade,  and  besides,  in  the  interests  of  all,  not  to  recom- 
mend his  own  wares  by  calling  the  attention  of  the  buyer  to  defects  in  the  articles 
made  by   others." 

*  "The    bourgeoisie    cannot    exist    without    continually    revolutionizing    the    instru- 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  533 

chemical  ijrocesses  and  other  methods,  it  is  continually  causing 
changes  not  only  in  the  technical  basis  of  production,  but  also 
in  the  functions  of  the  labourer,  and  in  the  social  combinations 
of  the  labour-process.  At  the  same  time,  it  thereby  also 
revolutionizes  the  division  of  labour  within  the  society,  and 
incessantly  launches  masses  of  capital  and  of  vs^orkpeople  from 
one  branch  of  production  to  another.  But  if  Modern  Industry, 
by  its  very  nature,  therefore  necessitates  variation  of  labour, 
fluency  of  function,  universal  mobility  of  the  labourer,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  its  capitalistic  form,  it  reproduces  the  old 
division  of  labour  with  its  ossified  particularisations.  We 
have  seen  how  this  absolute  contradiction  between  the  techni- 
cal necessities  of  Modern  Industry,  and  the  social  character 
inherent  in  its  capitalistic  form,  dispels  all  fixity  and  security 
in  the  situation  of  the  labourer;  how  it  constantly  threatens, 
by  taking  away  the  instruments  of  labour,  to  snatch  from  his 
hands  his  means  of  subsistence,^  and,  by  suppressing  his  detail- 
function,  to  make  him  superfluoug.  We  have  seen,  too,  how 
this  antagonism  vents  its  rage  in  the  creation  of  that  monstros- 
ity, an  industrial  reserve  army,  kept  in  misery  in  order  to  be 
always  at  the  disposal  of  capital;  in  the  incessant  human 
sacrifices  from  among  the  working  class,  in  the  most  reckless 
squandering  of  labour-power,  and  in  the  devastation  caused  by 
a  social  anarchy  which  turns  every  economical  progress  into  a 
social  calamity.  This  is  the  negative  side.  But  if,  on  the  one 
hand,  variation  of  work  at  present  imposes  itself  after  the 
manner  of  an  overpowering  natural  law,  and  with  the  blindly 
destructive  action  of  a  natural  law  that  meets  with  resist- 

ments  of  production,  and  thereby  the  relations  of  production  and  all  the  social 
relations.  Conservation,  in  an  unaltered  form,  of  the  old  modes  of  production  was 
on  the  contrary  the  first  condition  of  existence  for  all  earlier  industrial  classes. 
Constant  revolution  in  production,  uninterrupted  disturbance  of  all  social  conditions, 
everlasting  uncertainty  and  agitation,  distinguish  the  bourgeois  epoch  from  all  earlier 
ones.  All  fixed,  fast-frozen  relations,  with  their  train  of  ancient  and  venerable 
prejudices  and  opinions,  are  swept  away,  all  new  formed  ones  become  antiquated 
before  they  can  ossify.  All  that  is  solid  melts  into  air,  all  that  is  holy  is  pro- 
faned, and  man  is  at  la-st  compelled  to  face  with  sober  senses  his  real  conditions 
of  life,  and  his  relations  with  his  kind.  (F.  Engels  and  Karl  Marx:  Manifest  der 
Kommunistischen  Partei.  Lond,  1848,  p.  5.) 

*  "You   take   my  life 
When  you  do  take  the  means  whereby  I  live."  Shakespearx. 


534  Capitalist  Production. 

ance,*  at  all  points,  Modern  Industry,  on  the  other  hand, 
through  its  catastrophes  imposes  the  necessity  of  recognising, 
as  a  fundamental  law  of  production,  variation  of  work,  conse- 
quently fitness  of  the  labourer  for  varied  work,  consequently 
the  greatest  possible  development  of  his  varied  aptitudes.  It 
becomes  a  question  of  life  and  death  for  society  to  adapt  the 
mode  of  production  to  the  normal  functioning  of  this  law, 
Modem  Industry,  indeed,  compels  society,  under  penalty  of 
death,  to  replace  the  detail-worker  of  to-day,  crippled  by  life- 
long repetition  of  one  and  the  same  trivial  operation,  and  thus 
reduced  to  the  mere  fragment  of  a  man,  by  the  fully  developed 
individual,  fit  for  a  variety  of  labours,  ready  to  face  any 
change  of  production,  and  to  whom  the  different  social  func- 
tions he  performs,  are  but  so  many  modes  of  giving  free  scope 
to  his  own  natural  and  acquired  powers. 

One  step  already  spontaneously  taken  towards  effecting  this 
revolution  is  the  establishment  of  technical  and  agricultural 
schools,  and  of  "ecoles  d'enseignement  professionnel,"  in  which 
the  children  of  the  working-men  receive  some  little  instruction 
in  technology  and  in  the  practical  handling  of  the  various 
implements  of  labour.  Though  the  Factory  Act,  that  first  and 
meagre  concession  wrung  from  capital,  is  limited  to  combining 
elementary  education  with  work  in  the  factory,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  when  the  working  class  comes  into  power,  as 
inevitably  it  must,  technical  instruction,  both  theoretical  and 
practical,  will  take  its  proper  place  in  the  working-class 
schools.  There  is  also  no  doubt  that  such  revolutionary  fer- 
ments, the  final  result  of  which  is  the  abolition  of  the  old  divi- 
sion of  labour,  are  diametrically  opposed  to  the  capitalisti  form 
of  production,  and  to  the  economic  status  of  the  labourer  cor- 
responding to  that  form.     But  the  historical  development  of 

^  A  French  workman,  on  his  return  from  San-Francisco,  writes  as  follows :  "I 
never  could  have  believed,  that  I  was  capable  of  working  at  the  various  occupations  I 
was  employed  on  in  California.  I  was  firmly  convinced  that  I  was  fit  for  nothing 
but  letter-press  printing.  .  .  .  Once  in  the  midst  of  this  world  of  adventurers, 
who  change  their  occupation  as  often  as  they  do  their  shirt,  egad,  I  did  as  the 
others.  As  mining  did  not  turn  out  remunerative  enough,  I  left  it  for  the  town, 
where  in  succession  I  became  typographer,  slater,  plumber,  &c.  In  consequence  of 
thus  finding  out  that  I  am  fit  for  any  sort  of  work,  I  feel  less  of  a  mollusk  and 
more  of  a  man."     (A.  Courbon.     De  I'enseignement  professionnel,  2eme  ed.  p.  50.) 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  535 

die  antagonisms,  immanent  in  a  given  form  of  production,  is 
the  only  way  in  which  that  form  of  production  can  be  dissolved 
and  a  new  form  established.  "l\e  sutor  ultra  crepidam" — 
this  nee  plus  ultra  of  handicraft  wisdom  became  sheer  non- 
sense, from  the  moment  the  watchmaker  Watt  invented  the 
steam-engine,  the  barber  Arkwright,  the  throstle,  and  the  work- 
ing-jeweller, Fulton,  the  steamship.^ 

So  long  as  Factory  legislation  is  confined  to  regulating  the 
labour  in  factories,  manufactories,  &c.,  it  is  regarded  as  a 
mere  interference  with  the  exploiting  rights  of  capital.  But 
when  it  comes  to  regulating  the  so-called  "home-labour,"^  it  is 
immediately  vicAved  as  a  direct  attack  on  the  patria  potestas, 
on  parental  authority.  The  tender-hearted  English  Parlia- 
ment long  affected  to  shrink  from  taking  this  step.  The  force 
of  facts,  however  compelled  it  at  last  to  acknowledge  that 
modern  industry,  in  overturning  the  economical  foundation  on 
which  was  based  the  traditional  familj',  and  the  family  labour 
corresponding  to  it,  had  also  unloosened  all  traditional  family 
ties.  The  rights  of  the  children  had  to  be  proclaimed.  The 
final  report  of  the  Ch.  Empl.  Comm.  of  1866,  states:  "It  is 
unhappily,  to  a  painful  degree,  apparent  throughout  the  whole 
of  the  evidence,  that  against  no  persons  do  the  children  of  both 
sexes  so  much  require  protection  as  against  their  parents." 
The  system  of  unlimited  exploitation  of  children's  labour  in 
general  and  the  so-called  home-labour  in  particular  is  "main- 
tained only  because  the  parents  are  able,  without  check  or  con- 
trol, to  exercise  this  arbitrary  and  mischievous  power  over  their 

young  and   tender  offspring Parents  must  not 

possess  the  absolute  power  of  making  their  children  mere  'ma- 

*John  Bellers,  a  very  phenomenon  in  the  history  of  political  economy,  saw  most 
clearly  at  the  end  of  the  17th  century,  the  necessity  for  abolishing  the  present  system 
of  education  and  division  of  labour,  which  beget  hypertrophy  and  atrophy  at  the 
two  opposite  extremities  of  society.  Amongst  other  things  he  says  this:  "An  idle 
learning  being  little  better  than  the  learning  of  idleness  .  .  .  Bodily  labour, 
it's  a  primitive  institution  of  God  .  .  .  Labour  being  as  proper  for  the  bodies' 
health  as  eating  is  for  its  living;   for  what  pains  a  man  saves  by  ease,  he  will  find 

in  disease Labour  adds  oyl   to  the  lamp  of  life,  when  thinking  inflames 

it  ....  A  childish  silly  employ"  (a  warning  this,  by  presentiment,  against  the 
Basedows  and  their  modern  imitators)  "leaves  the  children's  minds  silly."  (Pro- 
posals for  raising  a  college  of  industry  of  all  useful  trades  and  husbandry.  Lond., 
1696,   p.    12,    14,    18.) 

'  This  sort  of  labour  goes  on  mostly  in  small  workshops,  as  we  have  seen  in  the 


536  Capitalist  Production. 

chines  to  earn  so  much  weekly  wage.'  ....  The  chil- 
dren and  young  persons,  therefore,  in  all  such  cases  may  justi- 
fiably claim  from  the  legislature,  as  a  natural  right,  that  an 
exemption  should  be  secured  to  them,  from  what  destroys  pre- 
maturely their  physical  strength,  and  lowers  them  in  the  scale 
of  intellectual  and  moral  beings."^  It  was  not,  however,  the 
misuse  of  parental  authority  that  created  the  capitalistic  ex- 
ploitation, whether  direct  or  indirect,  of  children's  labour ;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  it  was  the  capitalistic  mode  of  exploitation 
which,  by  sweeping  away  the  economical  basis  of  parental  au- 
thority, made  its  exercise  degenerate  into  a  mischievous  misuse 
of  power.  However  terrible  and  disgusting  the  dissolution, 
under  the  capitalist  system,  of  the  old  family  ties  may  appear, 
nevertheless,  modem  industry,  by  assigning  as  it  does  an  im- 
portant part  in  the  process  of  production,  outside  the  domestic 
sphere,  to  women,  to  young  persons,  and  to  children  of  both 
sexes,  creates  a  new  economical  foundation  for  a  higher  form 
of  the  family  and  of  the  relations  between  the  sexes.  It  is,  of 
course,  just  as  absurd  to  hold  the  Teuton ic-christian  form  of 
the  family  to  be  absolute  and  final  as  it  would  be  to  apply  that 
character  to  the  ancient  Roman,  the  ancient  Greek,  or  the  East- 
ern forms  which,  moreover,  taken  together  form  a  series  in  his- 
toric development.  Moreover,  it  is  obvious  that  the  fact  of  the 
collective  working  group  being  composed  of  individuals  of  both 
sexes  and  all  ages,  must  necessarily,  under  suitable  conditions, 
become  a  source  of  humane  development ;  although  in  its  spon- 
taneously developed,  brutal,  capitalistic  form,  where  the 
labourer  exists  for  the  process  of  production,  and  not  the  proc- 
ess of  production  for  the  labourer,  that  fact  is  a  pestiferous 
source  of  corruption  and  slavery.^ 

The  necessity  for  a  generalization  of  the  Factory  Acts,  for 
transforming  them  from  an  exceptional  law  relating  to  me- 
chanical spinning  and  weaving — those  first  creations  of  ma- 

lace-tnaking  and  straw-plaiting  trades,  and  as  could  be  sliown  more  in  detail  from 
the   metal   trades   of    ShefReld,    Birmingham,   &c. 

^  Ch.  Empl.  Comm.,  V.  Rep.,  p.  xxv.,  n.  162,  and  II.  Rep.,  p.  xxxviii.,  n. 
185,  289,  p.  XXV.,  xxvi.,  n.  191. 

*  "Factory  labour  may  be  as  pure  and  as  excellent  as  domestic  labour,  and  perhaps 
more  so."     (Rep.   Insp.   Fact.,   31st  October,    1865,   p.   127.) 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  537 

chinery — into  a  law  affecting  social  production  as  a  whole, 
arose,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the  mode  in  which  Modem  Indus- 
try Avas  historically  developed.  In  the  rear  of  that  industry, 
the  traditional  fonn  of  manufacture,  of  handicraft,  and  of 
domestic  industry,  is  entirely  revolutionised ;  manufactures  are 
constantly  passing  into  the  factory  system,  and  handicrafts 
into  manufactures ;  and  lastly,  the  spheres  of  handicraft  and 
of  the  domestic  industries  become,  in  a,  comparatively  speak- 
ing, wonderfully  short  time,  dens  of  misery  in  which  capitalis- 
tic exploitation  obtains  free  play  for  the  wildest  excesses. 
There  are  two  circumstances  that  finally  turn  the  scale:  first, 
the  constantly  recurring  experience  that  capital,  so  soon  as  it 
finds  itself  subject  to  legal  control  at  one  point,  compensates  it- 
self all  the  more  recklessly  at  other  points;^  secondly,  the  cry 
of  the  capitalists  for  equality  in  the  conditions  of  competition, 
i.e.^  for  equal  restraint  on  all  exploitation  of  labour.^  On 
this  point  let  us  listen  to  two  heart-broken  cries.  Messrs. 
Cooksley  of  Bristol,  nail  and  chain,  &c.,  manufacturers,  spon- 
taneously introduced  the  regulations  of  the  Factory  Act  into 
their  business.  "As  the  old  irregular  system  prevails  in  neigh- 
bouring works,  the  Messrs.  Cooksley  are  subject  to  the  disad- 
vantage of  having  their  boys  enticed  to  continue  their  labour 
elsewhere  after  6  p.m.  'This,'  they  naturally  say,  'is  an  unjus- 
tice  and  loss  to  us,  as  it  exhausts  a  portion  of  the  boy's  strength, 
of  which  we  ought  to  have  the  full  benefit.'  "^  Mr.  J.  Simp- 
son (paper  box  and  bagmaker,  London)  states  before  the  com- 
missioners of  the  Ch.  Empl.  Comm. :  "He  would  sign  any 
petition  for  it"  (legislative  interference)  ....  "As  it 
was,  he  always  felt  restless  at  night,  when  he  had  closed  his 
place,  lest  others  should  be  working  later  than  him  and  getting 
away  his  orders."^  Summarising,  the  Ch.  Empl.  Comm.  says : 
"It  would  be  unjust  to  the  larger  employers  that  their  factories 
should  be  placed  under  regulation,  while  the  hours  of  labour 
in  the  smaller  places  in  their  own  branch  of  business  were 
under  no  legislative  restriction.     And  to  the  injustice  arising 

"i.Rep.   Insp.  of  Fact.,   31st  October,  1865,  p.  27-32. 

*  Numerous  instances  will  be  found  in  Rep.  of   Insp.   of   Fact. 
'  Ch.   Empl.    Comm.,   V.   Rep.,  p.  x.,  n.  35. 

*  Ch.  Empl.  Comm.,  V.   Rep.,  p.  ix.,  n.  28. 


538  Capitalist  Production. 

from  the  unfair  conditions  of  competition,  in  regard  to  hours, 
that  would  be  created  if  the  smaller  places  of  work  were  ex- 
empt, would  be  added  the  disadvantage  to  the  larger  manufac- 
turers, of  finding  their  supply  of  juvenile  and  female  labour 
drawn  off  to  the  places  of  work  exempt  from  legislation. 
Further,  a  stimulus  would  be  given  to  the  multiplication  of  the 
smaller  places  of  work,  which  are  almost  invariably  the  least 
favourable  to  the  health,  comfort,  education,  and  general  im- 
provement of  the  people."^ 

In  its  final  report  the  Commission  proposes  to  subject  to  the 
Factory  Act  more  than  1,400,000  children,  young  persons,  and 
women,  of  which  number  about  one  half  are  exploited  in  small 
industries  and  by  the  so-called  home-work.^  It  says,  "But  if 
it  should  seem  fit  to  Parliament  to  place  the  whole  of  that 
large  number  of  children,  young  persons  and  females  under  the 
protective  legislation  above  adverted  to  ...  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  such  legislation  would  have  a  most  beneficent 
effect,  not  only  upon  the  young  and  the  feeble,  who  are  its 
more  immediate  objects,  but  upon  the  still  larger  body  of  adult 
workers,  who  would  in  all  these  employments,  both  directly 
and  indirectly,  come  immediately  under  its  influence.  It 
would  enforce  upon  them  regular  and  moderate  hours;  it 
would  lead  to  their  places  of  work  being  kept  in  a  healthy  and 
cleanly  state ;  it  would  therefore  husband  and  improve  that 
store  of  physical  strength  on  which  their  avm  well-being  and 
that  of  the  country  so  much  depends ;  it  would  save  the  rising 
generation  from  that  over-exertion  at  an  early  age  which 
undermines  their  constitutions  and  leads  to  premature  decay ; 

'  1.  c,  p.  XXV.,  n.  165-167.  As  to  the  advantages  of  large  scale,  compared  with 
small  scale,  industries,  see  Ch.  Empl.  Comm.,  III.  Rep.,  p.  13,  n.  144,  p.  25,  n. 
121,  p.  26,  n.   125,  p.  27,  n.   140,  &c. 

*  The  trades  proposed  to  be  brought  under  the  Act  were  the  following:  Lace- 
making,  stocking-weaving,  straw-plaiting,  the  manufacture  of  wearing  apparel  with 
its  numerous  subdivisions,  artificial  flower-making,  shoemaking,  hat-making,  glove- 
making,  tailoring,  all  metal  works,  from  blast  furnaces  down  to  needleworks,  &c., 
paper-mills,  glass-works,  tobacco  factories,  india-rubber  works,  braid-making  (for 
weaving),  hand-carpet-making,  umbrella  and  parasol  making,  the  manufacture  of 
spindles  and  spools,  letter-press  printing,  book-binding,  manufacture  of  stationery 
(including  paper  bags,  cards,  coloured  paper,  &c.,)  rope-making,  manufacture  of  jet 
ornaments,  brick-making,  silk  manufacture  by  hand,  Coventry  weaving,  salt  works, 
tallow  chandlers,  cement  works,  sugar  refineries,  biscuit-making,  various  industries 
connected  with  timber,  and  other  mixed  trades. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Indtistry.  539 

finally,  it  would  ensure  them — at  least  up  to  the  age  of  13 — 
the  opportunity  of  receiving  the  elements  of  education,  and 
would  put  an  end  to  that  utter  ignorance  ....  so  faithfully 
exhibited  in  the  Eeports  of  our  Assistant  Commissioners,  and 
which  cannot  he  regarded  without  the  deepest  pain,  and  a  pro- 
found sense  of  national  degradation."  ^ 

The  Tory  Cabinet  announced  in  the  speech  from  the 
Throne,  on  February  5,  1867,  that  it  had  formulated  the 
recommendations^  of  the  Industrial  Commission  of  Inquiry  in 
"Bills."  A  new  experiment  of  20  years'  duration  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  working  class  had  been  necessary  to  accomplish 
so  much.  As  early  as  1840,  a  Commission  of  Parliament  had 
been  appointed  to  inquire  into  the  conditions  of  child  labor. 
Its  report,  as  Senior  remarks,  disclosed  "the  most  frightful 
picture  of  avarice,  selfishness  and  cruelty  on  the  part  of 
masters  and  of  parents,  and  of  juvenile  and  infantile  misery, 
degradation  and  destruction  ever  presented.  ...  It  may 
be  supposed  that  it  describes  the  horrors  of  a  past  age.  But 
there  is  unhappily  evidence  that  those  horrors  continue  as  in- 
tense as  they  were.  A  pamphlet  published  by  Hardwicke 
about  2  years  ago  states  that  the  abuses  complained  of  in 
1842,  are  in  full  bloom  at  the  present  day.  It  is  a  strange 
proof  of  the  general  neglect  of  the  morals  and  health  of  the 
children  of  the  working  class,  that  this  report  lay  unnoticed 
for  20  years,  during  which  the  children,  'bred  up  without  the 
remotest  sign  of  comprehension  as  to  what  is  meant  by  the 
term  morals,  who  had  neither  knowledge,  nor  religion,  nor 
natural  affection,'  were  allowed  to  become  the  parents  of  the 
present  generation."* 

The  social  conditions  having  undergone  a  change.  Parlia- 
ment could  not  venture  to  shelve  the  demands  of  the  Com- 

*  1.  c.  p.  XXV.  n.  169. 

*  The  Factory  Acts  Extension  Act  was  passed  on  August  12,  1867.  It  regulated 
all  Hietal  foundries,  forges,  and  manufactures,  including  machine  shops,  furthermore 
glass,  paper,  gutta-percha,  caoutchouc,  tobacco  manufactures,  printing  shops,  book 
binderies,  and  finally  all  workshops  employing  more  than  50  persons. — The  Hours  of 
Labor  Regulation  Act  was  passed  on  August  17,  1867,  and  regulates  the  smaller 
workshops  and  the  so-called  house  work. — I  revert  to  these  laws,  and  to  the  new 
Mining  Act  of  1872  in  volume  II. 

*  Senior,   Social  Science  Congress,  pp.   55—58. 


540  Capitalist  Production. 

mission  of  1862,  as  it  had  done  those  of  the  Commission  of 
1840.  Hence  in  1864,  when  the  Commission  had  not  yet 
published  more  than  a  part  of  its  reports,  the  earthenware  in- 
dustries (including  the  potteries,  makers  of  paper-hangings, 
matches,  cartridges,  and  caps,  and  fustian  cutters  were  made 
subject  to  the  Acts  in  force  in  the  textile  industries.  In  the 
speech  from  the  Throne,  on  5th  February,  1867,  the  Tory 
Cabinet  of  the  day  announced  the  introduction  of  Bills, 
founded  on  the  final  recommendations  of  the  Commission, 
which  had  completed  its  labours  in  1866. 

On  the  15th  August,  1867,  the  Factory  Acts  Extension  Act, 
and  on  the  21st  August,  the  Workshops'  Regulation  Act  re- 
ceived the  Royal  Assent;  the  former  Act  having  reference  to 
large  industries,  the  latter  to  small. 

The  former  applies  to  blast-furnaces,  iron  and  copper  mills, 
foundries,  machine  shops,  metal  manufactories,  gutta-percha 
works,  paper  mills,  glass  works,  tobacco  manufactories,  letter- 
press printing  (including  newspapers)  book-binding,  in  short 
to  all  industrial  establishments  of  the  above  kind,  in  which  50 
individuals  or  more  are  occupied  simultaneously,  and  for  not 
less  than  100  days  during  the  year. 

To  give  an  idea  of  the  extent  of  the  sphere  embraced  by  the 
Workshops'  Regulation  Act  in  its  application,  we  cite  from  its 
interpretation  clause,  the  following  passages : 

''Handicraft  shall  mean  any  manual  labour  exercised  by 
way  of  trade,  or  for  purposes  of  gain,  or  incidental  to,  the 
malcing  any  article  ot  part  of  an  article,  or  in,  or  incidental  to, 
the  altering,  repairing,  ornamenting,  finishing,  or  otherwise 
adapting  for  sale  any  article." 

'''Workshop  shall  mean  any  room  or  place  whatever  in  the 
open  air  or  under  cover,  in  which  any  handicraft  is  carried  on 
by  any  child,  young  person,  or  woman,  and  to  which  and  over 
Avhich  the  person  by  whom  such  child,  young  person,  or  woman 
is  employed,  has  the  right  of  access  and  control." 

"Employed  shall  mean  occupied  in  any  handicraft,  whether 
for  wages  or  not,  under  a  master  or  under  a  parent  as  herein 
defined." 

"Paa-ent  shall  mean  parent,   guardian,  or  person,  having 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  541 

the  custody  of,  or  control  over,  any  .  .  .  child  or  young 
person." 

Clause  7,  which  imposes  a  penalty  for  employment  of 
children,  young  persons,  and  women,  contrary  to  the  provisions 
of  the  Act,  suhjects  to  fines,  not  only  the  occupier  of  the  work- 
shops, whether  parent  or  not,  but  even  "the  parent  of,  or  the 
person  deriving  any  direct  benefit  from  the  labour  of,  or  hav- 
ing the  control  over,  the  child,  young  person  or  woman." 

The  Factory  Acts  Extension  Act,  which  affects  the  large 
establishments,  derogates  from  the  Factory  Act  by  a  crowd  of 
vicious  exceptions  and  cowardly  compromises  with  the  masters. 

The  Workshops'  Regulation  Act,  wretched  in  all  its  de- 
tails, remained  a  dead  letter  in  the  hands  of  the  municipal 
and  local  authorities  who  were  charged  with  its  execution. 
"When,  in  18Y1,  Parliament  withdrew  from  them  this  power, 
in  order  to  confer  it  on  the  Factory  Inspectors,  to  whose 
province  it  thus  added  by  a  single  stroke  more  than  one  hun- 
dred thousand  workshops,  and  three  hundred  brickworks,  care 
was  taken  at  the  same  time  not  to  add  more  than  eight  as- 
sistants to  their  already  undermanned  staff.  ^ 

Wliat  strikes  us,  then,  in  the  English  legislation  of  1867,  is, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  necessity  imposed  on  the  parliament  of 
the  ruling  classes,  of  adopting  in  principle  measures  so  extra- 
ordinary, and  on  so  great  a  scale,  against  the  excesses  of 
capitalistic  exploitation ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  the  hesitation, 
the  repugnance,  and  the  bad  faith,  with  which  it  lent  itself  to 
the  tiisk  of  carrying  those  measures  into  practice. 

The  Inquiry  Commission  of  1862  also  proposed  a  new  regu- 
lation of  the  mining  industry,  an  industry  distinguished  from 
others  by  the  exceptional  characteristic  that  the  interests  of 
landlord  and  capitalist  there  join  bauds.  The  antagonism  of 
these  two  interests  had  been  favourable  to  Factory  legislation, 
while  on  the  other  hand  the  absence  of  that  antagonism  is 
sufficient  to  explain  the  delays  and  chicanery  of  the  legislation 
on  mines. 

^  The  "personnel"  of  this  stafT  consisted  of  2  inspectors,  2  assistant  inspectors  and 
41  sub-inspectors.  Eight  additional  sub-inspectors  were  appointed  in  1871.  The 
total  cost  of  administering  the  Acts  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland  amounted 
for  the  year  1871-72  to  no  more  than  £25,347,  inclusive  of  the  law  expenses  in- 
curred by  prosecutions  of  offending  masters. 


542  Capitalist  Production. 

The  Inquiry  Commission  of  1840  had  made  revelations  so 
terrible,  so  shocking,  and  creating  such  a  scandal  all  over 
Europe,  that  to  salve  its  *  conscience  Parliament  passed  the 
Mining  Act  of  1842,  in  which  it  limited  itself  to  forbidding 
the  employment  underground  in  mines  of  children  under  10 
years  of  age  and  females. 

Then  another  Act,  The  Mines'  Inspecting  Act  of  1860,  pro- 
vides that  mines  shall  be  inspected  by  public  officers  nominated 
specially  for  that  purpose,  and  that  boys  betv^^een  the  ages  of 
10  and  12  years  shall  not  be  employed,  unless  they  have  a 
school  certificate,  or  go  to  school  for  a  certain  number  of 
hours.  This  Act  was  a  complete  dead  letter  owing  to  the 
ridiculously  small  number  of  inspectors,  the  meagreness  of 
their  powers,  and  other  causes  that  will  become  apparent  as  we 
proceed. 

One  of  the  most  recent  blue  books  on  mines  is  the  "Report 
from  the  Select  Committee  on  Mines,  together  with  &c.  Evi- 
dence, 23rd  July,  1866."  This  Report  is  the  work  of  a 
Parliamentary  Committee  selected  from  members  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  authorised  to  summon  and  examine  wit- 
nesses. It  is  a  thick  folio  volume  in  which  the  Report  itself 
occupies  only  five  lines  to  this  effect:  that  the  committee  has 
nothing  to  say,  and  that  more  witnesses  must  be  examined ! 

The  mode  of  examining  the  witnesses  reminds  one  of  the 
cross-examination  of  witnesses  in  English  courts  of  justice, 
where  the  advocate  tries,  by  means  of  impudent,  unexpected, 
equivocal  and  involved  questions,  put  without  connection,  to  in- 
timidate, surprise,  and  confound  the  witness,  and  to  give  a 
forced  meaning  to  the  answers  extorted  from  him.  In  this  in- 
quiry the  members  of  the  committee  themselves  are  the  cross- 
examiners,  and  among  them  are  to  be  found  both  mine  owners 
and  mine  exploiters;  the  witnesses  are  mostly  working  coal- 
miners.  The  whole  farce  is  too  characteristic  of  the  spirit  of 
capital,  not  to  call  for  a  few  extracts  from  this  Report.  For 
the  sake  of  conciseness  I  have  classified  them.  I  may  also  add 
that  every  question  and  its  answer  are  numbered  in  the  English 
Blue  Books. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  543 

I.    EMPLOYMENT    IN    MINES   OF    BOYS   OF    10    YEAUS   AND    UP- 

WAEDS. — 111  the  mines  the  work,  inclusive  of  going  and  re- 
turning, usually  lasts  14  or  15  hoirrs,  sometimes  even  from  3, 
4,  and  5  o'clock  a.m.,  till  5  and  6  o'clock  p.m.,  (n.  6.,  452,  83). 
The  adults  v^ork  in  two  shifts,  of  eight  hours  each ;  but  there 
is  no  alteration  with  the  boys,  on  account  of  the  expense 
(n.  80,  203,  204.)  The  younger  boys  are  chiefly  employed  in 
opening  and  shutting  the  ventilating  doors  in  the  various  parts 
of  the  mine ;  the  older  ones  are  employed  on  heavier  work,  in 
carrying  coal,  &c.  (n.  122,  739,  1747).  They  work  these  long 
hours  underground  until  their  18th  or  22nd  year,  when  they 
are  put  to  miners  work  proper,  (n.  161.)  Children  and 
young  persons  are  at  present  worse  treated,  and  harder  worked 
than  at  any  previous  period  (n.  1663 — ^1667).  And  now 
Hussey  Vivian  (himself  an  exploiter  of  mines)  asks:  "Would 
not  the  opinion  of  the  workman  depend  upon  the  poverty  of 
the  workman's  family  ?"  Mr.  Bruce :  "Do  you  not  think  it 
would  be  a  very  hard  case,  where  a  parent  had  been  injured, 
or  where  he  was  sickly,  or  where  a  father  was  dead,  and  there 
was  only  a  mother,  to  prevent  a  child  between  12  and  14 
earning  Is.  7d.  a  day  for  the  good  of  the  family  ?  .  .  . 
You  must  lay  down  a  general  rule?  .  .  .  Are  you  pre- 
pared to  recommend  legislation  which  would  prevent  the  em- 
ployment of  children  under  12  and  14,  whatever  the  state  of 
their  parents  might  be ?"  "Yes."  (ns.  107-110).  Vivian: 
"Supposing  that  an  enactment  were  passed  preventing  the  em- 
ployment of  children  under  the  age  of  14,  would  it  not  be 
probable  that  .  .  .  the  parents  of  children  would  seek 
employment  for  their  children  in  other  directions,  for  instance, 
in  manufacture?"  "Not  generally  I  think,"  (n.  174).  Kin- 
naird :  "Some  of  the  boys  are  keepers  of  doors  ?"  "Yes.'^  "Is 
there  not  generally  a  very  great  draught  every  time  you  open 
a  door  or  close  it?"  "Yes,  generally  there  is."  "It  sounds 
a  very  easy  thing,  but  it  is  in  fact  rather  a  painful  one?" 
"He  is  imprisoned  there  just  the  same  as  if  he  was  in  a  cell 
of  a  gaol."  Bourgeois  Vivian :  "Whenever  a  boy  is  furnished 
with  a  lamp  cannot  he  read  ?"  "Yes,  he  can  read,  if  he  finds 
himself  in  candles     ...     I   suppose  he  would  be  found 


544  Capitalist  Production. 

fault  with  if  lie  were  discovered  reading;  he  is  there  to  mind 
his  husiness,  he  has  a  duty  to  perform,  and  he  has  to  attend 
to  it  in  the  first  place,  and  I  do  not  think  it  would  be  allowed 
down  the  pit."     (ns.  139,  141,  143,  158,  160.) 

II.  EDUCATION. — The  working  miners  want  a  law  for  the 
compulsory  education  of  their  children,  as  in  factories.  They 
declare  the  clauses  of  the  Act  of  1860,  which  require  a  school 
certificate  to  be  obtained  before  employing  boys  of  10  and  12 
years  of  age,  to  be  quite  illusory.  The  examination  of 
the  witnesses  on  this  subject  is  truly  droll.  "Is  it  (the  Act) 
required  more  against  the  masters  or  against  the  parents  ?" 
"It  is  required  against  both  I  think."  "You  cannot  say 
whether  it  is  required  against  one  more  than  against  the 
other  ?"  "No ;  I  can  hardly  answer  that  question."  (ns.  115, 
116.)  "Does  there  appear  to  be  any  desire  on  the  part  of  the 
employers  that  the  boys  should  have  such  hours  as  to  enable 
them  to  go  to  school  ?"  "!N^o ;  the  hours  are  never  shortened 
for  that  purpose."  (n.  137.)  Mr.  Kinnaird:  "Should  you  say 
that  the  colliers  generally  improve  their  education ;  have  you 
any  instances  of  men  who  have,  since  they  began  to  work, 
greatly  improved  their  education,  or  do  they  not  rather  go 
back,  and  lose  any  advantage  that  they  may  have  gained  ?" 
"They  generally  become  worse :  they  do  not  improve ;  they 
acquire  bad  habits ;  they  get  on  to  drinking  and  gambling  and 
such  like,  and  they  go  completely  to  wreck,"  (n.  211).  "Do 
they  make  any  attempt  of  the  kind  (for  providing  instruction) 
by  having  schools  at  night  ?"  "There  are  few  collieries  where 
night  schools  are  held,  and  perhaps  at  those  collieries  a  few 
boys  do  go  to  those  schools;  but  they  are  so  physically  ex- 
hausted that  it  is  to  no  purpose  that  they  go  there."  (n.  454.) 
"You  are  then,"  concludes  the  bourgeois,  "against  education  ?" 
"Most  certainly  not;  but,"  &c.  (n.  443.)  "But  are  they  (the 
employers)  not  compelled  to  demand  them"  (school  certifi- 
cates) ?  "By  law  they  are;  but  I  am  not  aware  that  they  are 
demanded  by  the  employers."  "Then  it  is  your  opinion,  that 
this  provision  of  the  Act  as  to  requiring  certificates,  is  not  gen- 
erally carried  out  in  the  collieries  ?"  "It  is  not  carried  out." 
(ns.  443,  444.)     "Do  the  men  take  a  great  interest  in  this 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  545 

question"  (of  education)  ?  "The  majority  of  them  do."  (n. 
717.)  "Are  they  very  anxious  to  see  the  law  enforced  ?" 
"The  majority  are."  (n.  718.)  "Do  you  think  that  in  this 
country  any  law  that  you  pass  .  .  .  can  really  be  effectual 
unless  the  population  themselves  assist  in  putting  it  into  opera- 
tion ?"  "Many  a  man  might  wish  to  object  to  employing  a 
boy,  but  he  would  perhaps  become  marked  by  it."  (n.  720.) 
"Marked  by  whom?"  "By  his  employers."  (n.  721.)  "Do 
you  think  that  the  employers  would  find  any  fault  with  a 
man  who  obeyed  the  law.  ...  ?"  "I  believe  they 
would."  (n.  722.)  "Have  you  ever  heard  of  any  workman 
objecting  to  employ  a  boy  between  10  and  12,  who  could  not 
write  or  read?"  "It  is  not  left  to  men's  option."  (n.  123.) 
"Would  you  call  for  the  interference  of  Parliament  ?"  "I 
think  that  if  anything  effectual  is  to  be  done  in  the  education 
of  the  colliers'  children,  it  will  have  to  be  made  compulsory 
by  Act  of  Parliament."  (n.  1634.)  "Would  you  lay  that 
obligation  upon  the  colliers  only,  of  all  the  work  people  of 
Great  Britain  ?"  "I  came  to  speak  for  the  colliers."  (n. 
1636.)  "Why  should  you  distinguish  them  (colliery  boys) 
from  other  boys  ?"  "Because  I  think  they  are  an  exception 
to  the  rule."  (n.  1638.)  "In  what  respect?"  "In  a  phys- 
ical respect."  (n.  1639.)  "Why  should  education  be  more 
valuable  to  them  than  to  other  classes  of  lads?"  "I  do  not 
know  that  it  is  more  valuable;  but  through  the  over-exertion 
in  mines  there  is  less  chance  for  the  boys  that  are  employed 
there  to  get  education,  either  at  Sunday  schools,  or  at  day 
schools."  (n.  1640.)  "It  is  impossible  to  look  at  a  question 
of  this  sort  absolutely  by  itself?"  (n.  1644.)  "Is  there  a 
sufficiency  of  schools?"— ":^o."  .  .  .  (n.  1646.)  "If  the 
state  were  to  require  that  every  child  should  be  sent  to  school, 
would  there  be  schools  for  the  children  to  go  to  ?"  "No ;  but  I 
think  if  the  circumstances  were  to  spring  up,  the  schools  would 
be  forthcoming."  (n.  1647.)  "Some  of  them  (the  boys) 
cannot  read  and  write  at  all,  I  suppose  ?"  "The  majority  can- 
not. .  .  .  The  majority  of  the  men  themselves  cannot." 
(ns.  705,  725.) 
III.  EMPLOYMENT  OF  WOMEN. — Siuce  1842  womcn  are  no 

2   I 


546  Capitalist  Production. 

more  employed  underground,  but  are  occupied  on  the  surface 
in  loading  the  coal,  kc,  in  drawing  the  tubs  to  the  canals  and 
railway  waggons,  in  sorting,  &c.  Their  numbers  have  con- 
siderably increased  during  the  last  three  or  four  years,  (n. 
1727.)  They  are  mostly  the  wives,  daughters,  and  widows 
of  the  working  miners,  and  their  ages  range  from  12  to  50  or 
60  years,  (ns.  645,  1779.)  "What  is  the  feeling  among  the 
working  miners  as  to  the  employment  of  women  ?"  "I  think 
they  generally  condemn  it."  (n.  648.)  "What  objection 
do  you  see  to  it  ?"  "I  think  it  is  degrading  to  the 
sex."  (n.  649.)  "There  is  a  peculiarity  of  dress?"  "Yes 
.  .  .  it  is  rather  a  man's  dress,  and  I  believe  in  some 
cases,  it  drowns  all  sense  of  decency."  "Do  the  women 
smoke?"  "Some  do."  "And  I  suppose  it  is  very  dirty 
work  ?"  "Very  dirty."  "They  get  black  and  grimy  ?"  "As 
black  as  those  who  are  down  the  mines  ...  I  believe  that 
a  woman  having  children,  (and  there  are  plenty  on  the  banks 
that  have)  cannot  do  her  duty  to  her  children."  (ns.  650- 
654,  701.)  "Do  you  think  that  those  widows  could  get  em- 
ployment anywhere  else,  which  would  bring  them  in  as  much 
wages  as  that  (from  Ss.  to  10s.  a  week)  ?"  "I  cannot  speak 
to  that."  (n.  .709.)  "You  would  still  be  prepared,  would 
you,"  (flint-hearted  fellow!)  "to  prevent  their  obtaining  a 
livelihood  by  these  means  ?"  "I  would."  (n.  710.)  "What 
is  the  general  feeling  in  the  district  ...  as  to  the  em- 
ployment of  women  ?"  "The  feeling  is  that  it  is  degrading ; 
and  we  wish  as  miners  to  have  more  respect  to  the  fair  sex 
than  to  see  them  placed  on  the  pit  bank.  .  .  .  Some  part 
of  the  work  is  very  hard ;  some  of  these  girls  have  raised 
as  much  as  10  tons  of  stuff  a  day."  (ns.  1715,  1717.)  "Do 
you  think  that  the  women  employed  about  the  collieries  are 
less  moral  than  the  women  employed  in  the  factories  ?"  " 
.  .  the  percentage  of  bad  ones  may  be  a  little  more  .  .  . 
than  with  the  girls  in  the  factories."  (n.  1237.)  "But  you 
are  not  quite  satisfied  with  the  state  of  morality  in  the 
factories?"  "No."  (n.  1733.)  "Would  you  prohibit  the 
employment  of  women  in  factories  also  ?"  "No,  I  would  not." 
(n.  1734.)     "Why  not?"     "I  think  it  a  more  honourable  oc- 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  547 

cupation  for  them  in  the  mills."  (n.  1735.)  "Still  it  is 
injurious  to  their  morality,  you  think?"  "Not  so  much  as 
working  on  the  pit  bank;  but  it  is  more  on  the  social  position 
I  take  it;  I  do  not  take  it  on  its  moral  ground  alone.  The 
degradation,  in  its  social  bearing  on  the  girls,  is  deplorable 
in  the  extreme.  When  these  400  or  500  girls  become  colliers' 
wives,  the  men  suffer  greatly  from  this  degradation,  and  it 
causes  them  to  leave  their  homes  and  drink."  (n.  1736.) 
"You  would  be  obliged  to  stop  the  employment  of  women  in 
the  ironworks  as  well,  would  you  not,  if  you  stopped  it  in  the 
collieries  ?"  "I  cannot  speak  for  any  other  trade."  (n. 
1737.)  "Can  you  see  any  difference  in  the  circumstances  of 
women  employed  in  iron-works,  and  the  circumstances  of 
women  employed  above  ground  in  collieries  ?"  "I  have  not 
ascertained  anything  as  to  that."  (n.  1740.)  "Can  you  see 
anything  that  makes  a  distinction  between  one  class  and  the 
other  ?"  "I  have  not  ascertained  that,  but  I  know  from  house 
to  house  visitation,  that  it  is  a  deplorable  state  of  things  in 
our  district.  .  .  ."  (n.  1741.)  "Would  you  interfere  in 
every  case  with  the  employment  of  women  where  that  em- 
ployment was  degrading  ?"  "It  would  become  injurious,  I 
think,  in  this  way :  the  best  feelings  of  Englishmen  have  been 
gained  from  the  instruction  of  a  mother  .  .  .  "  (n. 
1750.)  "That  equally  applies  to  agricultural  employments, 
does  it  not  ?"  "Yes,  but  that  is  only  for  two  seasons,  and  we 
have  work  all  the  four  seasons."  (n.  1751.)  "  They  often 
work  day  and  night,  wet  through  to  the  skin,  their  constitu- 
tion undermined  and  their  health  ruined."  "You  have  not 
inquired  into  that  subject  perhaps  ?"  "I  have  certainly  taken 
note  of  it  as  I  have  gone  along,  and  certainly  I  have  seen 
nothing  parallel  to  the  effects  of  the  employment  of  women 
on  the  pit  bank.  .  .  .  It  is  the  work  of  a  man  ...  a 
strong  man."  (ns.  1753,  1793,  1794.)  "Your  feeling  upon 
the  whole  subject  is  that  the  better  class  of  colliers  who  desire 
to  raise  themselves  and  humanise  themselves,  instead  of  de- 
riving help  from  the  women,  are  pulled  down  by  them  ?" 
"Yes."  (n.  1808.)  After  some  further  crooked  questions 
from   these    bourgeois,    the   secret   of  their   "sympathy"    for 


548  Capitalist  Production. 

widows,  poor  families,  &c.,  comes  out  at  last.  "The  coal  pro- 
prietor appoints  certain  gentlemen  to  take  the  oversight  of 
the  workings,  and  it  is  their  policy,  in  order  to  receive  ap- 
probation, to  place  things  on  the  most  economical  basis  they 
can,  and  these  girls  are  employed  at  from  Is.  up  to  Is.  6d.  a 
day,  where  a  man  at  the  rate  of  2s.  6d.  a  day  would  have  to  be 
employed."     (n.  1816.) 

IV.  coronek's  inquests. — "With  regard  to  coroner's  in- 
quests in  your  district,  have  the  workmen  confidence  in  the  pro- 
ceedings at  these  inquests  when  accidents  occur  ?"  "^o ;  they 
have  not."  (n.  306.)  "Why  not?"  "Chiefly  because  the 
men  who  are  generally  chosen,  are  men  who  know  nothing 
about  mines  and  such  like."  "Are  not  workmen  summoned 
at  all  upon  the  juries  ?"  "Never  but  as  witnesses  to  my  knowl- 
edge." "Who  are  the  people  who  are  generally  summoned 
upon  these  juries  ?"  "Generally  tradesmen  in  the  neighbor- 
hood .  .  .  from  their  circumstances  they  are  sometimes 
liable  to  be  influenced  by  their  employers  .  .  .  the  owners 
of  the  works.  They  are  generally  men  who  have  no  knowl- 
edge, and  can  scarcely  understand  the  witnesses  who  are  called 
before  them,  and  the  terms  which  are  used  and  such  like." 
"Would  you  have  the  jury  composed  of  persons  who  had  been 
employed  in  mining?"  "Yes,  partly  .  .  .  they  (the 
workmen)  think  that  the  verdict  is  not  in  accordance  with  the 
evidence  given  generally,  "(ns.  361,  364,  366,  368,  371,  375.) 
"One  great  object  in  summoning  a  jury  is  to  have  an  impartial 
one,  is  it  not  ?"  "Yes,  I  should  think  so."  "Do  you  think:  that 
the  juries  would  be  impartial  if  they  were  composed  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  of  workmen?"  "I  cannot  see  any  motive 
which  the  workmen  would  have  to  act  partially  .  .  .  they 
necessarily  have  a  better  knowledge  of  the  operations  in  con- 
nection with  the  mine."  "You  do  not  think  there  would  be  a 
tendency  on  the  part  of  the  workmen  to  return  unfairly  severe 
verdicts?"     "No,  I  think  not."     (ns.  378,  379,  380.) 

V.  FALSE  WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES. — The  workmcu  demand 
to  be  paid  weekly  instead  of  fortnightly,  and  by  weight  in- 
stead of  by  cubical  contents  of  the  tubs ;  they  also  demand  pro- 
tection against  the  use  of  false  weights,  &c.     (n.  1071.)     "If 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  549 

the  tubs  were  fraudulently  increased,  a  man  could  discontinue 
working  by  giving  14  days'  notice  ?"  "But  if  he  goes  to  an- 
other place,  there  is  the  same  thing  going  on  there."  (n. 
1071.)  "But  he  can  leave  that  place  where  the  wrong  has 
been  committed  ?"  "It  is  general ;  wherever  he  goes,  he  has 
to  submit  to  it."  (n.  1072.)  "Could  a  man  leave  by  giving 
14  days'  notice?"  "Yes,"  (n.  1073.)  And  yet  they  are 
not  satisfied! 

VI.  INSPECTION  OF  MINES. — Casualties  from  explosions  are 
not  the  only  things  the  workmen  suffer  from.  (n.  234,  sqq.) 
"Our  men  complained  very  much  of  the  bad  ventilation  of  the 
collieries  .  .  .  the  ventilation  is  so  bad  in  general  that 
the  men  can  scarcely  breathe ;  they  are  quite  unfit  for  em- 
ployment of  any  kind  after  they  have  been  for  a  length  of 
time  in  connection  with  their  work;  indeed,  just  at  the  part 
of  the  mine  where  I  am  working,  men  have  been  obliged  to 
leave  their  employment  and  come  home  in  consequence  of  that 
.  .  .  some  of  them  have  been  out  of  work  for  weeks  just 
in  consequence  of  the  bad  state  of  the  ventilation  where  there 
is  not  explosive  gas  .  .  .  there  is  plenty  of  air  generally 
in  the  main  courses,  yet  pains  are  not  taken  to  get  air  into 
the  workings  where  men  are  working."  "Why  do  you  not 
apply  to  the  inspector  ?"  "To  tell  the  truth  there  are  many 
men  who  are  timid  on  that  point;  there  have  been  cases  of 
men  being  sacrificed  and  losing  their  employment  in  conse- 
quence of  applying  to  the  inspector."  "Why ;  is  he  a  marked 
man  for  having  complained?"  "Yes."  "And  he  finds  it 
difficult  to  get  employment  in  another  mine  ?"  "Yes."  "Do 
you  think  the  mines  in  your  neighborhood  are  sufiiciently  in- 
spected to  insure  a  compliance  with  the  provisions  of  the 
Act  ?"  "No ;  they  are  not  inspected  at  all  .  .  .  the  in- 
spector has  been  down  just  once  in  the  pit,  and  it  has  been 
going  seven  years.  ...  In  the  district  to  which  I  belong 
there  are  not  a  sufficient  number  of  inspectors.  We  have  one 
old  man  more  than  70  years  of  age  to  inspect  more  than  130 
collieries."  "You  wish  to  have  a  class  of  sub-inspectors?" 
"Yes."  (ns.  234,  241,  251,  254,  274,  275,  554,  276,  293.) 
But  do  you  think  it  would  be  possible  for  government  to  main- 


550  Capitalist  Production. 

tain  such  an  army  of  inspectors  as  would  be  necessary  to  do 
all  that  you  want  them  to  do,  without  information  from  the 
men  ?"  "No,  I  should  think  it  would  be  next  to  impossible." 
.  .  .  "It  would  be  desirable  the  inspectors  should  come 
oftener  ?"  "Yes,  and  without  being  sent  for."  (n.  280,  277.) 
"Do  you  not  think  that  the  effect  of  having  these  inspectors 
examining  the  collieries  so  frequently  would  be  to  shift  the 
responsibility  (!)  of  supplying  proper  ventilation  from  the 
owners  of  the  collieries  to  the  Government  officials  ?"  "No,  I 
do  not  think  that,  I  think  that  they  should  make  it  their  busi- 
ness to  enforce  the  Acts  which  are  already  in  existence."  (n. 
285.)  "When  you  speak  of  sub-inspectors,  do  you  mean  men 
at  a  less  salary,  and  of  an  inferior  stamp  to  the  present  in- 
spectors ?"  "I  would  not  have  them  inferior,  if  you  could 
get  them  otherwise."  (n.  294.)  "Do  you  merely  want  more 
inspectors,  or  do  you  want  a  *lower  class  of  men  as  an  in- 
spector?" "A  man  who  would  knock  about,  and  see  that 
things  are  kept  right ;  a  man  who  would  not  be  afraid  of  him- " 
self."  (n.  295.)  "If  you  obtained  your  wish  in  getting  an 
inferior  class  of  inspectors  appointed,  do  you  think  there  would 
be  no  danger  from  want  of  skill,  &c.  ?"  "I  think  not,  I  think 
that  the  Government  would  see  after  that,  and  have  proper 
men  in  that  position."  (n.  297.)  This  kind  of  examination 
becomes  at  last  too  much  even  for  the  chairman  of  the  com- 
mittee, and  he  interrupts  with  the  observation:  "You  want  a 
class  of  men  who  would  look  into  all  the  details  of  the  mine, 
and  would  go  into  all  the  holes  and  comers,  and  go  into  the 
real  facts  .  .  .  they  would  report  to  the  chief  inspector, 
who  would  then  bring  his  scientific  knowledge  to  bear  on  the 
facts  they  have  stated  ?"  (ns.  298,  299.)  "Would  it  not  en- 
tail very  great  expense  if  all  these  old  workings  were  kept 
ventilated  ?"  "Yes,  expense  might  be  incurred,  but  life  would 
be  at  the  same  time  protected."  (n.  531.)  A  working  miner 
objects  to  the  17th  section  of  the  Act  of  1860;  he  says,  "At 
the  present  time,  if  the  inspector  of  mines  finds  a  part  of  the 
mine  unfit  to  work  in,  he  has  to  report  it  to  the  mine  owner 
and  the  Home  Secretary.  After  doing  that,  there  is  given  to 
the  owner  20  days  to  look  over  the  matter;  at  the  end  of  20 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  551 

days  he  has  the  power  to  refuse  making  any  alteration  in  the 
mine;  but,  when  he  refuses,  the  mine  owner  writes  to  the 
Home  Secretary,  at  the  same  time  nominating  five  engineers, 
and  from  those  five  engineers  named  by  the  mine  owner  him- 
self, the  Home  Secretary  appoints  one,  I  think,  as  arbitrator, 
or  appoints  arbitrators  from  them ;  now  we  think  in  that  case 
the  mine  owner  virtually  appoints  his  own  arbitrator."  (n. 
581.)  Bourgeois  examiner,  himself  a  mine  owner:  "But 
.  .  .  is  this  a  merely  speculative  objection?"  (n.  586.) 
"Then  you  have  a  very  poor  opinion  of  the  integrity  of  min- 
ing engineers  ?"  "It  is  most  certainly  unjust  and  inequi- 
table." (n.  588.)  "Do  not  mining  engineers  possess  a  sort 
of  public  character,  and  do  not  you  think  tliat  they  are  above 
making  such  a  partial  decision  as  you  apprehend  ?"  "I  do 
not  wish  to  answer  such  a  question  as  that  with  respect  to  the 
personal  character  of  those  men.  I  believe  that  in  many  cases 
they  would  act  very  partially  indeed,  and  that  it  ought  not  to 
be  in  their  hands  to  do  so,  where  men's  lives  are  at  stake."  (n. 
589.)  This  same  bourgeois  is  not  ashamed  to  put  this  ques- 
tion :  "Do  you  not  think  that  the  mine  owner  also  suffers 
loss  from  an  explosion  ?"  Finally,  "Are  not  you  workmen  in 
Lancashire  able  to  take  care  of  your  own  interests  without 
calling  in  the  Government  to  help  you?"     "No."      (n.  1042.) 

In  the  year  1865  there  were  3217  coal  mines  in  Great 
Britain,  and  12  inspectors.  A  Yorkshire  mine  owner  himself 
calculates  ("Times,"  26th  January,  1867),  that  putting  on 
one  side  their  office  work,  which  absorbs  all  their  time,  each 
mine  can  be  visited  but  once  in  ten  years  by  an  inspector.  No 
wonder  that  explosions  have  increased  progressively,  both  in 
number  and  extent  (sometimes  with  a  loss  of  200-300  men), 
during  the  last  ten  years. 

The  very  defective  Act,  passed  in  1872,  is  the  first  that 
regulates  the  hours  of  labour  of  the  children  employed  in 
mines,  and  makes  exploiters  and  owners,  to  a  certain  extent, 
responsible  for  so-called  accidents. 

The  Royal  Commission  appointed  in  1867,  to  inquire  into 
the  employment  in  agriculture  of  children,  young  persons,  and 
women,  has  published  some  very  important  reports.     Several 


552  Capitalist  Production. 

attempts  to  apply  the  principles  of  the  Factory  Acts,  but  in  a 
modified  form,  to  agriculture  have  been  made,  but  have  so  far 
resulted  in  complete  failure.  All  that  I  wish  to  draw  atten- 
tion to  here  is  the  existence  of  an  irresistible  tendency  towards 
the  general  application  of  those  principles. 

.  If  the  general  extension  of  factory  legislation  to  all  trades 
for  the  purpose  of  protecting  the  working  class  both  in  mind 
and  body  has  become  inevitable,  on  the  other  hand,  as  we 
have  already  pointed  out,  that  extension  hastens  on  the  gen- 
eral conversion  of  numerous  isolated  small  industries  into  a 
few  combined  industries  carried  on  upon  a  large  scale;  it 
therefore  accelerates  the  concentration  of  capital  and  the  ex- 
clusive predominance  of  the  factory  system.  It  destroys  both 
the  ancient  and  the  transitional  forms,  behind  which  the  do- 
minion of  capital  is  still  in  part  concealed,  and  replaces  them 
by  the  direct  and  open  sway  of  capital;  but  thereby  it  also 
generalises  the  direct  opposition  to  this  sway.  While  in  each 
individual  workshop  it  enforces  uniformity,  regularity,  order, 
and  economy,  it  increases  by  the  immense  spur  which  the  limi- 
tation and  regulation  of  the  working  day  give  to  technical  im- 
provement, the  anarchy  and  the  catastrophes  of  capitalist  pro- 
duction as  a  whole,  the  intensity  of  labour,  and  the  compe- 
tition of  machinery  with  the  labourer.  By  the  destruction  of 
petty  and  domestic  industries  it  destroys  the  last  resort  of  the 
"redundant  population,"  and  with  it  the  sole  remaining  safety- 
valve  of  the  whole  social  mechanism.  By  maturing  the  ma- 
terial conditions,  and  the  combination  on  a  social  scale  of  the 
processes  of  production,  it  matures  the  contradictions  and 
antagonisms  of  the  capitalist  form  of  production,  and  thereby 
provides,  along  with  the  elements  for  the  formation  of  a  new 
society,  the  forces  for  exploding  the  old  one.* 

'  Robert  Owen,  the  father  of  Co-operative  Factories  and  Stores,  but  who,  as  before 
remarked,  in  no  way  shared  the  illusions  of  his  followers  with  regard  to  the  bear- 
ing of  these  isolated  elements  of  transformation,  not  only  practically  made  the  fac- 
tory system  the  sole  foundation  of  his  experiments,  but  also  declared  that  system 
to  be  theoretically  the  starting  point  of  the  social  revolution.  Herr  Vissering,  Pro- 
fessor of  Political  Economy  in  the  University  of  Leyden,  appears  to  have  a  suspicion 
of  this  when,  in  his  "Handboek  van  Praktische  Staatshuishoudkunde,  1860-62," 
which  reproduces  all  the  platitudes  of  vulgar  economy,  he  strongly  supports  handi- 
crafts against  the  factory  system.  Note  to  the  4th  German  edition. — The  new  juristic 
abortion  created  by  English  legislation  in  the  mutually  contradictory  Factory  Acts, 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  553 


SECTION  10. MODERN  INDUSTRY  AND  AGEICULTUEE* 

The  revolution  called  forth  by  modem  industry  in  agricul- 
ture, and  in  the  social  relations  of  agricultural  producers,  will 
be  investigated  later  on.  In  this  place  we  shall  merely  indi- 
cate a  few  results  by  way  of  anticipation.  If  the  use  of 
machinery  in  agriculture  is  for  the  most  part,  free  from  the 
injurious  physical  effect  it  has  on  the  factory  operative,^  its 
action  in  superseding  the  labourers  is  more  intense,  and  finds 
less  resistance,  as  we  shall  see  later  in  detail.  In  the  counties 
of  Cambridge  and  Suffolk,  for  example,  the  area  of  cultivated 
land  has  extended  very  much  within  the  last  20  years  (up  to 
1868),  while  in  the  same  period  the  rural  population  has 
diminished,  not  only  relatively,  but  absolutely.  In  the  United 
States  it  is  as  yet  only  virtually  that  agricultural  machines 

Fatcory  Extension  Act,  and  Workshop  Act,  became  finally  unbearable,  and  in  conse- 
quence, the  Factory  and  Workshops  Act  of  1878  made  this  entire  legislation  into 
a  new  code.  Of  course,  we  cannot  give  an  exhaustive  critique  of  the  present  indus- 
trial code  of  England  in  this  place.  The  following  notes  may  suffice;  The  Act  com- 
prizes (1)  Textile  mills.  Here  everything  remains  about  as  it  was.  Working  time 
allowed  for  children  over  10  years,  5J4  hours  per  day,  or  0  hours  per  day  and  Sat- 
urday oflF.  For  young  persons  and  women,  10  hours  on  5  days,  and  no  more  than 
eyi  hours  on  Saturday.  (2)  Other  than  textile  mills.  Here  the  rules  are  more 
nearly  approximated  to  those  of  class  (1),  but  still  many  of  them  permit  excep- 
tions favoring  the  capitalist,  which  may  even  be  extended  in  special  cases  by  the 
permission  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior.  (3)  Workshops,  defined  about  the  same 
as  in  the  former  act.  So  far  as  children,  young  persons,  or  women  are  employed 
in  them,  workshops  are  placed  in  about  the  same  class  with  other  than  textile  mills, 
but  again  with  special  favors.  (4)  Workshops,  in  which  no  children  or  young  per- 
sons, but  only  persons  of  both  sexes  over  18  years  are  employed.  This  class  enjoys 
still  other  favors.  (5)  Domestic  Workshops,  in  which  only  members  of  the  family 
are  employed  in  the  home  of  the  family.  Here  the  rults  are  still  more  elastic,  with 
the  additional  restriction  that  the  inspector  must  not  enter  rooms  serving  at  the 
same  time  as  homes  without  the  permission  of  the  Minister  or  the  Judge.  Finally, 
the  unconditional  surrender  of  straw  plating,  lace  making,  glove  making  to  the 
family  circle.  Yet,  with  all  its  shortcomings,  this  law,  and  the  factory  laws  of  the 
Swiss  Confederation  passed  March  23,  1877,  are  by  far  the  best  on  this  subject. 
A  comparison  of  these  two  codes  is  particularly  interesting,  because  it  reveals  the 
advantages  and  disadvantages  of  the  two  different  methods  of  legislation,  the  English, 
"historical"  method  interfering  from  case  to  case,  and  the  continental,  more  gen- 
eralising method  built  upon  the  traditions  of  the  French  revolution.  Unfortunately, 
the  English  code  is  still  largely  a  dead  letter  on  account  of  the  lack  of  in- 
spectors.—F.  E. — 

'  A  detailed  description  of  the  machinery  employed  in  English  agriculture  is 
found  in  "The  Agricultural  Implements  and  Machines  of  England,"  by  Dr.  W. 
Hamm.  Second  edition,  1856.  In  a  sketch  of  the  evolution  of  English  agriculture 
Mr.  Hamm  follows  too  narrowly  the  ideas  of  Mr.  Leonce  de  Lavergne. — (Note  to 
the  4th  German  edition.) — This  is  now  obsolete,  of  course. — F.  E, — 


554  Capitalist  Production. 

replace  labourers;  in  other  words,  they  allow  ot  the  culti- 
vation by  the  farmer  of  a  larger  surface,  but  do  not  actually 
expel  the  labourers  employed.  In  1861  the  number  of  per- 
sons occupied  in  England  and  Wales  in  the  manufacture  of 
agricultural  machines  was  1034,  whilst  the  number  of  agri- 
cultural labourers  employed  in  the  use  of  agricultural  ma- 
chines and  steam  engines  did  not  exceed  1205^ 

In  the  sphere  of  agriculture,  modem  industry  has  a  more 
revolutionary  effect  than  elsewhere,  for  this  reason,  that  it 
annihilates  the  peasant,  that  bulwark  of  the  old  society,  and 
replaces  him  by  the  wage  labourer.  Thus  the  desire  for  social 
changes,  and  the  class  antagonisms  are  brought  to  the  same 
level  in  the  country  as  in  the  towns.  The  irrational,  old  fash- 
ioned methods  of  agriculture  are  replaced  by  scientific  ones. 
Capitalist  production  completely  tears  asunder  the  old  bond 
of  union  which  held  together  agriculture  and  manufacture  in 
their  infancy.  But  at  the  same  time  it  creates  the  material 
conditions  for  a  higher  synthesis  in  the  future,  viz.,  the  union 
of  agriculture  and  industry  on  the  basis  of  the  more  perfected 
forms  they  have  each  acquired  during  their  temporary  separa- 
tion. Capitalist  production,  by  collecting  the  population  in 
great  centres,  and  causing  an  ever  increasing  preponderance 
of  town  population,  on  the  one  hand  concentrates  the  historical 
motive-power  of  society ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  disturbs  the  cir- 
culation of  matter  between  man  and  the  soil,  i.e.,  prevents  the 
return  to  the  soil  of  its  elements  consumed  by  man  in  the  form 
of  food  and  clothing;  it  therefore  violates  the  conditions  neces- 
sary to  lasting  fertility  of  the  soil.  By  this  action  it  destroys 
at  the  same  time  the  health  of  the  town  labourer  and  the  intel- 
lectual life  of  the  rural  labourer.^  But  while  upsetting  the 
naturally  grown  conditions  for  the  maintenance  of  that  circu- 
lation of  matter,  it  imperiously  calls  for  its  restoration  as  a 

*  "You  divide  the  people  into  two  hostile  camps  of  clownish  boors  and  emascu- 
lated dwarfs.  Good  heavens!  a  nation  divided  into  agricultural  and  commercial 
interests,  calling  itself  sane;  nay,  styling  itself  enlightened  and  civilized,  not  only 
in  spite  of,  but  in  consequence  of  this  monstrous  and  unnatural  division."  (David 
Urquhart,  1.  c,  p.  119.)  This  passage  shows,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  the 
strength  and  the  weakness  of  that  kind  of  criticism  which  knows  how  to  judge  and 
condemn  the  present,  but  not  how  to  comprehend  it. 


Machinery  and  Modern  Industry.  555 

system,  as  a  regulating  law  of  social  production,  and  under  a 
form  appropriate  to  the  full  development  of  the  human  race. 
In  agriculture  as  in  manufacture,  the  transformation  of  pro- 
duction under  the  sway  of  capital,  means,  at  the  same  time, 
the  martyrdom  of  the  producer ;  the  instrument  of  labour  be- 
comes the  means  of  enslaving,  exploiting,  and  impoverishing 
the  labourer;  the  social  combination  and  organization  of  la- 
bour-processes is  turned  into  an  organised  mode  of  crushing 
out  the  workman's  individual  vitality,  freedom,  and  inde- 
pendence. The  dispersion  of  the  rural  labourers  over  larger 
areas  breaks  their  power  of  resistance  while  concentration 
increases  that  of  the  town  operatives.  In  modern  agriculture, 
as  in  the  urban  industries,  the  increased  productiveness  and 
quantity  of  the  labour  set  in  motion  are  bought  at  the  cost  of 
laying  waste  and  consuming  by  disease  labour-power  itself. 
Moreover,  all  progress  in  capitalistic  agriculture  is  a  progress 
in  the  art,  not  only  of  robbing  the  labourer,  but  of  robbing  the 
soil ;  all  progress  in  increasing  the  fertility  of  the-  soil  for  a 
given  time,  is  a  progress  towards  ruining  the  lasting  sources  of 
that  fertility.  The  more  a  country  starts  its  development  on 
the  foundation  of  modern  industry,  like  the  United  States, 
for  example,  the  more  rapid  is  this  process  of  destruction.^ 

*  See  Liebig:  "Die  Chemie  in  ihrer  Anwendung  auf  Agricultur  und  Physiologic,  7. 
Auflage,  1862,"  and  especially  the  "Einleitung  in  die  Naturgesetze  des  Feldbaus," 
in  the  1st  Volume.  To  have  developed  from  the  point  of  view  of  natural  science, 
the  negative,  i.e.,  destructive  side  of  modern  agriculture,  is  one  of  Liebig's  immortal 
merits.  His  summary,  too,  of  the  history  of  agriculture,  although  not  free  from 
gross  errors,  contains  flashes  of  light.  It  is,  however,  to  be  regretted  that  he  ven- 
tures on  such  hap-hazard  assertions  as  the  following:  "By  greater  pulverising  and 
more  frequent  ploughing,  the  circulation  of  air  in  the  interior  of  porous  soil  is  aided, 
and  the  surface  exposed  to  the  action  of  the  atmosphere  is  increased  and  renewed; 
but  it  is  easily  seen  that  the  increased  yield  of  the  land  cannot  be  proportional  to 
the  labour  spent  on  that  land,  but  increases  in  a  much  smaller  proportion.  This 
law,"  adds  Liebig,  "was  first  enunciated  by  John  Stuart  Mill  in  his  'Principles  of 
Pol.  Econ.',  Vol  I.,  p.  17,  as  follows:  'That  the  produce  of  land  increases,  caeteris 
paribus,  in  a  diminishing  ratio  to  the  increase  of  the  labourers  employed"  (Mill 
here  introduces  in  an  erroneous  form  the  law  enunciated  by  Ricardo's  school,  for 
since  the  'decrease  of  the  labourers  employed,'  kept  even  pace  in  England  with  the 
advance  of  agriculture,  the  law  discovered  in,  and  applied  to,  England,  could  have  no 
application  to  that  country,  at  all  events),  "is  the  universal  law  of  agricultural  in- 
dustry.' This  is  very  remarkable,  since  Mill  was  ignorant  of  the  reason  for  this  law." 
(Liebig,  1.  c,  Bd.  L,  p.  143  and  Note.)  Apart  from  Liebig's  wrong  interpretation  of 
the  word  "labour,"  by  which  word  he  understands  something  quite  different  from 
■what  political  economy   does,   it  is,  in  any  case,    "very   remarkable"   that   he  should 


5S6  Capitalist  Production. 

Capitalist  production,  therefore,  developes  technology,  and  the 
combining  together  of  various  processes  into  a  social  whole, 
only  by  sapping  the  original  sources  of  all  wealth — ^the  soil 
and  the  labourer. 

make  Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill  the  first  propounder  of  a  theory  which  was  first  published 
by  James  Anderson  in  A.  Smith's  days,  and  was  repeated  in  various  works  down  to 
the  beginning  of  the  19th  century;  a  theory  which  Malthus,  that  master  in  plagiarism 
(the  whole  of  his  population  theory  is  a  shameless  plagiarism),  appropriated  to  him- 
self in  1815;  which  West  developed  at  the  same  time  as,  and  independently  of, 
Anderson;  which  in  the  year  1817  was  connected  by  Ricardo  with  the  general  theory 
of  value,  then  made  the  round  of  the  world  as  Ricardo's  theory,  and  in  1820  was 
vulgarised  by  James  Mill,  the  father  of  John  Stuart  Mill;  and  which,  finally,  was 
reproduced  by  John  Stuart  Mill  and  others,  as  a  dog^ma  already  quite  common-place, 
and  known  to  every  school-boy.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  John  Stuart  Mill  owes  his, 
at  all  events,  "remarkable"  authority  almost  entirely  to  such  quid-pro-quos. 


PAET  V. 

THE  PRODUCTION  OF  ABSOLUTE  AND  OP 
EELATIVE  SURPLUS- VALUE. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

ABSOLUTE  AND  RELATIVE  SURPLUS-VALUE. 

In  considering  the  •  labour-process,  we  began  (see  Chapter 
V.)  by  treating  it  in  the  abstract,  apart  from  its  historical 
forms,  as  a  process  between  man  and  nature.  We  there  stated, 
p.  160 :  "If  we  examine  the  whole  labour-process,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  its  result,  it  is  plain  that  both  the  instruments 
and  the  subject  of  labour  are  means  of  production,  and  that 
the  labour  itself  is  productive  labour."  And  in  I^ote  2,  same 
page,  we  further  added :  "This  method  of  determining,  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  labour-process  alone,  what  is  productive 
labour,  is  by  no  means  directly  applicable  to  the  case  of  the 
capitalist  process  of  production."  We  now  proceed  to  the 
further  development  of  this  subject. 

So  far  as  the  labour-process  is  purely  individual,  one  and  the 
same  labourer  unites  in  himself  all  the  functions,  that  later  on 
become  separated.  When  an  individual  appropriates  natural 
objects  for  his  livelihood,  no  one  controls  him  but  himself. 
Afterwards  he  is  controlled  by  others.  A  single  man  cannot 
operate  upon  nature  without  calling  his  own  muscles  into  play 
under  the  control  of  his  own  brain.  As  in  the  natural  body 
head  and  hand  wait  upon  each  other,  so  the  labour-process 
unites  the  labour  of  the  hand  with  that  of  the  head.  Later  on 
they  part  company  and  even  become  deadly  foes.     The  product 

557 


558  Capitalist  Production. 

ceases  to  be  the  direct  product  of  the  individual,  and  becomes 
a  social  product,  produced  in  common  by  a  collective  labourer, 
i.e.,  by  a  combination  of  workmen^,  each  of  wljom  takes  only  a 
part,  greater  or  less,  in  the  manipulation  of  the  subject  of  their 
labour.  As  the  co-operative  character  of  the  labour-process 
becomes  more  and  more  marked,  so,  as  a  necessary  consequence, 
does  our  notion  of  productive  labour,  and  of  its  agent  the  pro- 
ductive labourer,  become  extended.  In  order  to  labour  pro- 
ductively, it  is  no  longer  necessary  for  you  to  do  manual  work 
yourself ;  enough,  if  you  are  an  organ  of  the  collective  labourer, 
and  perform  one  of  its  subordinate  functions.  The  first  defini- 
tion given  above  of  productive  labour,  a  definition  deduced 
from  the  very  nature  of  the  production  of  material  objects, 
still  remains  correct  for  the  collective  labourer,  considered  as 
a  whole.  But  it  no  longer  holds  good  for  each  member  taken 
individually. 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  our  notion  of  productive  labour 
becomes  narrowed.  Capitalist  production  is  not  merely  the 
production  of  commodities,  it  is  essentially  the  production  of 
surplus-value.  The  labourer  produces,  not  for  himself,  but  for 
capital.  It  no  longer  suffices,  therefore,  that  he  should  simply 
produce.  He  must  produce  surplus-value.  That  labourer 
alone  is  productive,  who  produces  surplus-value  for  the  capi- 
talist, and  thus  works  for  the  self-expansion  of  capital.  If  we 
may  take  an  example  from  outside  the  sphere  of  production  of 
material  objects,  a  schoolmaster  is  a  productive  labourer,  when, 
in  addition  to  belabouring  the  heads  of  his  scholars,  he  works 
like  a  horse  to  enrich  the  school  proprietor.  That  the  latter 
has  laid  out  his  capital  in  a  teaching  factory,  instead  of  in  a 
sausage  factory,  does  not  alter  the  relation.  Hence  the  notion 
of  a  productive  labourer  implies  not  merely  a  relation  between 
,work  and  useful  effect,  l>etween  labourer  and  product  of  labour, 
but  also  a  specific,  social  relation  of  production,  a  relation  that 
has  sprung  up  historically  and  stamps  the  labourer  as  the 
direct  means  of  creating  surplus-value.  To  be  a  productive 
labourer  is,  therefore,  not  a  piece  of  luck,  but  a  misfortune. 
In  Book  IV.  which  treats  of  the  history  of  the  theory,  it  will 
be  more  clearly  seen,  that  the  production  of  surplus-value  has 


Absolute  and  Relative  Surplus-Value.  559 

at  all  times  been  made,  by  classical  political  economists,  tlie 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  productive  labourer.  Hence 
their  definition  of  a  productive  labourer  changes  with  their 
comprehension  of  the  nature  of  surplus-value.  Thus  the 
Physiocrats  insist  that  only  agricultural  labour  is  productive, 
since  that  alone,  they  say,  yields  a  surplus-value.  And  they 
say  so  because,  with  them,  surplus-value  has  no  existence  ex- 
cept in  the  form  of  rent. 

The  prolongation  of  the  working  day  beyond  the  point  at 
which  the  labourer  would  have  produced  just  an  equivalent 
for  the  value  of  his  labour-power,  and  the  appropriation  of 
that  surplus-labour  by  capital,  this  is  production  of  absolute 
surplus-value.  It  forms  the  general  groundwork  of  the  capi- 
talist pystem,  and  the  starting  point  for  the  production  of  rela- 
tive surplus-value.  The  latter  presupposes  that  the  working 
day  is  already  divided  into  two  parts,  necessary  labour,  and 
surplus-labour.  In  order  to  prolong  the  surplus-labour,  the 
necessary  labour  is  shortened  by  methods  whereby  the  equiva- 
lent for  the  wages  is  produced  in  less  time.  The  production 
of  absolute  surplus-value  turns  exclusively  upon  the  length  of 
the  working  day;  the  production  of  relative  surplus-value, 
revolutionises  out  and  out  the  technical  processes  of  labour, 
and  the  composition  of  society.  It  therefore  presupposes  a 
specific  mode,  the  capitalist  mode  of  production,  a  mode  which, 
along  with  its  methods,  means,  and  conditions,  arises  and  de- 
velopes  itself  spontaneously  on  the  foundation  afforded  by  the 
formal  subjection  of  labour  to  capital  In  the  course  of  this 
development,  the  formal  subjection  is  replaced  by  the  real  sub- 
jection of  labour  to  capital. 

It  will  suffice  merely  to  refer  to  certain  intermediate  forms, 
in  which  surplus-labour  is  not  extorted  by  direct  compulsion 
from  the  producer,  nor  the  producer  himself  yet  formally  sub- 
jected to  capital  In  such  forms  capital  has  not  yet  acquired 
the  direct  control  of  the  labour-process.  By  the  side  of  inde- 
pendent producers  who  carry  on  their  handicrafts  and  agricul- 
ture in  the  traditional  old-fashioned  Way,  there  stands  the 
usurer  or  the  merchant,  with  his  usurer's  capital  or  merchant's 
capital,  feeding  on  them  like  a  parasite.    The  predominance,  in 


560  Capitalist  Production.  ■ 

a  society,  of  this  form  of  exploitation  excludes  the  capitalist 
mode  of  production;  to  which  mode,  however,  this  form  may 
serve  as  a  ti'ansition,  as  it  did  towards  the  close  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  Finally,  as  is  shown  by  modern  "domestic  industry," 
some  intermediate  forms  are  here  and  there  reproduced  in  the 
background  of  Modem  Industry,  though  their  physiognomy  is 
totally  changed. 

If,  on  the  one  hand,  the  mere  formal  subjection  of  labour  to 
capital  suffices  for  the  production  of  absolute  surplus-value,  if, 
e.g.,  it  is  sufficient  that  handicraftsmen  who  previously  worked 
on  their  oven  account,  or  as  apprentices  of  a  master,  should 
become  wage  labourers  under  the  direct  control  of  a  capitalist ; 
so,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  seen,  how  the  methods  of  pro- 
ducing relative  surplus-value,  are,  at  the  same  time,  methods 
of  producing  absolute  surplus-value.  K^ay,  more,  the  excessive 
prolongation  of  the  working  day  turned  out  to  be  the  peculiar 
product  of  Modern  Industry.  Generally  speaking,  the  specifi- 
cally capitalist  mode  of  production  ceases  to  be  a  mere  means 
of  producing  relative  surplus-value,  so  soon  as  that  mode  has 
conquered  an  entire  branch  of  production ;  and  still  more  so, 
so  soon  as  it  has  conquered  all  the  important  branches.  It 
then  becomes  the  general,  socially  predominant  form  of  pro- 
duction. As  a  special  method  of  producing  relative  surplus- 
value,  it  remains  eifective  only,  first,  in  so  far  as  it  seizes  upon 
industries  that  previously  were  only  formally  subject  to  capital, 
that  is,  so  far  as  it  is  propagandist;  secondly,  in  so  far  as  the 
industries  that  have  been  taken  over  by  it,  continue  to  be 
revolutionized  by  changes  in  the  methods  of  production. 

From  one  standpoint,  any  distinction  between  absolute  and 
relative  surplus-value  appears  illusory.  Relative  surplus- 
value  is  absolute,  since  it  compels  the  absolute  prolongation  of 
the  working  day  beyond  the  labour-time  necessary  to  the  exist- 
ence of  the  labourer  himself  Absolute  surplus-value  is  rela- 
tive, since  it  makes  necessary  such  a  development  of  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  labour,  as  will  allow  of  the  necessary  labour- 
time  being  confined  to  a  portion  of  the  working  day.  But  if 
we  keep  in  mind  the  behaviour  of  surplus-value,  this  appear- 
ance of  identity  vanishes.     Once  the  capitalist  mode  of  produc- 


Absolute  and  Relative  Surplus-Value.  561 

tion  established  and  become  general,  the  difference  between 
absolute  and  relative  surplus-value  makes  itself  felt,  whenever 
there  is  a  question  of  raising  the  rate  of  surplus-value.  As- 
suming that  labour-power  is  paid  for  at  its  value,  we  are  con- 
fronted by  this  alternative :  given  the  productiveness  of  labour 
and  its  normal  intensity,  the  rate  of  surplus-value  can  be  raised 
only  by  the  actual  prolongation  of  the  working  day;  on  the 
other  hand,  given  the  length  of  the  working  day,  that  rise  can 
be  effected  only  by  a  change  in  the  relative  magnitudes  of  the 
components  of  the  working  day,  viz.,  necessary  labour  and  sur- 
plus-labour ;  a  change,  which,  if  the  wages  are  not  to  fall  be- 
low the  value  of  labour-power,  presupposes  a  change  either  in 
the  productiveness  or  in  the  intensity  of  the  labour. 

If  the  labourer  wants  all  his  time  to  produce  the  necessary 
means  of  subsistence  for  himself  and  his  race,  he  has  no  time 
left  in  which  tO'  work  gratis  for  others.  Without  a  certain  de- 
gree of  productiveness  in  his  labour,  he  has  no  such  super- 
fluous time  at  his  disposal;  without  such  superfluous  time,  no 
surplus-labour,  and  therefore  no  capitalists,  no  slave-owners, 
no  feudal  lords,  in  one  word,  no  class  of  large  proprietors.'^ 

Thus  we  may  say  that  surplus-value  rests  on  a  natural 
basis ;  but  this  is  permissible  only  in  the  very  general  sense, 
that  there  is  no  natural  obstacle  absolutely  preventing  one  man 
from  disburdening  himself  of  the  labour  requisite  for  his  own 
existence,  and  burdening  another  with  it,  any  more,  for  in- 
stance, than  unconquerable  natural  obstacles  prevent  one  man 
from  eating  the  flesh  of  another.^  No  mystical  ideas  must  in 
any  way  be  connected,  as  sometimes  happens,  with  this  his- 
torically developed  productiveness  of  labour.  It  is  only  after 
men  have  raised  themselves  above  the  rank  of  animals,  when 
therefore  their  labour  has  been  to  some  extent  socialised,  that 
a  state  of  things  arises  in  which  the  surplus-labour  of  the 
one  becomes  a  condition  of  existence  for  the  other.     At  the 

*  "The  very  existence  of  the  master-capitalists,  as  a  distinct  class,  is  dependent  on 
the  productiveness  of  industry."  (Ramsay,  1.  c.  p.  206.)  "If  each  man's  labour 
were  but  enough  to  produce  his  own  food,  there  could  be  no  property."  (Raven- 
stone,  1.  c.  p.  14,  15). 

^  According  to  a  recent  calculation,  there  are  yet  at  least  4,000,000  cannibals  in 
those  parts  of  the  earth  which  have  already  been  explored. 

2J 


562  Capitalist  Production. 

dawn  of  civilisation  the  productiveness  acquired  by  labour  is 
small,  but  so  too  are  the  wants  which  develop  with  and  by  the 
means  of  satisfying  them.  Further,  at  that  early  period,  the 
portion  of  society  that  lives  on  the  labour  of  others  is  infinitely 
small  compared  with  the  mass  of  direct  producers  Along 
with  the  progress  in  the  productiveness  of  labour,  that  small 
portion  of  society  increases  both  absolutely  and  relatively.^ 
Besides,  capital  with  its  accompanying  relations  springs  up 
from  an  economic  soil  that  is  the  product  of  a  long  process  of 
development.  The  productiveness  of  labour  that  serves  as  its 
foundation  and  starting  point,  is  a  gift,  not  of  nature,  but  of  a 
history  embracing  thousands  of  centuries. 

Apart  from  the  degree  of  development.,  greater  or  less,  in  the 
form  of  social  production,  the  productiveness  of  labour  is  fet- 
tered by  physical  conditions.  These  are  all  referable  to  the 
constitution  of  man  himself  (race,  &c.),  and  to  surrounding 
nature.  The  external  physical  conditions  fall  into  two  great 
economical  classes,  (1)  E'atural  wealth  in  means  of  subsist- 
ence, i.e.,  a  fruitful  soil,  waters  teeming  with  fish,  &c.,  and 
(2),  natural  wealth  in  the  instruments  of  labour,  such  as 
waterfalls,  navigable  rivers,  wood,  metal,  coal,  &c.  At  the 
dawn  of  civilisation,  it  is  the  first  class  that  turns  the  scale ; 
at  a  higher  stage  of  development,  it  is  the  second.  Compare, 
for  example,  England  with  India,  or  in  ancient  times,  Athens 
and  Corinth  with  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 

The  fewer  the  number  of  natural  wants  imperatively  calling 
for  satisfaction,  and  the  greater  the  natural  fertility  of  the  soil 
and  the  favourableness  of  the  climate,  so  much  less  is  the 
the  producer.  So  much  greater  therefore  can  be  the  excess  of 
labour-time  necessary  for  the  maintenance  and  reproduction  of 
his  labour  for  others  over  his  labour  for  himself.  Diodorus 
long  ago  remarked  this  in  relation  to  the  ancient  Egyptians. 
"It  is  altogether  incredible  how  little  trouble  and  expense  the 
bringing  up  of  their  children  causes  them.  They  cook  for 
them  the  first  simple  food  at  hand ;  they  also  give  them  the 

*  "Among  the  wild  Indians  in  America,  almost  everything  is  the  labourer's,  99 
parts  of  a  hundred  are  to  be  put  upon  the  account  of  labour.  In  England,  perhaps, 
the  labourer  has  not  36."     (The  Advantages  of  the  East  India  Trade,  &c.  p.  73.) 


Absolute  and  Relative  Surplus-Value.  563 

lower  part  of  the  papyrus  stem  to  eat^  so  far  as  it  can  be 
roasted  in  the  fire,  and  the  roots  and  stalks  of  marsh  plants, 
some  raw,  some  boiled  and  roasted.  Most  of  the  children  go 
without  shoes  and  unclothed,  for  the  air  is  so  mild.  Hence  a 
child,  until  he  is  grown  up,  costs  his  parents  not  more,  on  the 
whole,  than  twenty  drachmas.  It  is  this,  chiefly,  which  ex- 
plains why  the  population  of  Egypt  is  so  numerous,  and,  there- 
fore, why  so  many  great  works  can  be  undertaken."^  Never- 
theless the  grand  structures  of  ancient  Egypt  are  less  due  to 
the  extent  of  its  population  than  to  the  large  proportion  of  it 
that  was  freely  disposable.  Just  as  the  individual  labourer 
can  do  more  surplus-labour  in  proportion  as  his  necessary 
labour-time  is  less,  so  with  regard  to  the  working  population. 
The  smaller  the  part  of  it  which  is  required  for  the  production 
of  the  necessary  means  of  subsistence,  so  much  the  greater  is 
the  part  that  can  be  set  to  do  other  work. 

Capitalist  production  once  assumed,  then,  all  other  circum- 
stances remaining  the  same,  and  given  the  length  of  the  work- 
ing day,  the  quantity  of  surplus-labour  will  vary  with  the 
physical  conditions  of  labour,  especially  with  the  fertility  of 
the  soil.  But  it  by  no  means  follows  from  this  that  the  most 
fruitful  soil  is  the  most  fitted  for  the  growth  of  the  capitalist 
mode  of  production.  This  mode  is  based  on  the  dominion  of 
man  over  nature.  Where  nature  is  too  lavish,  she  "keeps  him 
in  hand,  like  a  child  in  leading-strings."  She  does  not  impose 
upon  him  any  necessity  to  develop  himself.^  It  is  not  the 
tropics  with  their  luxuriant  vegetation,  but  the  temperate 
zone,  that  is  the  mother  country  of  capital.  It  is  not  the  mere 
fertility  of  the  soil,  but  the  differentiation  of  the  soil,  the 

1  Diodorus,  1.  c.  1.  I.  c.  80. 

2  "The  first  (natural  wealth)  as  it  is  Most  noble  and  advantageous,  so  doth  it 
make  the  people  careless,  proud,  and  given  to  all  excesses;  whereas  the  second 
enforceth  vigilancy,  literature,  arts  and  policy."  (England's  Treasure  by  Foreign 
Trade.  Or  the  Balance  of  our  Foreign  Trade  is  the  Rule  of  our  Treasure.  Written 
by  Thomas  Mun  of  London,  merchant,  and  now  published  for  the  common  good 
by  his  son  John  Mun.  London,  1669,  p.  181,  182.)  "Nor  can  I  conceive  a  greater 
curse  upon  a  body  of  people,  than  to  be  thrown  upon  a  spot  of  land,  where  the 
productions  for  subsistence  and  food  were,  in  great  measure,  spontaneous,  and  the 
climate  required  or  admitted  little  care  for  raiment  and  covering  .  .  .  there  may 
be  an  extreme  on  the  other  side.  A  soil  incapable  of  produce  by  labour  is  quite 
as  bad  as  a  soil  that  produces  plentifully  without  any  labour."  (An  Inquiry  into 
the  present  High  Price  of  Provisions.     Lond.,  1767.  p.  10.) 


564  Capitalist  Production. 

variety  of  its  natural  products,  the  changes  of  the  seasons, 
which  form  the  physical  basis  for  the  social  division  of  labour, 
and  which,  by  changes  in  the  natural  surroundings,  spur  man 
on  to  the  multiplication  of  his  wants,  his  capabilities,  his 
means  and  modes  of  labour.  It  is  the  necessity  of  bringing  a 
natural  force  under  the  control  of  society,  of  economising,  of 
appropriating  or  subduing  it  on  a  large  scale  by  the  work  of 
man's  hand,  that  first  plays  the  decisive  part  in  the  history  of 
industry.  Examples  are,  the  irrigation  works  in  Egypt,^ 
Lombardy,  Holland,  or  India  and  Persia  where  irrigation  by 
means  of  artificial  canals,  not  only  supplies  the  soil  with  the 
water  indispensable  to  it,  but  also  carries  down  to  it,  in  the 
shape  of  sediment  from  the  hills,  mineral  fertilizers.  The 
secret  of  the  flourishing  state  of  industry  in  Spain  and  Sicily 
under  the  dominion  of  the  Arabs  lay  in  their  irrigation 
works.  ^ 

Favourable  natural  conditions  alone,  gave  us  only  the  possi- 
bility, never  the  reality,  of  surplus-labour,  nor,  consequently, 
of  surplus-value  and  a  surplus-product.  The  result  of  differ- 
ence in  the  natural  conditions  of  labour  is  this,  that  the  same 
quantity  of  labour  satisfies,  in  different  countries,  a  different 
mass  of  requirements,^  consequently,  that  under  circumstances 

'  The  necessity  for  predicting  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  Nile  created  Egyptian  as- 
tronomy, and  with  it  the  dominion  of  the  priests,  as  directors  of  agriculture.  "Le 
solstice  est  le  moment  de  I'annee  ou  commence  la  crue  du  Nil,  et  celui  que  les 
Egyptiens  ont  du  observer  avec  le  plus  d'attention  .  .  .  C'etait  cette  annee 
tropique  qu'il  leur  importait  de  marquer  pour  se  diriger  dans  leurs  operations  agri- 
coles,  lis  durent  done  chercher  dans  le  ciel  un  signe  apparent  de  son  retour." 
(Cuvier:     Discours  sur   les  revolutions  du  globe,  ed.  Hoefer.     Paris,   1863,  p.   141.) 

'  One  of  the  material  bases  of  the  power  of  the  state  over  the  small  disconnected 
producing  organism^s  in  India,  was  the  regulation  of  the  water  supply.  The  Ma- 
hometan rulers  of  India  understood  this  better  than  their  English  successors.  It 
is  enough  to  recall  to  mind  the  famine  of  1866,  which  cost  the  lives  of  more  than 
a  million  Hindoos  in  the  district  of  Orissa,  in  the  Bengal  presidency. 

'  There  are  no  two  countries  which  furnish  an  equal  number  of  the  necessaries  of 
life  in  -equal  plenty,  and  with  the  same  quantity  of  labour.  Men's  wants  increase 
or  diminish  with  the  severity  or  temperateness  of  the  climate  they  live  in;  conse- 
quently, the  proportion  of  trade  which  the  inhabitants  of  different  countries  are 
obliged  to  carry  on  through  necessity  cannot  be  the  same,  nor  is  it  practicable  to 
ascertain  the  degree  of  variation  farther  than  by  the  degrees  of  Heat  and  Cold; 
from  whence  one  may  make  this  general  conclusion,  that  the  quantity  of  labour 
required  for  a  certain  number  of  people  is  greatest  in  cold  climates,  and  least  in 
hot  ones;  for  in  the  former  men  not  only  want  more  clothes,  but  the  earth  more 
cultivating  than  the  latter."  (An  Essay  on  the  Governing  Causes  of  the  Natural 
Rate  of  Interest.  Lond.  1750.  p.  60.)  The  author  of  this  epoch-making  anonymous 
work  is  J.  Massey.     Hume  took  his  theory  of  interest  from  it. 


Absolute  and  Relative  Surplus-Value.  565 

in  other  respects  analogous,  the  necessary  labour-time  is  differ- 
ent. These  conditions  affect  surplus-labour  only  as  natural 
limits,  i.e.,  by  fixing  the  points  at  which  labour  for  others  can 
begin.  In  proportion  as  industry  advances,  these  natural 
limits  recede.  In  the  midst  of  our  West  European  society, 
where  the  labourer  purchases  the  right  to  work  for  his  own 
livelihood  only  by  paying  for  it  in  surplus-labour,  the  idea 
easily  takes  root  that  it  is  an  inherent  quality  of  human 
labour  to  furnish  a  surplus-product.^  But  consider,  for  ex- 
ample, an  inhabitant  of  the  eastern  islands  of  the  Asiatic 
Archipelago,  where  sago  grows  wild  in  the  forests.  "When 
the  inhabitants  have  convinced  themselves,  by  boring  a  hole 
in  the  tree,  that  the  pith  is  ripe,  the  trunk  is  cut  down  and 
divided  into  several  pieces,  the  pith  is  extracted,  mixed  with 
water  and  filtered :  it  is  then  quite  fit  for  use  as  sago.  One 
tree  commonly  yields  300  lbs.,  and  occasionally  500  to  600 
lbs.  There,  then,  people  go  into  the  forests,  and  cut  bread 
for  themselves,  just  as  with  us  they  cut  firewood."^  Sup- 
pose now  such  an  eastern  bread-cutter  requires  12  working 
hours  a  week  for  the  satisfaction  of  all  his  wants.  Nature's 
direct  gift  to  him  is  plenty  of  leisure  time.  Before  he  can 
apply  this  leisure  time  productively  for  himself,  a  whole  series 
of  historical  events  is  required ;  before  he  spends  it  in  surplus- 
labour  for  strangers,  compulsion  is  necessary.  If  capitalist 
production  were  introduced,  the  honest  fellow  would  perhaps 
have  to  work  six  days  a  week,  in  order  to  appropriate  to  him- 
self the  product  of  one  working  day  The  bounty  of  Nature 
does  not  explain  why  he  would  then  have  to  work  6  days  a 
week,  or  why  he  must  furnish  5  days  of  surplus-labour.  It 
explains  only  why  his  necessary  labour-time  would  be  limited 
to  one  day  a  week.  But  in  no  case  would  his  surplus-pro- 
duct arise  from  some  occult  quality  inherent  in  human  labour. 
Thus,  not  only  does  the  historically  developed  social  pro- 
ductiveness of  labour,  but  also  i,ts  natural  productiveness,  ap- 
pear to  be  productiveness  of  the  capital  with  which  that  labour 
is  incorporated. 

^  "Chaqufi  travail   doit    (this   appears   also  to  be   part  of  the   droits   et   devoirs   du 
:  i*-  "en)   laisser  un  excedant."     Proudhon. 

-  I'.   Slioviw:     "Die  Erde,  die  Pflanze  und  der  Mensch,  2  Ed.  Leipz.  1854,  p.  148. 


566  Capitalist  Production. 

Ricardo  never  concerns  himself  about  the  origin  of  surplus- 
value.  He  treats  it  as  a  thing  inherent  in  the  capitalist  mode 
of  production,  which  mode,  in  his  eyes,  is  the  natural  form  of 
social  production.  Whenever  he  discusses  the  productiveness 
of  labour,  he  seeks  in  it,  not  the  cause  of  surplus-value,  but 
the  cause  that  determines  the  magnitude  of  that  value.  On 
the  other  hand,  his  school  has  openly  proclaimed  the  produc- 
tiveness of  labour  to  be  the  originating  cause  of  profit  (read: 
Surplus-value).  This  at  all  events  is  a  progress  as  against 
the  mercantilists  v^^ho,  on  their  side,  derived  the  excess  of  the 
price  over  the  cost  of  production  of  the  product,  from  the  act 
of  exchange,  from  the  product  being  sold  above  its  value. 
Nevertheless,  Ricardo's  school  simply  shirked  the  problem, 
they  did  not  solve  it.  In  fact  these  bourgeois  economists  in- 
stinctively saw,  and  rightly  so,  that  it  is  very  dangerous  to 
stir  too  deeply  the  burning  question  of  the  origin  of  surplus- 
value.  But  what  are  we  to  think  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  who, 
half  a  century  after  Ricardo,  solemnly  claims  superiority  over 
the  mercantilists,  by  clumsily  repeating  the  wretched  evasions 
of  Ricardo's  earliest  vulgarisers? 

Mill  says:  "The  cause  of  profit  is  that  labour  produces 
more  than  is  required  for  its  support."  So  far,  nothing  but 
the  old  story ;  but  Mill  wishing  to  add  something  of  his  own, 
proceeds :  "To  vary  the  form  of  the  theorem ;  the  reason  why 
capital  yields  a  profit,  is  because  food,  clothing,  materials  and 
tools,  last  longer  than  the  time  which  was  required  to  produce 
them."  He  here  confounds  the  duration  of  labour-time  with 
the  duration  of  its  products.  According  to  this  view,  a  baker 
whose  product  lasts  only  a  day,  could  never  extract  from  his 
workpeople  the  same  profit,  as  a  machine  maker  whose  prod- 
ucts endures  for  20  years  and  more.  Of  course  it  is  very  true, 
that  if  a  bird's  nest  did  not  last  longer  than  the  time  it  takes 
in  building,  birds  would  have  to  do  without  nests. 

This  fundamental  truth  once  established,  Mill  establishes 
his  own  superiority  over  the  mercantilists.  "We  thus  see," 
he  proceeds,  "that  profit  arises,  not  from  the  incident  of  ex- 
change, but  from  the  productive  power  of  labour;  and  the 
general  profit  of  the  country  is  always  what  the  productive 


Absolute  and  Relative  Surplus-Value.  567 

power  of  labour  makes  it,  whether  any  exchange  takes  place 
or  not.  If  there  were  no  division  of  employments,  there  would 
be  no  buying  or  selling,  but  there  would  still  be  profit."  For 
Mill  then,  exchange,  buying  and  selling,  those  general  condi- 
tions of  capitalist  production,  are  but  an  incident,  and  there 
would  always  be  profits  even  without  the  purchase  and  sale 
of  labour-power ! 

"If,"  he  continues,  "the  labourers  of  the  country  collectively 
produce  twenty  per  cent  more  than  their  wages,  profits  will  be 
twenty  per  cent,  whatever  prices  may  or  may  not  be."  This 
is,  on  the  one  hand,  a  rare  bit  of  tautology ;  for  if  labourers 
produce  a  surplus-value  of  20%  for  the  capitalist,  his  profit 
will  be  to  the  total  wages  of  the  labourers  as  20 :  100.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  absolutely  false  to  say  that  "profits  will 
be  20%."  They  will  always  be  less,  because  they  are  cal- 
culated upon  the  sum  total  of  the  capital  advanced.  If,  for 
example,  the  capitalist  have  advanced  £500,  of  which  £400 
is  laid  out  in  means  of  production  and  £100  in  wages,  and  if 
the  rate  of  surplus-value  be  20%,  the  rate  of  profit  will  be 
20:  500,  i.e.,  4%  and  not  20%. 

Then  follows  a  splendid  example  of  Mill's  method  of  han- 
dling the  different  historical  forms  of  social  production:  "I 
assume,  throughout,  the  state  of  things  which,  where  the 
labourers  and  capitalists  are  separate  classes,  prevails,  with 
few  exceptions,  universally;  namely,  that  the  capitalist  ad- 
vances the  whole  expenses,  including  the  entire  remuneration 
of  the  labourer."  Strange  optical  illusion  to  see  everywhere 
a  state  of  things  which  as  yet  exist  only  exceptionally  on 
our  earth.  But  let  us  finish — Mill  is  willing  to  concede, 
"that  he  should  do  so  is  not  a  matter  of  inherent  necessity." 
On  the  contrary:  "the  labourer  might  wait,  until  the  produc- 
tion is  complete,  for  all  that  part  of  his  wages  which  exceeds 
mere  necessaries ;  and  even  for  the  whole,  if  he  has  funds  in 
hand  sufficient  for  his  temporary  support.  But  in  the  latter 
case,  the  labourer  is  to  that  extent  really  a  capitalist  in  the 
concern,  by  supplying  a  portion  of  the  funds  necessary  for 
carrying  it  on."  Mill  might  have  gone  further  and  have 
added,  that  the  labourer  who  advances  to  himself  not  only  the 


568  Capitalist  Production. 

necessaries  of  life  but  also  the  means  of  production,  is  in 
reality  nothing  but  his  own  wage-labourer.  He  might  also 
have  said  that  the  American  peasant  proprietor  is  but  a  serf 
who  does  enforced  labour  for  himself  instead  of  for  his  lord. 

After  thus  proving  clearly,  that  even  if  capitalist  produc- 
tion had  no  existence,  still  it  would  always  exist,  Mill  is  con- 
sistent enough  to  show,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  has  no  ex- 
istence, even  when  it  does  exist.  "And  even  in  the  former 
case"  (when  the  workman  is  a  wage  labourer  to  whom  the 
capitalist  advances  all  the  necessaries  of  life,  he  the  labourer), 
"may  be  looked  upon  in  the  same  light,"  i.e.,  as  a  capitalist, 
"since,  contributing  his  labour  at  less  than  the  market  price, 
(!)  he  may  be  regarded  as  lending  the  difference  (?)  to  his 
employer  and  receiving  it  back  with  interest,  &c."^  In  re- 
ality, the  labourer  advances  his  labour  gratuitously  to  the 
capitalist  during,  say  one  week,  in  order  to  receive  the  market 
price  at  the  end  of  the  week,  &c.,  and  it  is  this  which,  accord- 
ing to  Mill,  transforms  him  into  a  capitalist.  On  the  level 
plain,  simple  mounds  look  like  hills ;  and  the  imbecile  flatness 
of  the  present  bourgeoisie  is  to  be  measured  by  the  altitude 
of  its  great  intellects. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

CHANGES  OF  MAGNITUDE  IN  THE  PEICE  OF  LABOtTR-POWEB 
ANI>  IN    8UBPLUS-VALTJE. 

The  value  of  labour-power  is  determined  by  the  value  of  the 
necessaries  of  life  habitually  required  by  the  average  labourer. 
The  quantity  of  these  necessaries  is  known  at  any  given  epoch 
of  a  given  society,  and  can  therefore  be  treated  as  a  constant 
magnitude.  What  changes,  is  the  value  of  this  quantity. 
There  are,  besides,  two  other  factors  that  enter  into  the  de- 
termination of  the  value  of  labour-power.     One,  the  expenses 

'  T.  St.  Mill.     Principles  of  Pol.  Econ.  Lond.  1868,  p.  252-53  passim. 


Changes  of  Magnitude.  569 

of  developing  that  power,  which  expenses  vary  with  the  mode 
of  production ;  the  other,  its  natural  diversity,  the  difference 
between  the  labour-power  of  men  and  women,  of  children  and 
adults.  The  employment  of  these  different  sorts  of  labour- 
power,  an  employment  which  is,  in  its  turn,  made  necessary  by 
the  mode  of  production,  makes  a  great  difference  in  the  cost  of 
maintaining  the  family  of  the  labourer,  and  in  the  value  of 
the  labour-power  of  the  adult  male.  Both  these  factors,  how- 
ever, are  excluded  in  the  following  investigation.^ 

I  assume  (1)  that  commodities  are  sold  at  their  value;  (2) 
that  the  price  of  labour-power  rises  occasionally  above  Its 
value,  but  never  sinks  below  it. 

On  this  assumption  we  have  seen  that  the  relative  magni- 
tudes of  surplus-value  and  of  price  of  labour-power  are  de- 
termined by  three  circumstances;  (1)  the  length  of  the  work- 
ing day,  or  the  extensive  magnitude  of  labour;  (2)  the  normal 
intensity  of  labour,  its  intensive  magnitude,  whereby  a  given 
quantity  of  labour  is  expended  in  a  given  time;  (3)  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  labour,  whereby  the  same  quantum  of  labour 
yields,  in  a  given  time,  a  greater  or  less  quantum  of  product, 
dependent  on  the  degree  of  development  in  the  conditions  of 
production.  Very  different  combinations  are  clearly  possible, 
according  as  one  of  the  three  factors  is  constant  and  two  vari- 
able, or  two  constant  and  one  variable,  or  lastly,  all  three 
simultaneously  variable.  And  the  number  of  these  combina- 
tions is  augmented  by  the  fact  that,  when  these  factors  simul- 
taneously vary,  the  amount  and  direction  of  their  respective 
variations  may  differ.  In  what  follows  the  chief  combinations 
alone  are  considered. 

1.  Length  of  the  worhing  day  and  intensity  of  labour  constant. 
Productiveness  of  labour  variable. 

On  these  assumptions  the  value  of  labour-power,  and  the 
magnitude  of  surplus-value,  are  determined  by  three  laws. 

(1.)  A  working  day  of  given  length  always  creates  the  same 
amount  of  value,  no  matter  how  the  productiveness  of  labour, 

1  The  case  considered  at  pages  347—350  is  here  of  course  omitted.     (Note  by  editor 
of  third  edition.) 


570  Capitalist  Production. 

and,  with  it,  the  mass  of  tlie  product,  and  the  price  of  each 
single  commodity  i)roduced,  may  vary. 

If  the  value  created  by  a  working  day  of  12  hours  be,  say, 
six  shillings,  then,  although  the  mass  of  tlie  articles  produce^ 
varies  with  the  productiveness  of  labour,  the  only  result  is  that 
the  value  represented  by  six  shillings  is  spread  over  a  greater 
or  less  number  of  articles. 

(2.)  Surplus-value  and  the  value  of  labour-power  vary  in 
opposite  directions.  A  variation  in  the  productiveness  of 
labour,  its  increase  or  diminution,  causes  a  variation  in  the 
opposite  direction  in  the  value  of  labour-power,  and  in  the 
same  direction  in  surplus-value. 

The  value  created  by  a  working  day  of  12  hours  is  a  con- 
stant quantity,  say,  six  shillings.  This  constant  quantity  is 
the  sum  of  the  surplus-value  plus  the  value  of  the  labour-power, 
which  latter  value  the  labourer  replaces  by  an  equivalent.  It 
is  self-evident,  that  if  a  constant  quantity  consist  of  two  parts, 
neither  of  them  can  increase  without  the  other  diminishing. 
Xet  the  two  parts  at  starting  be  equal ;  3  shillings  value  of  la- 
bour-power, 3  shillings  surplus-value.  Then  the  value  of  the 
labour-power  cannot  rise  from  three  shillings  to  four,  with- 
out the  sur,plus-value  falling  from  three  shillings  to  two;  and 
the  surplus-value  cannot  rise  from  three  shillings  to  four, 
without  the  value  of  labour-power  falling  from  three  shillings 
to  two.  Under  these  circumstances,  therefore,  no  change  can 
take  place  in  the  absolute  magnitude,  either  of  the  surplus- 
value,  or  of  the  value  of  labour-power,  without  a  simultaneous 
change  in  their  relative  magnitudes,  i.e.,  relatively  to  each 
other.  It  is  impossible  for  them  to  rise  or  fall  simultane- 
ously. 

Further,  the  value  of  labour-power  cannot  fall,  and  con- 
sequently surplus-value  cannot  rise,  without  a  rise  in  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  labour.  For  instance,  in  the  above  case,  the 
value  of  the  labour-power  cannot  sink  from  three  shillings 
to  two,  unless  an  increase  in  the  productiveness  of  labour 
makes  it  possible  to  produce  in  4  hours  the  same  quantity  of 
necessaries  as  previously  required  6  hours  to  produce.  On 
the  other  hand,   the  value  of  the  labour-power  cannot  rise 


Changes  of  Magnitude.  571 

from  three  shillings  to  four,  without  a  decrease  in  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  labour,  whereby  eight  hours  become  requisite 
to  produce  the  same  quantity  of  necessaries,  for  the  production 
of  which  six  hours  previously  sufficed.  It  follows  from  this, 
that  an  increase  in  the  productivenes  of  labour  causes  a  fall 
in  the  value  of  labour-power  and  a  consequent  rise  in  surplus- 
value,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  a  decrease  in  such  productive- 
ness causes  a  rise  in  the  value  of  labour-power,  and  a  fall  in 
surplus-value. 

In  formulating  this  law,  Ricardo  overlooked  one  circum- 
stance; although  a  change  in  the  magnitude  of  the  surplus- 
value  or  surplus-labour  causes  a  change  in  the  opposite  di- 
rection in  the  magnitude  of  the  value  of  labour-power,  or  in 
the  quantity  of  necessary  labour,  it  by  no  means  follows  that 
they  vary  in  the  same  proportion.  They  do  increase  or 
diminish  by  tlie  same  quantity.  But  their  proportional  in- 
crease or  diminution  (depends  on  their  original  magnitudes 
before  the  change  in  the  productiveness  of  labour  took  place. 
If  the  value  of  the  labour-power  be  4  shillings,  or  the  neces- 
sary labour-time  8  hours,  and  the  surplus-  value  be  2  shillings, 
or  the  surplus-labour  4  hours,  and  if,  in  consequence  of  an 
increase  in  the  productiveness  of  labour,  the  value  of  the 
labour-power  fall  to  3  shillings,  or  the  necessary  labour  to  6 
h.ours,  the  surplus-value  will  rise  to  3  shillngs,  or  the  surplus- 
labour  to  6  hours.  The  same  quantity,  1  shilling  or  2  hours,  is 
added  in  one  case  and  subtracted  in  the  other.  But  the  pro- 
portional change  of  magnitude  is  different  in  each  case.  While 
the  value  of  the  labour-power  falls  from  4  shillings  to  3,  i.e.,  by 
^  or  25%,  the  surplus-value  rises  from  2  shillings  to  3,  i.e., 
by  ^  or  50%.  It  therefore  follows  that  the  proportional  in- 
crease of  diminution  in  surplus-value,  consequent  on  a  given 
change  in  the  productiveness  of  labour,  depends  on  the  original 
magnitude  of  that  portion  of  the  working  day  which  embodies 
itself  in  surplus-value;  the  smaller  that  portion,  the  greater 
is  the  proportional  change;  tlie  greater  that  portion,  the  less 
is  the  proportional  change. 

(3.)   Increase  or  diminution  in  surplus-value  is  always  eon- 


572  Capitalist  Production. 

sequent  on,  and  never  the  cause  of,  the  corresponding  dimi- 
nution or  increase  in  the  value  of  labour-power.^ 

Since  the  working-day  is  constant  in  magnitude,  and  is 
represented  by  a  value  of  constant  magnitude,  since,  to  every 
variation  in  the  magnitude  of  surplus-value,  there  corresponds 
an  inverse  variation  in  the  value  of  labour-power,  and  since 
the  value  of  labour-power  cannot  change,  except  in  consequence 
of  a  change  in  the  productiveness  of  labour,  it  clearly  follows, 
under  these  conditions,  that  every  change  of  magnitude  in  sur- 
plus-value arises  from  an  inverse  change  of  magnitude  in  the 
value  of  labour-power.  If,  then,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
there  can  be  no  change  of  absolute  magnitude  in  the  value  of 
labour-power,  and  in  surplus-value,  unaccompanied  by  a 
change  in  their  relative  magnitudes,  so  now  it  follows  that  no 
change  in  their  relative  magnitudes  is  possible,  without  a 
previous  change  in  the  absolute  magnitude  of  the  value  of 
labour-power. 

According  to  the  third  law,  a  change  in  the  magnitude  of 
surplus-value,  presupposes  a  movement  in  the  value  of  labour- 
power,  which  movement  is  brought  about  by  a  variation  in  the 
productiveness  of  labour.  The  limit  of  this  change  is  given 
by  the  altered  value  of  labour-power.  Nevertheless,  even 
when  circumstances  allow  the  law  to  operate,  subsidiary  move- 
ments may  occur.  For  example:  if  in  consequence  of  the 
increased  productiveness  of  labour,  the  value  of  labour-power 
fall  from  4  shillings  to  3,  or  the  necessary  labour-time  from 
8  hours  to  6,  the  price  of  labour-power  may  possibly  not  fall 
below  3s,  8d.,  3s.  6d.,  or  3s.  2d.,  and  the  surplus-value  conse- 
quently not  rise  above  3s.  4d.,  3c.  6d.,  or  3s.  lOd.  The 
amount  of  this  fall,  the  lowest  limit  of  which  is  3  shillings 
(the  new  value  of  labour-power),   depends   on   the   relative 

•  To  this  third  law  MacCuUoch  has  made,  amongst  others,  this  absurd  addition, 
that  a  rise  in  surplus  value  unaccompanied  by  a  fall  in  the  value  of  labour-power, 
can  occur  through  the  abolition  of  taxes  payable  by  the  capitalist.  The  abolition 
of  such  taxes  makes  no  change  whatever  in  the  quantity  of  surplus-value  that  the 
capitalist  extorts  at  first-hand  from  the  labourer.  It  alters  only  the  proportion  in 
which  that  surplus-value  is  divided  between  himself  and  third  persons.  It  conse- 
quently makes  no  alteration  whatever  in  the  relation  between  surplus-value  and  value 
of  labour-power.  MacCulloch's  exception  therefore  proves  only  his  misapprehension 
of  the  rule,  a  misfortune  that  as  oftens  happens  to  him  in  the  vulgarisation  of 
Ricardo,  as  it  does  to  J.  B.  Say  in  the  vulgarisation  of  Adam  Smith. 


Changes  of  Magnitude.  573 

•weight,  whicli  the  pressure  of  Ccapital  on  the  one  side,  and  the 
resistance  of  the  Labourer  on  the  other,  throws  into  the  scale. 

The  vahie  of  labour-power  is  determined  by  the  value  of  a 
given  quantity  of  necessaries.  It  is  the  value  and  not  the 
mass  of  these  necessaries  that  varies  with  the  productiveness 
of  labour.  It  is,  however,  possible  that,  owing  to  an  increase 
of  productiveness,  both  the  labourer,  and  the  capitalist  may 
simultaneously  be  able  to  appropriate  a  greater  quantity  of 
these  necessaries,  without  any  change  in  the  price  of  labour- 
power  or  in  surplus-value.  If  the  value  of  labour-power  be  3 
shillings,  and  the  necessary  labour-time  amount  to  6  hours,  if 
the  surplus-value  likewise  be  3  shillings,  and  the  surplus- 
labour  6  hours,  then  if  the  productiveness  of  labour  were 
doubled  without  altering  the  ratio  of  necessary  labour  to 
surplus-labour,  there  would  be  no  change  of  magnitude  in 
surplus-value  and  price  of  labour-power.  The  only  result 
would  be  that  each  of  them  would  represent  twice  as  many 
use-values  as  before;  these  use-values  being  twice  as  cheap  as 
before.  Although  labour-power  would  be  unchanged  in  price, 
it  would  be  above  its  value.  If,  however,  the  prices  of  labour- 
power  had  fallen,  not  to  Is.  6d.,  the  lowest  possible  point  con- 
sistent with  its  new  value,  but  to  2s.  lOd,  or  2s.  6d.,  still  this 
lower  price  would  represent  an  increased  mass  of  necessaries. 
In  this  way  it  is  possible  with  an  increasing  productiveness  of 
labour,  for  the  price  of  labour-power  to  keep  on  falling,  and 
yet  this  fall  to  be  accompanied  by  a  constant  growth  in  the 
mass  of  the  labourer's  means  of  subsistenca  But  even  in  such 
case,  the  fall  in  the  value  of  labour-power  would  cause  a  corre- 
sponding rise  of  surplus-value,  and  thus  the  abyss  between  the 
labourer's  position  and  that  of  the  capitalist  would  keep 
widening.* 

Ricardo  was  the  first  who  accurately  formulated  the  three 
laws  we  have  above  stated.  But  he  falls  into  the  following 
errors:  (1)  he  looks  upon  the  special  conditions  under  which 

1  "When  an  alteration  takes  place  in  the  productiveness  of  industry,  and  that 
either  more  or  less  is  produced  by  a  given  quantity  of  labour  and  capital,  the  propor- 
tion of  wages  may  obviously  vary,  whilst  the  quantity,  which  that  proportion  repre- 
sents, remains  the  same,  or  the  quantity  may  vary,  whilst  the  proportion  remains 
the  same."      ("Outlines  of  Political  Economy,"  &c.,  p.  67.) 


574  Capitalist  Production. 

these  laws  hold  good  as  the  general  and  sole  conditions  of 
capitalist  production.  He  knows  no  change,  either  in  the 
length  of  the  working  day,  or  in  the  intensity  of  labour ;  con- 
sequently with  him  there  can  be  only  one  variable  factor,  viz., 
the  productiveness  of  labour;  (2),  and  this  errors  vitiates  his 
analysis  much  more  than  (1),  he  has  not,  any  more  than  have 
the  other  economists,  investigated  surplus-value  as  such,  i.e., 
independently  of  its  particular  forms,  such  a  profit,  rent,  &c. 
He  therefore  confounds  together  the  laws  of  the  rate  of  sur- 
plus-value and  the  laws  of  the  rate  of  profit.  The  rate  of 
profit  is,  as  we  have  already  said,  the  ratio  of  the  surplus-value 
to  the  total  capital  advanced ;  the  rate  of  surplus-value  is  the 
ratio  of  the  surplus-value  to  the  variable  part  of  that  capital. 
Assume  that  a  capital  C  of  £500  is  made  up  of  raw  material, 
instruments  of  labour,  &c.  (c)  to  the  amount  of  £400 ;  and  of 
wages  (v)  to  the  amount  of  £100 ;  and  further,  that  the  sur- 
plus-value (s)=£100.  Then  we  have  rate  of  surplus-value 
^^£120=100%.  But  the  rate  of  profit  1.=  ^;=  20%.  It 
id,  besides,  obvious  that  the  rate  of  profit  may  depend  on 
circumstances  that  in.no  way  affect  the  rate  of  surplus-value. 
I  shall  show  in  Book  III.  that,  with  a  given  rate  of  surplus- 
value,  we  may  have  any  number  of  rates  of  profit,  and  that 
various  rates  of  surplus-value  may,  under  given  conditions, 
express  themselves  in  a  single  rate  of  profit. 

II.  WorJcing-day  constant.     Productiveness  of  labour  constant. 
Intensity  of  labour  variable. 

Increased  intensity  of  labour  means  increased  expenditure 
of  labour  in  a  given  time.  Hence  a  working-day  of  more 
intense  labour  is  embodied  in  more  products  than  is  one  of  less 
intense  labour,  the  length  of  each  day  being  the  same.  In- 
creased productiveness  of  labour  also,  it  is  true,  will  supply 
more  products  in  a  given  working-day.  But  in  this  latter  case, 
the  value  of  each  single  product  falls,  for  it  costs  less  labour 
than  before ;  in  the  former  case,  that  value  remains  unchanged, 
for  each  article  costs  the  same  labour  as  before.  Here  we 
have  an  increase  in  the  number  of  products,  unaccompanied 


Changes  of  Magnitude.  575 

by  a  fall  in  their  individual  prices :  as  their  number  increases, 
so  does  the  sum  of  their  prices.  But  in  the  case  of  increased 
productiveness,  a  given  value  is  spread  over  a  greater  mass  of 
products.  Hence  the  length  of  the  working-day  being  con- 
stant, a  day's  labour  of  increased  intensity  will  be  incorporated 
in  an  increased  value,  and,  the  value  of  money  remaining  un- 
changed, in  more  money.  The  value  created  varies  with  the 
extent  to  which  the  intensity  of  labour  deviates  from  its  nor- 
mal intensity  in  the  society.  A  given  working-day,  there- 
fore, no  longer  creates  a  constant,  but  a  variable  value;  in  a 
day  of  12  hours  of  ordinary  intensity,  the  value  created  is,  say 
6  shillings,  but  with  increased  intensity,  the  value  created  may 
be  7,  8,  or  more  shillings.  It  is  clear  that,  if  the  value  cre- 
ated by  a  day's  labour  increases  from,  say,  6  to  8  shillings, 
then  the  two  parts  into  which  this  value  is  divided,  viz.,  price 
of  labour-power  and  surplus-value,  may  both  of  them  increase 
simultaneously,  and  either  equally  or  unequally.  They  may 
both  simultaneously  increase  from  3  shillings  to  4.  Here,  the 
rise  in  the  price  of  labour-power  does  not  necessarily  imply 
that  the  price  has  risen  above  the  value  of  labour-power.  On 
the  contrary,  the  rise  in  price  may  be  accompanied  by  a  fall  in 
value.  This  occurs  whenever  the  rise  in  the  price  of  labour- 
power  does  not  compensate  for  its  increased  wear  and  tear. 

We  know  that,  with  transitory  exceptions,  a  change  in  the 
productiveness  of  labour  does  not  cause  any  change  in  the 
value  of  labour-power,  nor  consequently  in  the  magnitude  of 
surplus-value,  unless  the  products  of  the  industries  affected  are 
articles  habitually  consumed  by  the  laborers.  In  the  present 
case  this  condition  no  longer  applies.  For  when  the  variation 
is  either  in  the  duration  or  in  the  intensity  of  labour,  there  is 
always  a  corresponding  change  in  the  magnitude  of  the  value 
created,  independently  of  the  nature  of  the  article  in  which 
that  value  is  embodied. 

If  the  intensity  of  labour  were  to  increase  simultaneously 
and  equally  in  every  branch  of  industry,  then  the  new  and 
higher  degree  of  intensity  would  become  the  normal  degree  for 
the  society,  and  would  therefore  cease  to  be  taken  account  of. 
But  still,  even  then,  the  intensity  of  labour  would  be  different 


576  Capitalist  Production. 

in  different  countries,  and  would  modify  the  international  ap- 
plication of  the  law  of  value.  The  more  intense  working- 
day  of  one  nation  would  be  represented  by  a  greater  sum  of 
money  than  would  the  less  intense  day  of  another  nation.* 

IIL' Productiveness  and  Intensity  of  Labour  constmU.     Length 
of  the  workimg-day  variable. 

The  working-day  may  vary  in  two  ways.  It  may  be  made 
either  longer  or  shorter.  From  our  present  data,  and  within 
the  limits  of  the  assumptions  made  on  p.  528  we  obtain  the 
following  laws: 

(1.)  The  working-day  creates  a  greater  or  less  amount  of 
value  in  proportion  to  its  length — thus,  a  variable  and  not  a 
constant  quantity  of  value. 

(2.)  Every  change  in  the  relation  between  the  magnitudes 
of  surplus  value  and  of  the  value  of  labour-power  arises  from 
a  change  in  the  absolute  magnitude  of  the  surplus-labour,  and 
consequently  of  the  surplus-value. 

(3.)  The  absolute  value  of  labour-power  can  change  only 
in  consequence  of  the  reaction  exercised  by  the  prolongation  of 
surplus-value  upon  the  wear  and  tear  of  labour-power.  Every 
change  in  this  absolute  value  is  therefore  the  effect,  but  never 
the  cause,  of  a  change  in  the  magnitude  of  surplus-value. 

We  begin  with  the  case  in  which  the  working-day  is  short- 
ened. 

(1).  A  shortening  of  the  working-day  under  the  conditions 
given  above,  leaves  the  value  of  labour-power,  and  with  it,^  the 
necessary  labour-time,  unaltered.  It  reduces  the  surplus- 
labour  and  surplus-value.  Along  with  the  absolute  magnitude 
of  the  latter,  its  relative  magnitude  also  falls,  i.e.,  its  magni- 
tude relatively  to  the  value  of  labour-power  whose  magni- 
tude remains  unaltered.     Only  by  lowering  the  price  of  la- 

*  "All  things  being  equal,  the  English  manufacturer  can  turn  out  a  considerably 
larger  amount  of  work  in  a  given  time  than  a  foreign  manufacturer,  so  much  as  to 
counterbalance  the  difference  of  the  working-days,  between  60  hours  a  week  here, 
and  72  or  80  elsewhere."  (Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact,  for  31st  Oct.  1855,  p.  65.)  The 
most  infallible  means  for  reducing  this  qualitative  difference  between  the  English 
nnd  Continental  working  hour  would  be  a  law  shortening  quantitatively  the  length 
of  the  working-day  in  Continental  factories. 


Changes  of  Magnitude.  577 

boiir-power  below  its  value  could  the  capitalist  save  himself 
harmless. 

All  the  usual  arguments  against  the  shortening  of  the 
working-day,  assume  that  it  takes  place  under  the  conditions 
we  have  here  supposed  to  exist;  hut  in  reality  the  very  con- 
trary is  the  case :  a  change  in  the  productiveness  and  intensity 
of  labour  either  precedes,  or  immediately  follows,  a  shorten- 
ing of  the  working-day.^ 

(2).  Lengthening  of  the  working-day.  Let  the  necessary 
labour-time  be  6  hours,  or  the  value  of  labour-power  3  shil- 
lings ;  also  let  the  surplus-labour  be  6  hours  or  the  surplus- 
value  3  shillings.  The  whole  working-day  then  amounts  to  12 
hours  and  is  embodied  in  a  value  of  6  shillings.  If,  now, 
the  working-day  be  lengthened  by  2  hours  and  the  price  of 
labour-power  remain  unaltered,  the  surplus-value  increases 
both  absolutely  and  relatively.  Although  there  is  no  absolute 
change  in  the  value  of  labour-power,  it  suffers  a  relative  fall. 
Under  the  conditions  assumed  in  I.  there  could  not  be  a  change 
of  relative  magnitude  in  the  value  of  labour-power  without  a 
change  in  its  absolute  magnitude.  Here,  on  the  contrary,  the 
change  of  relative  magnitude  in  the  value  of  labour-power  is 
the  result  of  the  change  of  absolute  magnitude  in  surplus- 
value. 

Since  the  value  in  which  a  day's  labour  is  embodied,  in- 
creases with  the  length  of  that  day,  it  is  evident  that  the  sur- 
plus-value and  the  price  of  labour-power  may  simultaneously 
increase,  either  by  equal  or  unequal  quantities.  This  simul- 
taneous increase  is  therefore  possible  in  two  cases,  one,  the 
actual  lengthening  of  the  working-day,  the  other,  an  increase 
in  the  intensity  of  labour  unaccompanied  by  such  lengthen- 
ing. 

When  the  working-day  is  prolonged,  the  price  of  labour- 
power  may  fall  below  its  value,  although  that  price  be  nomin- 
ally unchanged  or  even  rise.  The  value  of  a  day's  labour- 
power,  is,  as  will  be  remembered,  estimated  from  it<s  normal 
average  duration,  or  from  the  normal  duration  of  Mfe  among 

*  "There  are  compensating  circumstances  .  .  .  which  the  working  of  the  Ten 
Hours'  Act  has  brought  to  light."     (Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact,  for  1st  Dec.  1848,  p.  7.) 

SK 


5/8  Capitalist  Production. 

tlie  labourers,  and  from  corresponding  nonnal  transformations 
of  organised  bodily  matter  into  motion,^  in  confonnity  with  tbe 
nature  of  man.  Up  to  a  certain  point,  the  increased  wear  and 
tear  of  labonr-power,  inseparable  from  a  lengthened  working- 
day,  may  bo  compensated  by  higher  wages.  But  beyond  this 
point  the  wear  and  tear  increases  in  geometrical  progression, 
and  every  condition  suitable  for  the  normal  reproduction  and 
functioning  of  labour-power  is  suppressed.  The  price  of 
labour-power  and  the  degree  of  its  exploitation  cease  to  be 
commensurable  quantities. 

IV. — Simultaneous  variations  in  the  duration,  productiveness, 
and  intensity  of  lahour. 

It  is  obvious  that  a  large  number  of  combinations  are  here 
possible.  Any  two  of  tlie  factors  may  vary  and  the  third 
remain  constant,  or  all  three  may  vary  at  once.  They  may 
vary  either  in  the  same  or  in  different  degrees,  in  the  same 
or  in  opposite  directions,  with  the  result  that  the  variations 
counteract  one  another,  either  wholly  or  in  part.  Neverthe- 
less the  analysis  of  every  possible  case  is  easy  in  view  of  the 
results  given  in  I.,  II.,  and  III.  The  effect  of  every  possible 
combination  may  be  found  by  treating  each  factor  in  turn  as 
variable,  and  the  other  two  constant  for  the  time  being.  We 
shall,  therefore,  notice,  and  that  briefly,  but  two  important 
cases. 

(1).  Diminishing  productiveness  of  labour  with  a  simultaneous! 
lengthening  of  the  working-day. 

In  speaking  of  diminishing  productiveness  of  labour,  we 
here  refer  to  diminution  in  those  industries  whose  products  de- 
termine the  value  of  labour-power;  such  a  diminution,  for 
example,  as  results  from  decreasing  fertility  of  the  soil,  and 
from  the  corresponding  dearness  of  its  products.     Take  the 

*  "The  amount  of  labour  which  a  man  had  undergone  in  the  course  of  24  hours 
might  be  approximately  arrived  at  by  an  examination  of  the  chymical  changes  which 
had  taken  place  in  his  body,  changed  forms  in  matter  indicating  the  anterior  exer- 
cise of  dynamic   force."     (Grove:     "On  the  Correlation  of   Physical   Forces.") 


Changes  of  Magnitude.  579 

working-day  at  12  hours  and  the  value  created  by  it  at  6 
shillings,  of  which  one  half  replaces  the  value  of  the  labour- 
power,  the  other  forms  the  surplus-value.  Suppose,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  increased  dearaess  of  the  products  of  the  soil, 
that  the  value  of  labour-power  rises  from  3  shillings  to  4,  and 
therefore  the  necessary  labour-time  from  6  hours  to  8.  If 
there  be  no  change  in  the  length  of  the  working-day,  the  sur- 
plus-labour would  fall  from  6  hours  to  4,  the  surplus-value 
from  3  shillings  to  2.  If  the  day  be  lengthened  by  2  hours, 
i.e.,  from  12  hours  to  14,  the  surplus-labour  remains  at  6 
hours,  the  surplus-value  at  6  shillings,  but  the  surplus-value 
decreases  compared  with  the  value  of  labour-power,  as  meas- 
ured by  the  necessary  labour-time.  If  the  day  be  lengthened 
by  4  hours,  viz.,  from  12  hours  to  16,  the  proportional  magni- 
tudes of  surplus-value  and  value  of  labour-power,  of  surplus- 
labour  and  necessary  labour,  continue  unchanged,  but  the 
absolute  magnitude  of  surplus-value  rises  from  3  shillings  to  4, 
that  of  the  surplus-labour  from  6  hours  to  8,  an  increment  of 
33^%.  Therefore,  with  diminishing  productiveness  of  labour 
and  a  simultaneous  lengthening  of  the  working-day,  the  ab- 
solute magnitude  of  surplus-value  may  continue  unaltered,  at 
the  same  time  that  its  relative  magnitude  diminishes ;  its  rela- 
tive magnitude  may  continue  unchanged,  at  the  same  time 
that  its  absolute  magnitude  increases ;  and,  provided  the 
lengthening  of  the  day  be  sufficient,  both  may  increase. 

In  the  period  between  1799  and  1815  the  increasing  price  of 
provisions  led  in  England  to  a  nominal  rise  in  wages,  although 
the  real  wages,  expressed  in  the  necessaries  of  life,  fell.  From 
this  fact  West  and  Ricardo  drew  the  conclusion,  that  the 
diminution  in  the  productiveness  of  agricultural  labour  had 
brought  about  a  fall  in  the  rate  of  surplus-value,  and  they 
made  this  assumption  of  a  fact  that  existed  only  in  their 
imaginations,  the  starting-point  of  important  investigations 
into  the  relative  magnitudes  of  wages,  profits,  and  rent.  But, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  surplus-value  had  at  that  time,  thanks  to 
the  increased  intensity  of  labour,  and  to  the  prolongation  of 
the  working-day,  increased  both  in  absolute  and  relative  mag- 
nitude.    This  was  the  period  in  which  the  right  to  prolong 


580  Capitalist  Production. 

the  hours  of  labour  to  an  outrageous  extent  was  established '/ 
the  period  that  was  especially  characterised  by  an  accelerated 
accumulation  of  capital  here,  by  pauperism  there.^ 

(2)  Increasing  intensity  and  'productiveness  of  labour  with 
simultaneous  shortening  of  the  working-day. 

Increased  productiveness  and  greater  intensity  of  labour, 
both  have  a  like  effect.  They  both  augment  the  mass  of 
articles  produced  in  a  given  time.  Both,  therefore,  shorten 
that  portion  of  the  working-day  which  the  labourer  needs  to 
produce  his  means  of  subsistence  or  their  equivalent.  The 
minimum  length  of  the  working-day  is  fixed  by  this  necessary 
but  contractile  portion  of  it.  If  the  whole  working-day  were 
to  shrink  to  the  length  of  this  portion,  surplus-labour  would 
vanish,  a  consummation  utterly  impossible  under  the  regime 
of  capital.  Only  by  suppressing  the  capitalist  form  of  pro- 
duction could  the  length  of  the  working-day  be  reduced  to 

^  "Corn  and  labour  rarely  march  quite  abreast;  but  there  is  an  obvious  limit  be- 
yond which  they  cannot  be  separated.  With  regard  to  the  unusual  exertions  made 
by  the  labouring  classes  in  periods  of  dearness,  which  produce  the  fall  of  wages 
noticed  in  the  evidence"  (namely,  before  the  Parliamentary  Committee  of  Inquiry, 
1814-15),  "they  are  most  meritorious  in  the  individuals,  and  certainly  favour  the 
growth  of  capital.  But  no  man  of  humanity  could  wish  to  see  them  constant  and 
unremitted.  They  are  most  admirable  as  a  temporary  relief;  but  if  they  were  con- 
stantly in  action,  effects  of  a  similar  kind  would  result  from  them,  as  from  the 
population  of  a  country  being  pushed  to  the  very  extreme  limits  of  its  food." 
(Malthus:  "Inquiry  into  the  Nature  and  Progress  of  Rent,"  Lond.,  1815,  p.  48, 
note.)  All  honour  to  Malthus  that  he  lays  stress  on  the  lengthening  of  the  hours 
of  labour,  a  fact  to  which  he  elsewhere  in  his  pamphlet  draws  attention,  while 
Ricardo  and  others,  in  face  of  the  most  notorious  facts,  make  invariability  in  the 
length  of  the  working-day  the  ground-work  of  all  their  investigations.  But  the 
conservative  interests,  which  Malthus  served,  prevented  him  from  seeing  that  an 
unlimited  prolongation  of  the  working-day,  combined  with  an  extraordinary  develop- 
ment of  machinery,  and  the  exploitation  of  women  and  children,  must  inevitably 
have  made  a  great  portion  of  the  working  class  "supernumerary,"  particularly  when- 
ever the  war  should  have  ceased,  and  the  monopoly  of  England  in  the  markets  of 
the  world  should  have  come  to  an  end.  It  was,  of  course,  far  more  convenient, 
and  much  more  in  conformity  with  the  interests  of  the  ruling  classes,  whom  Malthus 
adored  like  a  true  priest,  to  explain  this  "over-population"  by  the  eternal  laws  of 
Nature,  rather  than  by  the  historical  laws  of  capitalist  production. 

* "  A  principal  cause  of  the  increase  of  capital,  during  the  war,  proceeded  from 
the  greater  exertions,  and  perhaps  the  greater  privations  of  the  labouring  classes, 
the  most  numerous  in  every  society.  More  women  and  children  were  compelled  by 
necessitous  circumstances,  to  enter  upon  laborious  occupations,  and  former  work- 
men were,  from  the  same  cause,  obliged  to  devote  a  greater  portion  of  their  time 
to  increase  production."  (Essays  on  Pol.  Econ.,  in  which  are  illustrated  the  prin- 
cipal causes  of  the  present  national  distress.     Lond.,  1830,  p.  248.) 


Changes  of  Magnitude.  581 

the  necessary  labour-time.  But,  even  in  that  case,  the  latter 
would  extend  its  limits.  On  the  one  hand,  because  the  notion 
of  ''means  of  subsistence"  would  considerably  expand,  and  the 
labourer  would  lay  claim  to  an  altogether  different  standard 
of  life.  On  the  other  hand,  because  a  part  of  what  is  now 
surplus-labour,  would  then  count  as  necessary  labour;  I  mean 
the  labour  of  forming  a  fund  for  reserve  and  accumulation. 

The  more  the  productiveness  of  labour  increases,  the  more 
can  the  working-day  be  shortened ;  and  the  more  the  working- 
day  is  shortened,  the  more  can  the  intensity  of  labour  increase. 
From  a  social  point  of  view,  the  productiveness  increases  in 
the  same  ratio  as  the  economy  of  labour,  which,  in  its  turn, 
includes  not  only  economy  of  the  means  of  production,  but  also 
the  avoidance  of  all  useless  labour.  The  capitalist  mode  of 
production,  while  on  the  one  hand,  enforcing  economy  in  each 
individual  business,  on  the  other  hand,  begets,  by  its  anarchical 
system  of  competition,  the  most  outrageous  squandering  of 
labour-power  and  of  the  social  means  of  production,  not  to 
mention  the  creation  of  a  vast  number  of  employments,  at 
present  indispensable,  but  in  themselves  superfluous. 

The  intensity  and  productiveness  of  labour  being  given,  the 
time  which  society  is  bound  to  devote  to  material  production 
is  shorter,  and  as  a  consequence,  the  time  at  its  disposal  for 
the  free  development,  intellectual  and  social,  of  the  individual 
is  greater,  in  proportion  as  the  work  is  more  and  more  evenly 
divided  among  all  the  able-bodied  members  of  society,  and 
as  a  particular  class  is  more  and  more  deprived  of  the  power 
to  shift  the  natural  burden  of  labour  from  its  own  shoulders 
to  those  of  another  layer  of  society.  In  this  direction,  the 
shortening  of  the  working-day  finds  at  last  a  limit  in  the 
generalisation  of  labour.  In  capitalist  society  spare  time  is 
acquired  for  one  class  by  converting  the  whole  life-time  of 
the  masses  into  labour-time. 


582  Capitalist  Production. 


.     CHAPTER  XYIII. 

VAEIOUS    FORMUL-S:    FOE    THE    BATE    OF   SUBPLUS-VALUE. 

Wb  have  seen  that  the  rate  of  surplus-value  is  represented  by 
the  following  formulsp. 

T        Surplus-value       (  L  \  Surplus-value  Surplus-labour 

.    '    Variable  Capital     \  v  J  Value  of  labour-power  Necessary  labour 

The  two  first  of  these  formulse  represent,  as  a  ratio  of  values, 
that  which,  in  the  third,  is  represented  as  a  ratio  of  the  times 
during  which  those  values  are  produced.  These  formula?, 
supplementary  the  one  to  the  other,  are  rigorously  definite  and 
correct.  We  therefore  find  them  substantially,  but  not  con- 
sciously, worked  out  in  classical  political  economy.  There 
we  meet  with  the  following  derivative  formulae. 

J  J        Surplus-labour Surplus-value Surplus-product 

•       Working-day  Value  of  the  Product  Total  Product 

One  and  the  same  ratio  is  here  expressed  as  a  ratio  of 
labour-times,  of  the  values  in  which  those  labour-times  are 
embodied,  and  of  the  products  in  which  those  values  exist.  It 
is  of  course  understood  that,  by  "Value  of  the  Product,"  is 
meant  only  the  value  newly  created  in  a  working-day,  the 
constant  part  of  the  value  of  the  product  being  excluded. 

In  all  of  these  formulae  (II.)j  the  actual  degree  of  exploita- 
tion of  labour,  or  the  rate  of  surplus-value,  is  falsely  expressed. 
Let  the  working-day  bo  12  hours.  Then,  making  the  same 
assumptions  as  in  former  instances,  the  real  degree  of  ex- 
ploitation of  labour  will  be  represented  in  the  following  pro- 
portions. 

6  hours  surplus-labour  Surplus-value  of  3  sh. 


6  hours  necessary  labour  Variable  Capital  of  3  sh. 


100  % 


From  formulae  II.  we  get  very  differently, 

6  hours  surplus-labour     Surplus-value  of  S  sh.       w>^  >y 

Working-day  of  12  hours  Value  created  of  6  sb.  *^^   A' 

These  derivative  formulae  express,  in  reality,  only  the  pro- 


Various  Formula;  for  Rate  of  Surplus-Value.      583 

portion  in  which  the  working-day,  or  the  value  produced  by 
it,  is  divided  between  capitalist  and  labourer.  If  they  are  to 
be  treated  as  direct  expressions  of  the  degree  of  self-expansion 
of  capital,  the  following  erroneous  law  would  hold  good :  Sur- 
plus-labour or  surplus-value  can  never  reach  100%,^  Since 
the  surplus-labour  is  only  an  aliquot  part  of  the  working-day, 
or  since  surplus-value  is  only  an  aliquot  part  of  the  value 
created,  the  surplus-labour  must  necessarily  be  always  less 
than  the  working-day,  or  the  surplus-value  always  less  than 
the  total  value  created.  In  order,  however,  to  attain  the 
ratio  of  100:100  they  must  be  equal.  In  order  that  the 
surplus-labour  may  absorb  the  whole  day  {i.  e.,  an  average  day 
of  any  week  or  year),  the  necessary  labour  must  sink  to  zero. 
But  if  the  necessary  labour  vanish,  so  too  does  the  surplus- 
labour,  since  it  is  only  a  function  of  the  former.     The  ratio 

Surplus-labour  Surplus-vplue  ,-,  «  i      ,i        t      ♦, 

vvorkinj^^diT"  or  Value  created  <^^^^  therefore  ucvcr  reach  the  limit 
of  j5^,  still  less  rise  to  \oo^  •  ^^^  ^^^  ^o  the  rate  of  surplus- 
value,  the  real  degree  of  exploitation  of  labour.  Take,  e.g.,  the 
estimate  of  L.  de  Lavergne,  according  to  which  the  English 
agricultural  labourer  gets  only  \,  the  capitalist  (farmer)  on  the 
other  hand  f  of  the  product^  or  of  its  value,  apart  from  the 
question  of  how  the  booty  is  subsequently  divided  between  the 

*  Thus,  e.g.,  in  "Dritter  Brief  an  v.  Kirchmann  von  Rodbertus.  Widerlegung  der 
Ricardo'schen  Theorie  von  der  Grundrente  und  Begriindung  einer  neuen  Renten- 
theorie.  Berlin,  1851."  I  shall  return  to  this  letter  later  on;  in  spite  of  its  erro- 
neous theory  of  rent,  it  sees  through  the  nature  of  capitalist  production. 

Note  by  the  Editor  of  the  3rd  Edition.  It  may  be  seen  from  this  how  favourably 
Marx  judged  his  predecessors,  whenever  he  found  in  them  real  progress,  or  new  and 
sound  ideas.  The  subsequent  publication  of  Rodbertus'  letters  to  Rud.  Meyer  has 
shown  that  the  above  acknowledgment  by  Marx  wants  restricting  to  some  extent. 
In  those  letters  this  passage  occurs:  "Capital  must  be  rescued  not  only  from  labour, 
but  from  jtself,  and  that  will  be  best  effected,  by  treating  the  acts  of  the  industrial 
capitalist  as  economical  and  political  functions,  that  have  been  delegated  to  him 
with  his  capital,  and  by  treating  his  profit  as  a  form  of  salary,  because  we  still  know 
no  other  social  organisation.  But  salaries  may  be  regulated,  and  may  also  be  re- 
duced if  they  take  too  much  from  wages.  The  irruption  of  Marx  into  Society,  as 
I  may  call  his  book,  must  be  warded  off.  .  .  .  Altogether,  Marx's  book  is  not  so 
much  an  investigation  into  capital,  as  a  polemic  against  the  present  form  of  capital, 
a  form  which  he  confounds  with  the  concept  itself  of  capital."  (Briefe,  &c.,  von 
Dr.  Rodbertus-Jagetzo\v,  herausgg.  von  Dr.  Rud.  Meyer,  Berlin,  1881,  I.  Bd.  p.  111., 
48.  Brief  von  Rodbertus.).  To  such  ideological  commonplaces  did  the  bold  attack 
by  Rodbertus  in  his  "social  letters"  finally   dwindle  down. 

^  That  part  of  the  product  which  merely  replaces  the  constant  capital  advanced,  is 
of  course  left  out  in  this  caluclation.  Mr.  L.  de  Lavergne,  a  blind  admirer  of  Eng- 
land, is  inclined  to  estimate  the  share  of  the  capitalist  too  low,  rather  than  too  high. 


584  Capitalist  Production. 

capitalist,  the  landlord  and  others.  According  to  this,  the  sur- 
plus-labour of  the  English  agricultural  labourer  is  to  his 
necessary  labour  as  3  :1,  which  gives  a  rate  of  exploitation  of 
300%. 

The  favourite  method  of  treating  the  working-day  as  con- 
stant in  magnitude  became,  through  the  use  of  the  formula? 
II.,  a  fixed  usage,  because  in  them  sui-plus-labour  is  always 
compared  with  a  working-day  of  given  length.  The  same 
holds  good  when  the  repartition  of  the  value  produced  is  ex- 
clusively kept  in  sight.  The  working-day  that  has  already 
been  realised  in  a  given  value,  must  necessarily  be  a  day  of 
given  length. 

The  habit  of  representing  surplus-value  and  value  of  labour- 
power  as  fractions  of  the  value  created — a  habit  that  originates 
in  the  capitalist  mode  of  production  itself,  and  whose  import 
will  hereafter  be  disclosed — conceals  the  very  transaction  that 
characterises  capital,  namely  the  exchange  of  variable  capital 
for  living  labour-power,  and  the  consequent  exclusion  of  the 
labourer  from  the  product.  Instead  of  the  real  fact,  we  have 
the  false  semblance  of  an  association,  in  which  labourer  and 
capitalist  divide  the  product  in  proportion  to  the  different  ele- 
ments which  they  respectively  contribute  towards  its  for- 
mation.^ 

Moreover,  the  formulse  II.  can  at  any  time  be  reconverted 

.     ,       <•  IT         -r  <.    J?        •       .  1  Surplus-labour  of  6  hours 

into  formulae  I.     If,  for  instance,  we  have    working-day  of  i.  hours 
the  necessary  labour-time  being  12  hours  less   the   surplus- 
labour  of  6  hours,  we  get  the  following  result, 

Surplus-labour  of  6  hours  100 

Necessary-labour  of  6  hours         100 

> 

There  is  a  third  formula  which  I  have  occasionally  already 
anticipated ;  it  is 

TTT  Surplus-value       __    Surplus-labour     __  Unpaid  labour 

Value  of  labour-power  ~~  Necessary  labour  Paid  labour 

After  the  investigations  we  have  given  above,  it  is  no  longer 
possible  to  be  misled,  by  the  formula       plid  labour"^  >  i°to  con- 

*  All  well-developed  forms  of  capitalist  production  being  forms  of  co-operation, 
nothing  is,  of  course,  easier,  than  to  make  abstraction  from  their  antagonistic  char* 


Various  Formulcs  for  Rate  of  Surplus-Value.      585 

eluding,  that  the  capitalist  pays  for  labour  and  not  for  lahour- 
power.     This    formula    is    only    a    popular    expression    for 

Necrlrar'^iabour-  "^^^  Capitalist  pays  the  value,  so  far  as  price  co- 
incides with  value,  of  the  labour-power,  and  receives  in  ex- 
change the  disposal  of  the  living  labour-power  itself.  His 
usufruct  is  spread  over  two  periods.  During  one  the  labourer 
produces  a  value  that  is  only  equal  to  the  value  of  his  labour- 
power:  he  produces  its  equivalent.  Thus  the  capitalist  re- 
ceives in  return  for  his  advance  of  the  price  of  the  labour  pow- 
er, a  product  of  the  same  price.  It  is  the  same  as  if  he 
had  bought  the  product  ready  made  in  the  market.  During 
the  other  period,  the  period  of  surplus-labour,  the  usufruct  of 
the  labour-power  creates  a  value  for  the  capitalist,  that  costs 
him  no  equivalent.^  This  expenditure  of  labour-power 
comes  to  him  gratis.  In  this  sense  it  is  that  surplus^labour 
can  be  called  unpaid  labour. 

Capital,  therefore,  is  not  only,  as  Adam  Smith  says,  the 
command  over  labour.  It  is  essentially  the  command  over  un- 
paid labour.  All  surplus-value,  whatever  particular  form 
(profit,  interest,  or  rent),  it  may  subsequently  crystallise  into, 
is  in  substance  the  materialisation  of  unpaid  labour.  The  se- 
cret of  the  self-expansion  of  capital  resolves  itself  into  having 
the  disposal  of  a  definite  quantity  of  other  people's  unpaid 
labour. 

acter,  and  to  transform  them  by  a  word  into  some  form  of  free  association,  as  is 
done  by  A.  de  Laborde  in  "De  I'Esprit  de  I'Association  dans  tous  les  interets  de  la 
communaute."  Paris  1818.  H.  Carey,  the  Yankee,  occasionally  performs  this  con- 
juring trick  with  like   success,  even   with  the  relations  resulting   from  slavery. 

^  Although  the  Physiocrats  could  not  penetrate  the  mystery  of  surplus-value,  yet 
this  much  was  clear  to  them,  viz.,  that  it  is  "une  richesse  independante  et  disponible 
qu'il  (the  possessor)  n'a  point  achetee  et  qu'il  vend."  (Turgot:  "Reflexions  sur  la 
Formation   et  la  Distribution  des   Richesses,"  p.  11.) 


PAET  VI. 
WAGES. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE  TEAJfSFOEMATION  OF  THE  VALUE   (aND  RESPECTIVELY  THE 
PKICe)    of  LABOUK-POWEE  into    WAGES. 

On  the  surface  of  bourgeois  society  the  wage  of  the  la- 
bourer appears  as  the  price  of  labour,  a  certain  quantity 
of  money  that  is  paid  for  a  certain  quantity  of  labour.  Thus 
people  speak  of  the  value  of  labour  and  call  its  expression  in 
money  its  necessary  or  natural  price.  On  the  other  hand 
they  speak  of  the  market  prices  of  labour,  i.e.,  prices  oscillating 
above  or  below  its  natural  price. 

But  what  is  the  value  of  a  commodity  ?  The  objective  form 
of  the  social  labour  expended  in  its  production.  And  how  do 
we  measure  the  quantity  of  this  value?  By  the  quantity  of 
the  labour  contained  in  it.  How  then  is  the  value,  e.g.,  of  a 
12  hours'  working  day  to  be  determined  ?  By  the  12  work- 
ing hours  contained  in  a  working  day  of  12  hours,  which  is 
an  absurd  tautology.* 

*  "Mr.  Ricardo,  ingeniously  enough,  avoids  a  difficulty  which,  on  a  first  view, 
threatens  to  encumber  his  doctrine,  that  value  depends  on  the  quantity  of  labour 
employed  in  production.  If  this  principle  is  rigidly  adhered  to,  it  follows  that  the 
value  of  labour  depends  on  the  quantity  of  labour  employed  in  producing  it — which 
IS  evidently  absurd.  By  a  dexterous  turn,  therefore,  Mr.  Ricardo  makes  the  value 
of  labour  depend  on  the  quantity  of  labour  required  to  produce  wages;  or,  to  give 
him  the  benefit  of  his  own  language,  he  maintains,  that  the  value  of  labour  is  to  be 
estimated  by  the  quantity  of  labour  required  to  produce  wages;  by  which  he  means 
the  quantity  of  labour  required  to  produce  the  money  or  commodities  given  to  the 
labourer.  This  is  similar  to  saying,  that  the  value  of  cloth  is  estimated,  not  by  the 
quantity  of  labour  bestowed  on  its  production,  but  by  the  quantity  of  labour  be- 
stowed on  the  production  of  the  silver,  for  which  the  cloth  is  exchanged."  (A. 
Critical   Discourse   on  the   Nature,  &c.,  of   Value,   p.   50,   51.) 

586 


Value  of  Labour-Power  and  Wages.  587 

In  order  to  be  sold  as  a  commodity  in  the  market,  labour 
must  at  all  events  exist  before  it  is  sold.  But  could  the 
labourer  give  it  an  independent  objective  existence,  he  would 
sell  a  commodity  and  not  labour.^ 

Apart  from  these  contradictions,  a  direct  exchange  of  money, 
i.e.,  of  realized  labour,  with  living  labour  would  either  do 
away  with  the  law  of  value  which  only  begins  to  develop  itself 
freely  on  the  basis  of  capitalist  production,  or  do  away  with 
capitalist  production  itself,  which  rests  directly  on  wage- 
labour.  The  working  day  of  12  hours  embodies  itself,  e.g., 
in  a  money  value  of  6s.  Either  equivalents  are  exchanged, 
and  then  the  labourer  receives  6s.  for  12  hours'  labour;  the 
price  of  his  labour  would  be  equal  to  the  price  of  his  product. 
In  this  case  he  produces  no  surplus-value,  for  the  buyer  of 
his  labour,  the  6s.  are  not  transformed  into  capital,  the  basis 
of  capitalist  production  vanishes.  But  it  is  on  this  very  basis 
that  he  sells  his  labour  and  that  his  labour  is  wage-labour. 
Or  else  he  receives  for  12  hours'  labour  less  than  6s.,  i.e.,  less 
than  12  hours'  labour.  Twelve  hours  labour  are  exchanged 
against  10,  6,  &c.,  hours'  labour.  This  equalisation  of  un- 
equal quantities  not  merely  does  away  with  the  determination 
of  value.  Such  a  self-destructive  contradiction  cannot  be  in 
any  way  even  enunciated  or  formulated  as  a  law.^ 

It  is  of  no  avail  to  deduce  the  exchange  of  more  labour 
against  less,  from  their  difference  of  form,  the  one  being 
realized,  the  other  living.^     This  is  the  more  absurd  as  the 

1  "If  you  call  labour  a  commodity,  it  is  not  like  a  commodity  which  is  first  pro- 
duced in  order  to  exchange,  and  then  brought  to  market  where  it  must  exchange 
with  other  commodities  according  to  the  respective  quantities  of  each  which  there 
may  be  in  the  market  at  the  time;  labour  is  created  the  moment  it  is  brought  to 
market;  nay,  it  is  brought  to  market  before  it  is  created."  (Observations  on  some 
Verbal   Disputes,   etc.,  pp.   75,   76.) 

2  "Treating  labour  as  a  commodity,  and  capital,  the  produce  of  labour,  as  another, 
then,  if  the  values  of  these  two  commodities  were  regulated  by  equal  quantities  of 
labour,  a  given  amount  of  labour  would  .  .  .  exchange  for  that  quantity  of 
capita"!  which  had  been  produced  by  the  same  amount  of  labour;  antecedent  labour 
would  .  .  .  exchange  for  the  same  amount  as  present  labour.  But  the  value 
of  labour  in  relation  to  other  commodities  ...  is  determined  not  by  equal 
quantities  of  labour."  (E.  G.  Wakefield  in  his  edition  of  Adam  Smith's  "Wealth 
of  Nations,"  vol.   i.,   London,  1836,   p.  231,   note.) 

3  "II  a  fallu  convenir  (a  new  edition  of  the  contrat  social!)  que  toutes  les  fois 
qu'il  echangerait  du  travail  fait  contre  du  travail  a  faire,  le  dernier  (le  capitaliste) 
aurait  une  valeur  superieure  au  premier"  (le  travailleur).  Simonde  (.i.e.,  Sisraondi), 
"De  la  Richesse  Commerciale,"  Geneve,  1803,  t.  1,  p.  37- 


588  Capitalist  Production. 

value  of  a  commodity  is  determined  not  by  the  quantity  of 
labour  actually  realized  in  it,  but  by  the  quantity  of  living 
labour  necessary  for  its  production.  A  commodity  represents, 
say  6  working  hours.  If  an  invention  is  made  by  which  it 
can  be  produced  in  3  hours,  the  value,  even  of  the  commodity 
already  produced,  falls  by  half.  It  represents  now  3  hours 
of  social  labour  instead  of  the  6  formerly  necessary.  It  is 
the  quantity  of  labour  required  for  its  production,  not  the 
realized  form  of  that  labour,  by  which  the  amount  of  the 
value  of  a  commodity  is  determined. 

That  which  comes  directly  face  to  face  with  the  possessor 
of  money  on  the  market,  is  in  fact  not  labour,  but  the  labourer. 
What  the  latter  sells  is  his  labour-power.  As  soon  as  his 
labour  actually  begins,  it  has  already  ceased  to  belong  to  him ; 
it  can  therefore  no  longer  be  sold  by  him.  Labour  is  the 
substance,  and  the  immanent  measure  of  value,  but  has  itself 
no  valued 

In  the  expression  "value  of  labour,"  the  idea  of  value  is  not 
only  completely  obliterated,  but  actually  reversed.  It  is  an 
expression  as  imaginary  as  the  value  of  the  earth.  These 
imaginary  expressions,  arise,  however,  from  the  relations  of 
production  themselves.  They  are  categories  for  the  phe- 
nomenal forms  of  essential  relations.  That  in  their  appear- 
ance things  often  represent  themselves  in  inverted  form  is 
pretty  well  known  in  every  science  except  political  economy.^ 

'  "Labour  the  exclusive  standard  of  value  .  .  .  the  greater  of  all  wealth,  no 
commodity."     Th.    Hodgskin,  1.    c.   p.    186. 

^  On  the  other  hand,  the  attempt  to  explain  such  expressions  as  merely  poetic 
license  only  shows  the  impotence  of  the  analysis.  Hence,  in  answer  to  Proudhon's 
phrase;  "Le  travail  est  dit  valoir,  non  pas  en  tant  que  marchandise  lui  meme,  mais 
en  vue  des  valeurs  qu'on  suppose,  renfermees  puissanciellement  en  lui.  La  valeur 
du  travail  est  une  expression  figuree,"  &c.,  I  have  remarked:  "Dans  le  travail- 
marchandise  qui  est  d'une  realite  effrayant,  il  (Proudhon)  ne  voit  qu'une  ellipse 
grammaticale.  Done,  toute  la  societe  actuelle  fondee  sur  le  travail-marchandise,  est 
desormais  fondee  sur  une  license  poetique,  sur  une  expression  figuree.  La  societe 
veut-elle  'eliminer  tous  les  inconvenients,'  qui  la  travaillent,  eh  bien!  qu'elle  elimine 
les  termes  malsonnants,  qu'elle  change  de  langage,  et  pour  cela  elle  n'a  qu'  a 
s'adresser  a  I'Academie  pour  lui  demander  une  nouvelle  Edition  de  son  dictionnaire." 
(Karl  Marx.  "Misere  de  la  Philosophic,"  p.  34,  35.)  It  is  naturally  still  more 
convenient  to  understand  by  value  nothing  at  all.  Then  one  can  without  difficulty 
subsume  everything  under  this  category.  Thus,  e.g.,  J.  B.  Say;  what  is  "valeur?" 
Answer:  "C'est  ce  qu'une  chose  vaut,"  and  what  is  "prix?"  Answer;  "La  valeur 
d'une   chose  exprimee  en   monnaie."     And   why   has   "le   travail  de   la   terre     .     .     . 


Value  of  Labour-Power  and  Wages.  589 

Classical  political  economy  borrowed  from  every-day  life 
the  category  "price  of  labour"  without  further  criticism,  and 
then  simply  asked  the  question,  how  is  this  price  determined  ? 
It  soon  recognized  that  the  change  in  the  relations  of  demand 
and  supply  explained  in  regard  to  the  price  of  labour,  as  of  all 
other  commodities,  nothing  except  its  changes,  i.e.,  the  oscilla- 
tions of  the  market  price  above  or  below  a  certain  mean.  If  • 
demand  and  supply  balance,  the  oscillation  of  prices  ceases,  all 
other  conditions  remaining  the  same.  But  then  demand  and 
supply  also  cease  to  explain  anything.  The  price  of  labour,  at^ 
the  moment  when  demand  and  supply  are  in  equilibrium,  is 
its  natural  price,  determined  independently  of  the  relation  of 
demand  and  supply.  And  how  this  price  is  determined,  is 
just  the  question.  Or  a  larger  period  of  oscillations  in  the 
market-price  is  taken,  e.g.,  a  year,  and  they  are  found  to  can- 
cel one  the  other,  leaving  a  mean  average  quantity,  a  relatively 
constant  magnitude.  This  had  naturally  to  be  determined 
otherwise  than  by  its  own  compensating  variations.  This  price 
which  always  finally  predominates  over  the  accidental  market- 
prices  of  labour  and  regulates  them,  this  "necessary  price" 
(physiocrats)  or  "natural  price"  of  labour  (Adam  Smith)  can, 
as  with  all  other  commodities,  be  nothing  else  than  its  value 
expressed  in  money.  In  this  way  political  economy  expected 
to  penetrate  athwart  the  accidental  prices  of  labour,  to  the 
value  of  labour.  As  with  other  commodities,  this  value  was 
determined  by  the  cost  of  production.  But  what  is  the  cost  of 
production — of  the  labourer,  i.e.,  the  cost  of  producing  or  re- 
producing the  labourer  himself?  This  question  unconsciously 
substituted  itself  in  political  economy  for  the  original  one ; 
for  the  search  after  the  cost  of  production  of  labour  as  such 
turned  in  a  circle  and  never  left  the  spot.  What  economists 
therefore  call  value  of  labour,  is  in  fact  the  value  of  labour- 
power,  as  it  exists  in  the  personality  of  the  labourer,  which  is 
as  diiferent  from  its  function,  labour,  as  a  machine  is  from 
the  work  it  performs.     Occupied  with  the  difference  between 

une  valeur?  Parce  qu'on  y  met  un  prix."  Therefore  value  is  what  a  thing  is 
worth,  and  the  land  has  its  "value,"  because  its  value  is  "expressed  in  money." 
This  is,   anyhow,   a   very   simple   way   of  explaining  the   why  and  the   wherefore   of 

things. 


590  Capitalist  Production. 

the  market-price  of  labour  and  its-so-called  value,  with  the 
relation  of  this  value  to  the  rate  of  profit,  and  to  the  values 
of  the  commodities  produced  by  means  of  labour,  &;c.,  they 
never  discovered  that  the  course  of  the  analysis  had  led  not 
only  from  the  market  prices  of  labour  to  its  presumed  value, 
but  had  led  to  the  resolution  of  this  value  of  labour  itself 
into  the  value  of  labour-power.  Classical  economy  never  ar- 
rived at  a  consciousness  of  the  results  of  its  own  analysis;  it 
accepted  uncritically  the  categories  "value  of  labour,"  "natural 
price  of  labour,"  &c.,  as  final  and  as  adequate  expressions  for 
the  value-relation  under  consideration,  and  was  thus  led,  as 
will  be  seen  later,  into  inextricable  confusion  and  contradic- 
tion, while  it  offered  to  the  vulgar  economists  a  secure  basis  of 
operations  for  their  shallowness,  which  on  principle  worships 
appearances  only. 

Let  us  next  see  how  value  (and  price)  of  labour-power, 
present  themselves  in  this  transformed  condition  as  wages. 

We  know  that  the  daily  value  of  labour-power  is  calculated 
upon  a  certain  length  of  the  labourer's  life,  to  which,  again, 
corresponds  a  certain  length  of  working-day.  Assume  the 
habitual  working-day  as  12  hours,  the  daily  value  of  labour- 
power  as  3s.,  the  expression  in  money  of  a  value  that  embodies 
6  hours  of  labour.  If  the  labourer  receives  3s.,  then  he  re- 
ceives the  value  of  his  labour-power  functioning  through  12 
hours.  If,  now,  this  value  of  a  day's  labour-power  is  ex- 
pressed as  the  value  of  a  day's  labour  itself,  we  have  the 
formula :  Twelve  hours'  labour  has  a  value  of  3s.  The  value 
of  labour-power  thus  determines  the  value  of  labour,  or,  ex- 
pressed in  money,  its  necessary  price.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  price  of  labour-power  differs  from,  its  value,  in  like  man- 
ner the  price  of  labour  differs  from  its  so-called  value. 

As  the  value  of  labour  is  only  an  irrational  expression  for 
the  value  of  labour-power,  it  follows,  of  course,  that  the  value 
of  labour  must  always  be  less  than  the  value  it  produces,  for 
the  capitalist  always  makes  labour-power  work  longer  than  is 
necessary  for  the  reproduction  of  its  own  value.  In  the  above 
example,  the  value  of  the  labour-power  that  functions  through 
12  hours  is  3s.,  a  value  for  the  reproduction  of  which  6  hours 


Value  of  Lahonr-Po-wer  and  Wages.  591 

are  required.  The  value  which  the  labour-power  produces  is, 
on  the  other  hand,  6s.,  because  it,  in  fact,  functions  during  12 
hours,  and  .the  value  it  produces  depends,  not  on  its  own 
value,  but  on  the  length  of  time  it  is  in  action.  Thus,  we  have 
a  result  absurd  at  first  sight — that  labour  which  creates  a  value 
of  6s.  possesses  a  value  of  3s.  ^ 

We  see,  further:  The  value  of  3s.  by  which  a  part  only  of 
the  working  day — i.e.,  6  hours'  labour — is  paid  for,  appears 
as  the  value  or  price  of  the  whole  working-day  of  12  hours, 
which  thus  includes  6  hours  unpaid  for.  The- wagerform  thus 
extinguishes  every  trace  of  the  division  of  the  working-day 
into  necessary  labour  and  surplus-labour,  into  paid  and  un- 
paid labour.  All  labour  appears  as  paid  labour.  In  the 
corvee,  the  labour  of  the  worker  for  himself,  and  his  compul- 
sory labour  for  his  lord,  differ  in  space  and  time  in  the  clear- 
est possible  way.  In  slave-labour,  even  that  part  of  the 
working-day  in  which  the  slave  is  only  replacing  the  value  of 
his  own  means  of  existence,  in  which,  therefore,  in  fact,  he 
works  for  himself  alone,  appears  as  labour  for  his  master. 
All  the  slave's  laV)ur  appears  as  unpaid  labour.^  In  wage- 
labour,  on  the  contrary,  even  surplus  labour,  or  unpaid  labour, 
appears  as  paid.  There  the  property-relation  conceals  the 
labour  of  the  slave  for  himself;  here  the  money-relation  con- 
ceals the  unrequited  labour  of  the  wage-labourer. 

Hence,  we  may  understand  the  decisive  importance  of  the 
transformation  of  value  and  price  of  labour-power  into  the 
form  of  wages,  or  into  the  value  and  price  of  labour  itself. 
This  phenomenal  form,  which  makes  the  actual  relation  in- 
visible, and,  indeed,  shows  the  direct  opposite  of  that  relation, 
forms  the  basis  of  all  the  juridicial  notions  of  both  labourer  and 
capitalist,  of  all  the  mystifications  of  the  capitalistic  mode  of 

1  Cf.  Zur  Kritik  der  Politischen  CEkonomie,  p.  40,  where  I  state  that,  in  the  por- 
tion of  that  work  that  deals  with  Capital,  this  problem  will  be  solved:  "How  does 
production,  on  the  basis  of  exchange-value  determined  simply  by  labour-time,  lead 
to  the  result  that  the  exchange-value  of  labour  is  less  than  the  exchange-value  of 
its  product?" 

*  The  "Morning  Star,"  a  London  free-trade  organ,  naif  to  silliness,  protested  again 
and  again  during  the  American  civil  war,  with  all  the  moral  indignation  of  which 
man  is  capable,  that  the  negro  in  the  "Confederate  States"  worked  absolutely  for 
nothing.  It  should  have  compared  the  daily  cost  of  such  a  negro  with  that  of  the 
free  workman  in  the  East  end  of  London. 


592  Capitalist  Production. 

production,  of  all  its  illusions  as  to  liberty,  of  all  the  apologetic 
shifts  of  the  vulgar  economists. 

If  history  took  a  long  time  to  get  at  the  bottom  of  the 
mystery  of  wages,  nothing,  on  the  other  hand,  is  more  easy 
to  understand  than  the  necessity,  the  raison  d'etre,  of  this 
phenomenon. 

The  exchange  between  capital  and  labour  at  first  presents 
itself  to  the  mind  in  the  same  guise  as  the  buying  and  selling 
of  all  other  commodities.  The  buyer  gives  a  certain  sum  of 
money,  the  seller  an  article  of  a  nature  different  from  money. 
The  jurist's  consciousness  recognises  in  this,  at  most,  a  material 
difference,  expressed  in  tlie  juridically  equivalent  formalai: 
"Do  ut  des,  do  ut  facias,  facio  ut  des,  facio  ut  facias." 

Further.  Exchange-value  and  use-value,  being  intrin- 
sically incommensurable  magnitudes,  the  expressions  "value  of 
labour,"  "price  of  labour,"  do  not  seem  more  irrational  than 
the  expressions  "value  of  cotton,"  "price  of  cotton."  More- 
over, the  labourer  is  paid  after  he  has  given  his  labour.  In 
its  function  of  means  of  payment,  money  realises  subsequently 
the  value  or  price  of  the  article  supplied — i.e.,  in  this  par- 
ticular case,  the  value  or  price  of  the  labour  supplied. 
Finally,  the  use-value  supplied  by  the  labourer  to  the  capitalist 
is  not,  in  fact,  his  labour-power,  but  its  function,  some  definite 
useful  labour,  the  work  of  tailoring,  shoemaking,  spinning,  &c. 
That  this  same  labour  is,  on  the  other  hand,  the  universal 
value-creating  element,  and  thus  possesses  a  property  by  which 
it  differs  from  all  other  commodities,  is  beyond  the  cognisance 
of  the  ordinary  mind. 

Let  us  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  the  labourer  who 
receives  for  12  hours'  labour,  say  the  value  produced  by  6 
hours'  labour,  say  3s.  For  him,  in  fact,  his  12  hours'  labour 
is  the  means  of  buying  the  3s.  The  value  of  his  labour- 
power  may  vary,  with  the  value  of  his  usual  jneans  of  sub- 
sistence, from  3  to  4  shillings,  or  from  3  to  2  shillings;  or,  if 
the  value  of  his  labour-power  remains  constant,  its  price  may, 
in  consequence  of  changing  relations  of  demand  and  supply, 
rise  to  4s.  or  fall  to  2s.  He  always  gives  12  hours  of  labour. 
Every  change  in  the  amount  of  the  equivalent  that  he  receives 


Value  of  Lahoiir-Poiocv  and  Wages.  593 

appears  to  him,  therefore,  necessarily  as  a  change  in  the  value 
or  price  of  his  12  hours'  work.  This  circumstance  misled 
Adam  Smith,  who  treated  the  working-day  as  a  constant 
quantity,^  to  the  assertion  that  the  value  of  labour  is  constant, 
although  the  value  of  the  means  of  subsistence  may  vary,  and 
the  same  working-day,  therefore,  may  represent  itself  in  more, 
or  less  money  for  the  labourer. 

Let  us  consider,  on  the  other  hand,  the  capitalist.  He 
wishes  to  receive  as  much  labour  as  possible  for  as  little 
money  as  possible.  Practically,  therefore,  the  only  thing  that 
interests  him  is  the  difference  between  the  price  of  labour- 
power  and  the  value  which  its  function  creates.  But,  then,  he 
tries  to  buy  all  commodities  as  cheaply  as  possible,  and  always 
accounts  for  his  profit  by  simple  cheating,  by  buying  under, 
and  selling  over  the  value.  Hence,  he  never  comes  to  see  that, 
if  such  a  thing  as  the  value  of  labour  really  existed,  and  be 
really  paid  this  value  no  capital  would  exist,  his  money 
would  not  be  turned  into  capital. 

Moreover,  the  actual  movement  of  wages  presents  phe- 
nomena which  seem  to  prove  that  not  the  value  of  labour- 
power  is  paid,  but  the  value  of  its  function,  of  labour  itself. 
We  may  reduce  these  phenomena  to  two  great  classes:  (1.) 
Change  of  wages  with  the  changing  length  of  the  working- 
day.  One  might  as  well  conclude  that  not  the  value  of  a 
machine  is  paid,  but  that  of  its  working,  because  it  costs  more 
to  hire  a  machine  for  a  week  than  for  a  day.  (2.)  The  indi- 
vidual difference  in  the  wages  of  different  labourers  who  do 
the  same  kind  of  work.  We  find  this  individual  difference, 
but  are  not  deceived  by  it,  in  the  sys.tem  of  slaviery,  where, 
frankly  and  openly,  without  any  circumlocution,  labour-power 
itself  is  sold.  Only,  in  the  slave  system,  the  advantage  of  a 
labour-power  above  the  average,  and  the  disadvantage  of  a 
labour-power  below  the  average,  affects  the  slave-owner ;  in  the 
wage-labour  system  it  affects  the  labourer  himself,  because  his 
labour-power  is,  in  the  one  case,  sold  by  himself,  in  the  other, 
by  a  third  person. 

'  Adam   Smith  only  accidentally  alludes  to  the  variation  of  the  working-day   when 
he  is  referring  to  piece-wages. 

2L 


594  Capitalist  Production. 

For  the  rest,  in  respect  to  the  phenomenal  form,  "value  and 
price  of  labour/'  or  "wages,"  as  contrasted  with  the  essential 
relation  manifested  therein,  viz.,  the  value  and  price  of  labour- 
power,  the  same  difference  holds  that  holds  in  respect  to  all 
phenomena  and  their  hidden  substratum.  The  former  appear 
directly  and  spontaneously  as  current  modes  of  thought;  the 
latter  must  first  be  discovered  by  science.  Classical  political 
economy  nearly  touches  the  true  relation  of  things,  without, 
however,  consciously  formulating  it.  This  it  cannot  so  long 
as  it  sticks  in  its  bourgeois  skin. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

TIME-WAGES. 


Wages  themselves  again  take  many  forms,  a  fact  not  recog- 
nizable in  the  ordinary  economical  treatises  which,  exclusively 
interested  in  the  material  side  of  the  question,  neglect  every 
difference  of  form.  An  exposition  of  all  these  forms  however, 
belongs  to  the  special  study  of  wage-labour,  not  therefore  to 
this  work.  Still  the  two  fundamental  forms  must  be  briefly 
worked  out  here. 

The  sale  of  labour-power,  as  will  be  remembered,  takes 
place  for  a  definite  period  of  time.  The  converted  form  under 
which  the  daily,  weekly,  &c.,  value  of  labour-power  presents 
itself,  is  hence  that  of  time-wages,  therefore  day-wages,  &c. 

Next  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  laws  set  forth,  in  the  I7th 
chapter,  on  the  changes  in  the  relative  magnitudes  of  price  of 
labour-power  and  surplus-value,  pass  by  a  simple  transforma- 
tion of  form,  into  laws  of  wages.  Similarly  the  distinction 
between  the  exchange-value  of  labour-power,  and  the  sum  of 
the  necessaries  of  life  into  which  this  value  is  converted,  now 
reappears  as  the  distinction  between  nominal  and  real  wages. 
It  would  be  useless  to  repeat  here,  with  regard  to  the  phe- 
nomenal form,  what  has  been  already  worked  out  in  the  sub- 


Time-Wages.  595 

stantial  form.  We  limit  ourselves  therefore  to  a  few  points 
characteristic  of  time-wages. 

The  sum  of  money^  which  the  labourer  receives  for  his  daily 
or  weekly  labour,  forms  the  amount  of  his  nominal  wages,  or  of 
his  wages  estimated  in  value.  But  it  is  clear  that  according 
to  the  length  of  the  working-day,  that  is,  according  to  the 
amount  of  actual  labour  daily  supplied,  the  same  daily  or 
weekly  wage  may  represent  very  different  prices  of  labour,  i.e., 
very  different  sums  of  money  for  the  same  quantity  of  labour.^ 
We  must,  therefore,  in  considering  time-wages,  again  dis- 
tinguish between  the  sum  total  of  the  daily  or  weekly  wages, 
&c.,  and  the  price  of  labour.  How  then  to  find  this  price, 
i.e.,  the  money-value  of  a  given  quantity  of  labour  ?  The  aver- 
age price  of  labour  is  found,  when  the  average  daily  value 
of  the  labour-power  is  divided  by  the  average  number  of  hours 
in  the  working-day.  If,  e.g.,  the  daily  value  of  labour-power 
is  3  shillings,  the  value  of  the  product  of  6  working  hours, 
and  if  the  working-day  is  12  hours,  the  price  of  1  working  hour 
is  Y2  shillings = 3d.  The  price  of  the  working  hour  thus  found 
serves  as  the  unit  measure  for  the  price  of  labour. 

It  follows  therefore  that  the  daily  and  weekly  wages,  &c., 
may  remain  the  same,  although  the  price  of  labour  falls  con- 
stantly. If,  e.g.,  the  habitual  working-day  is  10  hours  and  the 
daily  value  of  the  labour-power  3s.,  the  price  of  the  working 
hour  is  3f d.  It  falls  to  3d.  as  soon  as  the  working-day  rises 
to  12  hours,  to  2f  d.  as  soon  as  it  rises  to  15  hours.  Daily  or 
weekly  wages  remain,  despite  all  this,  unchanged.  On  the 
contrary,  the  daily  or  weekly  wages  may  rise,  although  ihe 
price  of  labour  remains  constant  or  even  falls.  If,  e.g.,  the 
working  day  is  10  hours,  and  the  daily  value  of  labour- 
power  3  shillings,  the  price  of  one  working  hour  is  3f  d. 
If  the  labourer  in  consequence  of  increase  of  trade  works  12 
hours,  the  price  of  labour  remaining  the  same,  his  daily  wage 

*  The   value  of  money   itself  is   here   always   supposed   constant. 

*  "The  price  of  labour  is  the  sum  paid  for  a  given  quantity  of  labour."  (Sir 
Edward  West,  "Price  of  Corn  and  Wages  of  Labour."  London,  1836,  p.  67).  West 
is  the  author  of  the  anonymous  "Essay  on  the  Application  of  Capital  to  Land. 
By  a  Fellow  of  the  University  College  of  Oxford,  London,  1815."  An  epoch  mak- 
ing work  in  the  history  of  political  economy. 


596  Capitalist  Production. 

now  rises  to  3  shillings  7^  d.  without  any  variation  in  the  price 
of  labour.  The  same  result  might  follow  if,  instead  of  the  ex- 
tensive amount  of  labour,  its  intensive  amount  increased.^ 
The  rise  of  the  nominal  daily  or  weekly  wages  may  therefore 
be  accompanied  by  a  price  of  labour  that  remains  stationary 
or  falls.  The  same  holds  as  to  the  income  of  the  labourer's 
family,  as  soon  as  the  quantity  of  labour  expended  by  the  head 
of  the  family  is  increased  by  the  labour  of  the  members  of  his 
family.  There  are,  therefore,  methods  of  lowering  the  price 
of  labour  independent  of  the  reduction  of  the  nominal  daily  or 
weekly  wages.* 

As  a  general  law  it  follows  that,  given  the  amount  of  daily, 
weekly  labour,  &c.,  the  daily  or  weekly  wages  depend  on  the 
price  of  labour  which,  itself  varies  either  with  the  value  of 
labour-power,  or  with  the  difference  between  its  price  and  its 
value.  Given,  on  the  other  hand,  the  price  of  labour,  the 
daily  or  weekly  wages  depend  on  the  quantity  of  the  daily  or 
weekly  labour. 

The  unit  measure  for  time-wages,  the  price  of  the  working- 
hour,  is  the  quotient  of  the  value  of  a  day's  labour-power, 
divided  by  the  number  of  hours  of  the  average  working-day. 
Let  the  latter  be  12  hours,  and  the  daily  value  of  labour-power 
3  shillings,  the  value  of  the  product  of  6  hours  of  labour. 
Under  these  circumstances  the  price  of  a  working-hour  is  8d., 

*  "The  wages  of  labour  depend  upon  the  price  of  labour  and  the  quantity  of 
labour  performed.  .  .  .  An  increase  in  the  wages  of  labour  does  not  necessarily 
imply  an  enhancement  of  the  price  of  labour.  From  fuller  employment,  and  greater 
exertions,  the  wages  of  labour  may  be  considerably  increased,  while  the  price  of 
labour  may  continue  the  same."  West,  1.  c.  pp.  67,  68,  112.  The  main  question: 
"How  is  the  price  of  labour  determined?"  West,  however,  dismisses  with  mere 
banalities. 

*  This  is  perceived  by  the  fanatical  representative  of  the  industrial  bourgeoisie  of 
the  18th  century,  the  author  of  the  "Essay  on  Trade  and  Commerce"  often  quoted 
by  us,  although  he  puts  the  matter  in  a  confused  way:  "It  is  the  quantity  of  labour 
and  not  the  price  of  it  (he  means  by  this  the  nominal  daily  or  weekly  wages)  that  is 
determined  by  the  price  of  provisions  and  other  necessaries:  reduce  the  price  of 
necessaries  very  low,  and  of  course  you  reduce  the  quantity  of  labour  in  proportion. 
Master  manufacturers  know  that  there  are  various  ways  of  raising  and  felling  the 
price  of  labour,  besides  that  of  altering  its  nominal  amount."  (1.  c.  pp.  48,  61.) 
In  his  "Three  Lectures  on  the  rate  of  Wages,"  London,  1830,  in  which  N.  W. 
Senior  uses  West's  work  without  mentioning  it,  he  says:  "The  labourer  is  prin- 
cipally interested  in  the  amount  of  wages,"  (p.  14.),  that  is  to  say  the  labourer  is 
principally  interested  in  what  he  receives,  the  nominal  sum  of  his  wages,  not  in  that 
which  he  gives,  the  amount  of  labour! 


Time-Wages.  597 

the  value  produced  in  it  is  6d.  If  the  labourer  is  now  em- 
ployed less  than  12  hours  (or  less  than  6  days  in  the  week), 
e.g.,  only  6  or  8  hours,  he  receives,  with  this  price  of  labour, 
only  2s.  or  Is.  6d.  a  day.^  As  on  our  hypothesis  he  must  work 
on  the  average  6  hours  daily,  in  order  to  produce  a  day's  wage 
corresponding  merely  to  the  value  of  his  labour-power,  as 
according  to  the  same  hypothesis  he  works  only  half  of  every 
hour  for  himself^  and  half  for  the  capitalist,  it  is  clear  that  he 
cannot  obtain  for  himself  the  value  of  the  product  of  6  hours 
if  he  is  employed  less  than  12  hours.  In  previous  chapters  we 
saw  the  destructive  consequences  of  over-work;  here  we  find 
the  sources  of  the  sufferings  that  result  to  the  labourer  from  his 
insufficient  employment. 

If  the  hour's  wage  is  fixed  so  that  the  capitalist  does  not 
bind  himself  to  pay  a  day's  or  a  week's  wage,  but  only  to  pay 
wages  for  the  hours  during  which  he  chooses  to  employ  the 
labourer,  he  can  employ  him  for  a  shorter  time  than  that  which 
is  originally  the  basis  of  the  calculation  of  the  hour-wage,  of 
the  unit-measure  of  the  price  of  labour.     Since  this  unit  is 

,    ,  '        T    1         ,1  ,•  daily  value  of  labour-power  .,         <• 

determined  by  the  ratio  ^  working-day  of  a  given  number  of  hours.  1*5  o* 
course,  loses  all  the  meaning  as  soon  as  the  working  day  ceases 
to  contain  a  definite  number  of  hours.  The  connexion  between 
the  paid  and  the  unpaid  labour  is  destroyed.  The  capitalist 
can  now  wring  from  the  labourer  a  certain  quantity  of  sur- 
plus-labour without  allowing  him  the  labour-time  necessary 
for  his  own  subsistence.  He  can  annihilate  all  regularity 
of  employment,  and  according  to  his  own  convenience,  caprice, 
and  the  interest  of  the  moment,  make  the  most  enormous 
over-work  alternate  with  relative  or  absolute  cessation  of 
work.  He  can,  under  the  pretence  of  paying  "the  normal 
price  of  labour,"  abnormally  lengthen  the  working-day  with- 
out any  corresponding  compensation  to  the  labourer.     Hence 

^  The  effect  of  such  an  abnormal  lessening  of  employment  is  quite  different  from 
that  of  a  general  reduction  of  the  working-day,  enforced  by  law.  The  former  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  absolute  length  of  the  working-day,  and  may  occur  just  as 
well  in  a  working-day  of  15,  as  of  6  hours.  The  normal  price  of  labour  is  in  the 
first  case  calculated  on  the  labourer  working  15  hours,  in  the  second  case  in  his 
working  6  hours  a  day  on  the  average.  The  result  is  therefore  the  same  if  he  in  the 
one  case  is  employed  only  for  7J4,  in  the  other  only  for  3  hours. 


598  Capitalist  Production. 

the  perfectly  rational  revolt  in  1860  of  the  London  labourers, 
employed  in  the  building  trades,  against  the  attempt  of  the 
capitalists  to  impose  on  them  this  sort  of  wage  by  the  hour. 
The  legal  limitation  of  the  working-day  puts  an  end  to  such 
mischief,  although  not,  of  course,  to  the  diminution  of  em- 
ployment caused  by  the  competition  of  machinery,  by  changes 
in  the  quality  of  the  labourers  employed,  and  by  crisis  partial 
or  general. 

With  an  increasing  daily  or  weekly  wage  the  price  of  labour 
may  remain  nominally  constant,  and  yet  may  fall  below  its 
normal  level.  This  occurs  every  time  that,  the  price  of  labour 
(reckoned  per  working  hour)  remaining  constant,  the  work- 
ing-day   is   prolonged   beyond    its    customary   length.     If   in 

,1        /•         ,.  daily  value  of  labour-power  ,1        j  ...  ,, 

the  traction : working  day ^®  denominator  increases,  the 

numerator  increases  yet  more  rapidly.  The  value  of  labour- 
power,  as  dependent  on  its  wear  and  tear,  increases  with  the 
duration  of  its  functioning,  and  in  more  rapid  proportion  than 
the  increase  of  that  duration.  In  many  branches  of  industry 
where  time-wage  is  the  general  rule  without  legal  limits  to  the 
working- time,  the  habit  has,  therefore,  spontaneously  grown 
up  of  regarding  the  working-day  as  normal  only  up  to  a  cer- 
tain point,  e.g.,  up  to  the  expiration  of  the  tenth  hour  ("nor- 
mal working-day,"  "the  day's  work,"  "the  regular  hours  of 
work").  Beyond  this  limit  the  working-time  is  over-time,  and 
is,  taking  the  hour  as  unit-measure,  paid  better  ("extra  pay"), 
although  often  in  a  proportion  ridiculously  small. ^  The  nor- 
mal working-day  exists  here  as  a  fraction  of  the  actual  work- 
ing-day, and  the  latter,  often  during  the  whole  year,  lasts 
longer  than  the  former.^  The  increase  in  the  price  of  labour 
with  the  extension  of  the  working-day  beyond  a  certain  normal 

*  "The  rate  of  payment  for  overtime  (in  lace-making)  is  so  small,  from  J4d.  and 
54d.  to  2d.  per  hour,  that  it  stands  in  painful  contrast  to  the  amount  of  injury 
produced  to  the  health  and  stamina  of  the  workpeople.  .  .  The  small  amount 
thus  earned  is  also  often  obliged  to  be  spent  in  extra  nourishment."  ("Child  Emp. 
Com.,    II.   Rep.,"   p.   xvi.,  n.    117.) 

*  E.g.,  in  paper-staining  before  the  recent  introduction  into  this  trade  of  the  Fac- 
tory Act.  "We  work  on  with  no  stoppage  for  meals,  so  that  the  day's  work  of 
10J4  hours  is  finished  by  4.30  p.m.,  and  all  after  that  is  overtime,  and  we  seldom 
leave  off  working  before  6  p.m.,  so  that  we  are  really  working  overtime  the  whole 
year  round."     (Mr.   Smith's  "Evidence  in  Child  Emp.   Com.,   I.   Rep.,"  p.   125.) 


Time-Wages.  599 

limit,  takes  such  a  shape  in  various  British  industries  that  the 
low  price  of  labour  during  the  so-called  normal  time  compels 
the  labourer  to  work  during  the  better  paid  over-time,  if  he 
wishes  to  obtain  a  sufficient  wage  at  all.^  Legal  limitation  of 
the  working-day  puts  an  end  to  these  amenities." 

It  is  a  fact  generally  known  that,  the  longer  the  working- 
days,  in  any  branch  of  industry,  the  lower  are  the  wages.^  A. 
Kedgrave,  factory-inspector,  illustrates  this  by  a  comparative 
review  of  the  20  years  from  1839-1859,  according  to  which 
wages  rose  in  the  factories  under  the  10  hours'  law,  whilst 
they  fell  in  the  factories  in  which  the  work  lasted  14  to  15 
hours  daily.'* 

From  the  law:  "the  price  of  labour  being  given,  the  daily 
or  weekly  wage  depends  on  the  quantity  of  labour  expended," 
it  follows,  first  of  all,  that,  the  lower  the  price  of  labour,  the 
greater  must  be  the  quantity  of  labour,  or  the  longer  must  be 

*  E.g.,  in  the  Scotch  bleaching-works.  "In  some  parts  of  Scotland  this  trade 
[before  the  introduction  of  the  Factory  Act  in  1862]  was  carried  on  by  a  system  of 
overtime,  i.e.,  ten  hours  a  day  were  the  regular  hours  of  work,  for  which  a  nominal 
wage  of  Is.  2d.  per  day  was  paid  to  a  man,  there  being  every  day  overtime  for 
three  or  four  hours,  paid  at  the  rate  of  3d.  per  hour.  The  effect  of  this  system 
.  .  .  a  man  could  not  earn  more  than  8s.  per  week  when  working  the  ordinary 
hours  .  .  .  without  overtime  they  could  not  earn  a  fair  day's  wages."  ("Kept, 
of  Insp.  of  Factories,"  April  30th,  1863,  p.  10.)  "The  higher  wages,  for  getting 
adult  males  to  work  longer  hours,  are  a  temptation  too  strong  to  be  resisted." 
("Rept.  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,"  April  30th,  1848,  p.  5.)  The  bookbinding  trade  in  the 
city  of  London  employs  very  many  young  girls  from  14  to  15  years  old,  and  that 
under  indentures  which  prescribe  certain  definite  hours  of  labour.  Nevertheless, 
they  work  in  the  last  week  of  each  month  until  10,  11,  12,  or  1  o'clock  at  night, 
along  with  the  older  labourers,  in  a  very  mixed  company.  "The  masters  tempt  them 
by  extra  pay  and  supper,"  which  they  eat  in  neighboring  public-houses.  The  great 
debauchery  thus  produced  among  these  'young  immortals'  ("Children's  Employment 
Comm.,  V.  Rept.,"  p.  44,  n.  191)  is  compensated  by  the  fact  that  among  the  rest 
many   Bibles  and  religious  books   are  bound  by  them. 

'  See  "Reports  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,"  30th  April,  1863,  1.  c.  With  very  accurate  ap- 
preciation of  the  state  of  things,  the  London  labourers  employed  in  the  buildiilfe 
trades  declared,  during  the  great  strike  and  lockout  of  1860,  that  they  would  only 
accept  wages  by  the  hour  under  two  conditions  (1)  that,  with  the  price  of  the 
working-hour,  a  normal  working-day  of  9  and  10  hours  respectively  should  be  fixed, 
and  that  the  price  of  the  hour  for  the  10  hours'  working-day  should  be  higher  than 
that  for  the  hour  of  the  9  hours'  working-day;  (2)  that  every  hour  beyond  the 
normal  working-day  should  be  reckoned  as  overtime  and  proportionally  more  highly 
paid. 

*  "It  is  a  very  notable  thing,  too,  that  where  long  hours  arc  the  rule,  small 
wages  are  also  so."  ("Report  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,"  31st  Oct.,  1863,  p.  9.)  "The 
work  which  obtains  the  scanty  pittance  of  food,  is,  for  the  most  part,  excessively 
prolonged."      ("Public   Health,    Sixth   Report,"    1864,   p.   15.) 

*  "Reports  of  Inspectors  of  Fact.,"  30th  April,  1860,  pp.  31,  32. 


600  Capitalist  Production. 

the  working-day  for  the  labourer  to  secure  even  a  miserable 
average-wage.  The  lowness  of  the  price  of  labour  acts  hero 
as  a  stimulus  to  the  extension  of  the  labour-time.^ 

On  the  other  hand,  the  extension  of  the  working-time  pro- 
duces, in  its  turn,  a  fall  in  the  price  of  labour,  and  with  this  a 
fall  in  the  day's  or  week's  wages. 

The  determination  of  the  price  of  labour  by: 

daily  value  of  labour-power 
working-day  of  a  given  number  of  hours, 

shows  that  a  mere  prolongation  of  the  working-day  lowers  the 
price  of  labour,  if  no  compensation  steps  in.  But  the  same 
circumstances  which  allow  the  capitalist  in  the  long  run  to 
prolong  the  working-day,  also  allow  him  first,  and  compel  him 
finally,  to  nominally  lower  the  price  of  labour,  until  the  total 
price  of  the  increased  number  of  hours  is  lowered,  and,  there- 
fore, the  daily  or  weekly  wage.  Reference  to  two  circum- 
stances is  sufficient  here.  If  one  man  does  the  work  of  1^  or  2 
men,  the  supply  of  labour  increases,  although  the  supply  of 
labour-power  on  the  market  remains  constant.  The  competi- 
tion thus  created  between  the  labourers  allows  the  capitalist 
to  beat  down  the  price  of  labour,  whilst  the  falling  price  of 
labour  allows  him,  on  the  other  hand,  to  screw  up  still  further 
the  working- time. ^  Soon,  however,  this  command  over  abnor- 
mal quantities  of  unpaid  labour,  i.e.,  quantities  in  excess  of 
the  average  social  amount,  becomes  a  source  of  competition 
amongst  the  capitalists  themselves.  A  part  of  the  price  of  the 
commodity  consists  of  the  price  of  labour.  The  unpaid  part 
of  the  labour-price  need  not  be  reckoned  in  the  price  of  the 

*  The  hand-nail  makers  in  England,  e.g.,  have,  on  account  of  the  low  price  of 
labour,  to  work  15  hours  a  day  in  order  to  hammer  out  their  miserable  weekly 
wage.  "It's  a  great  many  hours  in  a  day  (6  a.m.  to  8  p.m.),  and  he  has  to  work 
hard  all  the  time  to  get  lid.  or  Is.,  and  there  is  the  wear  of  the  tools,  the  cost 
of  firing,  and  something  for  waste  iron  to  go  out  of  this,  which  takes  off  altogether 
Zyid.  or  3d."  ("Children's  Employment  Com.,  III.  Report,"  p.  136,  n.  671.)  The 
women  earn  by  the  same  working-time  a  week's  wage  of  only  5  shillings  (1.  c, 
p.  137,  n.  674. 

*  If  a  factory-hand,  e.g.,  refused  to  work  the  customary  long  hours,  "he  would 
very  shortly  be  replaced  by  somebody  who  would  work  any  length  of  time,  and  thus 
be  thrown  out  of  employment."  ("Report  of  Inspectors  of  Fact.,"  31st  Oct.,  1848. 
Evidence,  p.  39,  n.  58.)  "If  one  man  performs  the  work  of  two  .  .  .  the  rate 
of  profits  will  generally  be  raised  ...  in  consequence  of  the  additional  supply 
of  labour  having  diminished  its  price."     (Senior,  1.  c,  p.  14.) 


Time-Wages.  6oi 

commodity.  It  may  be  presented  to  the  buyer.  This  is  the 
first  step  to  which  competition  leads.  The  second  step  to 
which  it  drives,  is  to  exclude  also  from  the  selling-price  of  the 
commodity,  at  least  a  part  of  the  abnormal  surplus-value 
created  by  the  extension  of  the  working-day.  In  this  way  an 
abnormally  low  selling-price  of  the  commodity  arises,  at  first 
sporadically,  and  becomes  fixed  by  degrees;  a  lower  selling 
price  which  henceforward  becomes  the  constant  basis  of  a 
miserable  wage  for  an  excessive  working-time,  as  originally  it 
was  the  product  of  these  very  circumstances.  This  movement 
is  simply  indicated  here,  as  the  analysis  of  competition  does 
not  belong  to  this  part  of  our  subject.  Nevertheless,  the  capi- 
talist may,  for  a  moment,  speak  for  himself.  "In  Birmingham 
there  is  so  much  competition  of  masters  one  against  another, 
that  many  are  obliged  to  do  things  as  employers  that  they 
would  otherwise  be  ashamed  of;  and  yet  no  more  money  is 
made,  but  only  the  public  gets  the  benefit."^  The  reader  will 
remember  the  two  sorts  of  London  bakers,  of  whom  one  sold 
the  bread  at  its  full  price  (the  "full-priced"  bakers),  the  other 
below  its  normal  price  ("the  underpriced,"  "the  under- 
sellers").  The  "full-priced"  denounced  their  rivals  before  the 
Parliamentary  Committee  of  Inquiry :  "They  only  exist  now 
by  fi-rst  defrauding  the  public,  and  next  getting  18  hours'  work 
out  of  their  men  for  12  hours'  wages.  .  .  .  The  unpaid 
labour  of  the  men  was  made  .  .  .  the  source  whereby  the 
competition  was  carried  on,  and  continues  so  to  this  day. 
.  .  The  competition  among  the  master  bakers  is  the 
cause  of  the  difficulty  in  getting  rid  of  night-work.  An  under- 
seller,  who  sells  his  bread  below  the  cost  price  according  to 
the  price  of  flour,  must  make  it  up  by  getting  more  out  of 
the  labour  of  the  men.  .  .  .  If  I  got  only  12  hours'  work 
out  of  my  men,  and  my  neighbour  got  18  or  20,  he  must  beat 
me  in  the  selling  price.     If  the  men  could  insist  on  payment 

for  over-work,  this  would  be  set  right A  large 

number  of  those  employed  by  the  undersellers  are  foreigners, 

1  "Children's  Employment  Com.,  III.   Rep.,"   Evidence,  p.  66,  n.  22. 


6o2  Capitalist  Production. 

and  youths,  who  are  obliged  to  accept  almost  any  wages  they 
can  obtain."^ 

This  jeremiad  is  also  interesting  because  it  shows,  how 
the  appearance  only  of  the  relations  of  production  mirrors 
itself  in  the  brain  of  the  capitalist.  The  capitalist  does  not 
know  that  the  normal  price  of  labour  also  includes  a  definite 
quantity  of  unpaid  labour,  and  that  this  very  unpaid  labour  is 
the  normal  source  of  his  gain.  The  category,  surplus-labour- 
time,  does  not  exist  at  all  for  him,  since  it  is  included  in  the 
normal  working-day,  which  he  thinks  he  has  paid  for  in  the 
day's  wages.  But  overtime  does  exist  for  him,  the  prolonga- 
tion of  the  working  day  beyond  the  limits  corresponding  with 
the  usual  price  of  labour.  Face  to  face  with  his  underselling 
competitor,  he  even  insists  upon  extra  pay  for  this  overtime. 
He  again  does  not  know  that  this  extra  pay  includes  unpaid 
labour,  just  as  well  as  does  the  price  of  the  customary  hour  of 
labour.  For  example,  the  price  of  one  hour  of  the  12  hours' 
working-day  is  3d.,  say  the  value-product  of  half  a  working- 
hour,  whilst  the  price  of  the  overtime  working-hour  is  4d.,  or 
the  value-product  of  §  of  a  working-hour.  In  the  first  case 
the  capitalist  appropriates  to  himself  one-half,  in  the  second, 
one-third  of  the  working-hours  without  paying  for  it. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 


PIECE-WAGES. 


Wages  by  the  piece  are  nothing  else  than  a  converted  form 
of  wages  by  time,  just  as  wages  by  time  are  a  converted  form 
of  the  value  or  price  of  labour-power. 

In  piece-wages  it  seems  at  first  sight  as  if  the  use-value 

*  "Report,  &c.,  relative  to  the  Grievances  complained  of  by  the  Journeymen 
Bakers."  Lond.  1862,  p.  411,  and  ib.  Evidence,  notes  479,  359,  27.  Anyhow  the 
full-priced  also,  as  was  mentioned  above,  and  as  their  spokesman,  Bennett,  himself 
admits,  make  their  men  "generally  begin  work  at  11  p.m.  .  .  .  up  to  8  o'clock 
the  next  morning  .  .  .  they  are  then  engaged  all  day  long  ...  as  late  as  7 
o'clock  in  the  evening."     (1.  c,  p.  22.) 


Piece-Wages.  603 

bought  from  the  labourer  was,  not  the  function  of  his  labour- 
power,  living  labour,  but  labour  already  realised  in  the  pro- 
duct, and  as  if  the  price  of  this  labour  was  determined,  not  as 
with  time-wages,  by  the  fraction,      daily  value  of  labor  power 

'='      '      <J  '       working  day  of  given  number  of  hours 

but  by  the  capacity  for  work  of  the  producer.-^ 

The  confidence  that  trusts  in  this  appearance  ought  to  re- 
ceive a  first  severe  shock  from  the  fact  that  both  forms  of 
wages  exist  side  by  side,  simultaneously,  in  the  same  branches 
of  industry ;  e.g.,  "the  compositors  of  London,  as  a  general 
rule,  work  by  the  piece,  time-work  being  the  exception,  while 
those  in  the  country  work  by  the  day,  the  exception  being  work 
by  the  piece.  The  shipwrights  of  the  port  of  London  work 
by  the  job  or  piece,  while  those  of  all  other  parts  work  by  the 
day."2 

In  the  same  saddlery  shops  of  London,  often  for  the  same 
work,  piece-wages  are  paid  to  the  French,  time-wages  to  the 
English.  In  the  regular  factories  in  which  throughout  piece- 
wages  predominate,  particular  kinds  of  work  are  unsuitable  to 
this  form  of  wage,  and  are  therefore  paid  by  time.^  But 
it  is  moreover  self-evident  that  the  difference  of  form  in  the 
])ayment  of  wages  alters  in  no  way  their  essential  nature, 

*  "The  system  of  piece-work  illustrates  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  working 
man;  it  is  halfway  between  the  position  of  the  mere  day  labourer  depending  upon 
the  will  of  the  capitalist  and  the  co-operative  artisan,  who  in  the  not  distant  future 
promises  to  combine  the  artizan  and  the  capitalist  in  his  own  person.  Piece-workers 
are  in  fact  their  own  masters'  even  whilst  working  upon  the  capital  of  the  employer." 
(■John  Watts:  "Trade  Societies  and  Strikes,  Machinery  and  Co-operative  Societies." 
Manchester,  1865,  p.  52,  53.)  I  quote  this  little  work  because  it  is  a  very  sink  of  all 
long-ago-rotten,  apologetic  commonplaces.  This  same  Mr.  Watts  earlier  traded  in 
Owenism  and  published  in  1842  another  pamphlet:  "Facts  and  Fictions  of  Political 
Economists,"  in  which  among  other  things  he  declares  that  "property  is  robbery." 
That  is  long  ago. 

»T.  J.   Dunning:     "Trade's  Unions  and  Strikes,"  Lond.   1860.  p.   22. 

*  How  the  existence,  side  by  side  and  simultaneously,  of  these  two  forms  of  wage 
favours  the  masters'  cheating:  "A  factory  employs  400  people,  the  half  of  which 
work  by  the  piece,  and  have  a  direct  interest  in  working  longer  hours.  The  other 
200  are  paid  by  the  day,  work  equally  long  with  the  others,  and  get  no  more  money 
for  their  overtime.  .  .  .  The  work  of  these  200  people  for  half  an  hour  a  day 
is  equal  to  one  person's  work  for  50  hours,  or  ^  of  one  person's  labour  in  a 
week,  and  is  a  positive  gain  to  the  employer."  ("Reports  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,  31st 
Oct.,  1860,"  p.  9.)  "Overworking  to  a  very  considerable  extent  still  prevails;  and, 
in  most  instances,  with  that  security  against  detection  and  punishment  which  the 
iaw  itself  affords.  I  have  in  many  former  reports  shown  .  .  .  the  injury  to 
workpeople  who  are  not  employed  on  piece-work,  but  receive  weekly  wages."  Leon- 
ard Horner  in  "Reports  of  Insp.  of  Fact."  30th  April,  1859,  pp.  8,  9.) 


6o4  Capitalist  Production. 

although  the  one  form  may  be  more  favorable  to  the  develop- 
ment of  capitalist  production  than  the  other. 

Let  the  ordinary  working  day  contain  12  hours  of  which  6 
are  paid,  6  unpaid.  Let  its  value-product  be  6  shillings,  that 
of  one  hour's  labour  therefore  6d.  Let  us  suppose  that,  as  the 
result  of  experience,  a  labourer  who  works  with  the  average 
amount  of  intensity  and  skill,  who,  therefore,  gives  in  fact  only 
the  time  socially  necessary  to  the  production  of  an  article, 
supplies  in  12  hours  24  pieces,  either  distinct  products  or 
measurable  parts  of  a  continuous  whole.  Then  the  value  of 
these  24  pieces,  after  subtraction  of  the  portion  of  constant 
capital  contained  in  them,  is  6  shillings,  and  the  value  of  a 
single  piece  3d.  The  labourer  receives  l^d.  per  piece,  and 
thus  earns  in  12  hours  3  shillings.  Just  as,  with  time-wages, 
it  does  not  matter  whether  we  assume  that  the  labourer  works 
6  hours  for  himself  and  6  hours  for  the  capitalist,  or  half  of 
every  hour  for  himself,  and  the  other  half  for  the  capitalist,  so 
here  it  does  not  matter  whether  we  say  that  each  individual 
piece  is  half  paid,  and  half  unpaid  for,  or  that  the  price  of  12 
pieces  is  the  equivalent  only  of  the  value  of  the  labour-power, 
whilst  in  the  other  12  pieces  surplus-value  is  incorporated. 

The  form  of  piece-wages  is  just  as  irrational  as  that  of  time- 
wages.  Whilst  in  our  example  two  pieces  of  a  commodity, 
after  subtraction  of  the  value  of  the  means  of  production  con- 
sumed in  them,  are  worth  6d.  as  being  the  product  of  one  hour, 
the  labourer  receives  for  them  a  price  of  3d.  Piece-wages 
do  not,  in  fact,  distinctly  express  any  relation  of  value.  It  is 
not,  therefore,  a  question  of  measuring  the  value  of  the  piece 
by  the  working  time  incorporated  in  it,  but  on  the  contrary  of 
measuring  the  working-time  the  labourer  has  expended,  by  the 
number  of  pieces  he  has  produced.  In  time-wages  the  labour 
is  measured  by  its  immediate  duration,  in  piece-wages  by  the 
quantity  of  products  in  which  the  labour  has  embodied  itself 
during  a  given  time.*  The  price  of  labour-time  itself  is  finally 
determined  by  the  equation;  value  of  a  day's  labour=daily 

*  "Le  salaire  peut  se  mesurer  de  deux  manieres:  ou  sur  la  duree  du  travail,  ou  sur 
son  produit."  ("Abrege  elementaire  des  principes  dc  I'Economie  Politique."  Paris 
1796,   p.   32.)     The   author   of  this  anonymous   work:     G.   Gamier. 


Piece-Wages.  605 

value  of  labour-power.  Piece-wage  is,  therefore,  only  a  modi- 
fied form  of  time-wage. 

Let  us  now  consider  a  little  more  closely  the  characteristic 
peculiarities  of  piece-wages. 

The  quality  of  the  labour  is  here  controlled  by  the  work 
itself,  which  must  be  of  average  perfection  if  the  piece-price  is 
to  be  paid  in  full.  Piece-wages  become,  from  this  point  of 
view,  the  most  fruitful  source  of  reductions  of  wages  and  capi- 
talistic cheating. 

They  furnish  to  the  capitalist  an  exact  measure  for  the 
intensity  of  labour.  Only  the  working-time  which  is  em- 
bodied in  a  quantum  of  commodities  determined  beforehand 
and  experimentally  fixed,  counts  as  socially  necessary  working 
time,  and  is  paid  as  such.  In  the  larger  workshops  of  the 
London  tailors,  therefore,  a  certain  piece  of  work,  a  waistcoat 
e.g.^  is  called  an  hour,  or  half  an  hour,  the  hour  at  6d.  By 
practise  it  is  known  how  much  is  the  average  product  of 
one  hour.  With  new  fashions,  repairs,  etc.,  a  contest  arises 
between  master  and  labourer,  whether  a  particular  piece  of 
work  is  one  hour,  and  so  on,  until  here  also  experience  decides. 
Similarly  in  the  London  furniture  workshops,  etc.  If  the 
labourer  does  not  possess  the  average  capacity,  if  he  cannot  in 
consequence  supply  a  certain  minimum  of  work  per  day,  he  is 
dismissed.^ 

Since  the  quality  and  intensity  of  the  work  are  here  con- 
trolled by  the  form  of  wage  itself,  superintendence  of  labour 
becomes  in  great  part  superfluous.  Piece-wages  therefore  lay 
the  foundation  of  the  modern  "domestic  labour,"  described 
above,  as  well  as  of  a  hierarchically  organised  system  of  exploi- 
tation and  oppression.  The  latter  has  two  fundamental  forms. 
On  the  one  hand  piece-wages  facilitate  the  interposition  of 
parasites  between  tlie  capitalist  and  the  wage-labourer,  the 
"sub-letting  of  labour."     The  gain  of  these  middle-men  comes 

*  "So  much  weight  of  cotton  is  delivered  to  him  [the  spinner],  and  he  has  to 
return  by  a  certain  time,  in  lieu  of  it,  a  given  weight  of  twist  or  yarn,  of  a  certain 
degree  of  fineness,  and  he  is  paid  so  much  per  pound  for  all  that  he  so  returns. 
If  his  work  is  defective  in  quality,  the  penalty  falls  on  him,  if  less  in  quantity 
than  the  minimum  fixed  for  a  given  time,  he  is  dismissed  and  an  abler  operative 
procured."     (Ure  1.   c.  p.  317.) 


6o6  Capitalist  Production. 

entirely  from  the  difference  between  the  labour  price  which  the 
capitalist  pays,  and  the  part  of  that  price  which  they  actually 
allow  to  reach  the  labourer.^  In  England  this  system  is  char- 
acteristically called  the  "Sweating  system."  On  the  other 
hand  piece-wage  allows  the  capitalist  to  make  a  contract  for 
so  much  per  piece  with  the  head  labourer — in  manufactures 
with  the  chief  of  some  group,  in  mines  with  the  extractor  of 
the  coal,  in  tlie  factory  with  the  actual  machine-worker — at  a 
price  for  which  the  head  labourer  himself  undertakes  the  en- 
listing and  payment  of  his  assistant  workpeople.  The  exploi- 
tation of  the  labourer  by  capital  is  here  effected  through  the 
exploitation  of  the  labourer  by  the  labourer.^ 

Given  piece-wage,  it  is  naturally  the  personal  interest  of  the 
labourer  to  strain  his  labour-power  as  intensely  as  possible; 
this  enables  the  capitalist  to  raise  more  easily  the  normal  de- 
gree of  intensity  of  labour.^  It  is  moreover  now  the  personal 
interest  of  the  labourer  to  lengthen  the  working  day,  since 
with  it  his  daily  or  weekly  wages  rise.*    This  gradually  brings 

^  "It  is  when  work  passes  through  several  hands,  each  of  which  is  to  take  its 
share  of  profits,  while  only  the  last  does  the  work,  that  the  pay  which  reaches  the 
work-woman  is  miserably  disproportioned."  (Child  Emp.  Com.  II.  Report,  p.  Ixx, 
n.    484.) 

^  Even  Watts,  the  apologetic,  remarks:  "It  would  be  a  great  improvement  to  the 
system  of  piece-work,  if  all  the  men  employed  on  a  job  were  partners  in  the  con- 
tract, each  according  to  his  abilities,  instead  of  one  man  being  interested  in  over- 
working his  fellows  for  his  own  benefit."  (1.  c.  p.  53.)  On  the  vileness  of  this 
system,  cf.  Child.  Emp.  Com.  Rep.  III.  p.  66,  n.  22,  p.  11,  n.  124,  p.  xi.  n.  13, 
63,  69,  etc. 

*  This  spontaneous  result  is  often  artificially  helped  along,  e.g.,  in  the  Engineering 
Trade  of  London,  a  customary  trick  is  "the  selecting  of  a  man  who  possesses  su- 
perior physical  strength  and  quickness,  as  the  principal  of  several  workmen,  and 
paying  him  an  additional  rate,  by  the  quarter  or  otherwise,  with  the  understanding 
that  he  is  to  exert  himself  to  the  utmost  to  induce  the  others,  who  are  only  paid 
the  ordinary  wages,  to  keep  up  to  him.  .  .  .  Without  any  comment  this  will  go 
far  to  explain  many  of  the  complaints  of  stinting  the  action,  superior  skill,  and 
working-power,  made  by  the  employers  against  the  men"  (in  Trades-Unions.  Dun- 
ning, 1.  c.  pp.  22,  23).  As  the  author  is  himself  a  labourer  and  secretary  of  a 
Trade's  Union,  this  might  be  taken  for  exaggeration.  But  the  reader  may  compare 
the  "highly  respectable"  Cyclopedia  of  Agriculture  of  J.  Ch.  Morton,  Art.  "La- 
bourer," where  this  method  is  recommended  to  the  farmers  as  an  approved  one. 

*  "All  those  who  are  paid  by  piece-work  .  .  .  profit  by  the  transgression  of 
the  legal  limits  of  work.  This  observation  as  to  the  willingness  to  work  overtime 
is  especially  applicable  to  the  women  employed  as  weavers  and  reelers."  (Rept.  of 
Insp.  of  Fact.,  30th  April,  1858,  p.  9).  "This  system  (piece-work),  so  advantageous 
to  the  employer  .  .  .  tends  directly  to  encourage  the  young  potter  greatly  to 
overwork  himself  during  the  four  or  five  years  during  which  he  is  employed  in  the 
piece-work  system,  but  at  low  wages.     .     .     .     This  is    .     .     .     another  great  cause 


Piece-Wages.  607 

on  a  reaction  like  that  already  described  in  time-wages,  without 
reckoning  that  the  prolongation  of  the  working  day,  even  if 
the  piece-wage  remains  constant,  includes  of  necessity  a  fall  in 
the  price  of  the  labour. 

In  time-wages,  with  few  exceptions,  the  same  wage  holds  for 
the  same  kind  of  work,  whilst  in  piece-wages,  though  the  price 
of  the  working  time  is  measured  by  a  certain  quantity  of 
product,  the  day's  or  week's  wage  will  vary  with  the  indi- 
vidual differences  of  the  labourers,  of  whom  one  supplies  in  a 
given  time  the  minimum  of  product  only,  another  the  average, 
a  third  more  than  the  average.  With  regard  to  actual  receipts 
there  is,  therefore,  great  variety  according  to  the  different  skill, 
strength,  energy,  staying-power,  etc.,  of  the  individual  la- 
bourers.^ Of  course  this  does  not  alter  the  general  relations  be- 
tween capital  and  wage-labour.  First,  the  individual  differ- 
ences balance  one  another  in  the  workshop  as  a  whole,  which 
thus  supplies  in  a  given  working-time  the  average  product, 
and  the  total  wages  paid  will  be  the  average  wages  of  that 
particular  branch  of  industry.  Second,  the  proportion  be- 
tween wages  and  surplus-value  remains  unaltered,  since  the 
mass  of  surplus-labour  supplied  by  each  particular  labourer 
corresponds  with  the  wage  received  by  him.  But  the  wider 
scope  that  piece-wage  gives  to  individuality,  tends  to  develop 
on  the  one  hand  that  individuality,  and  with  it  the  sense  of 
liberty,  independence,  and  self-control  of  the  labourers,  on  the 
other,  their  competition  one  with  another.  Piece-work  has, 
therefore,  a  tendency,  v^hile  raising  individual  wages  above 
the  average,  to  lower  this  average  itself.  But  where  a 
particular  rate  of  piece-wage  has  for  a  long  time  been  fixed  by 
tradition,  and  its  lowering,  therefore,  presented  especial  diffi- 
culties, the  masters,  in  such  exceptional  cases,  sometimes  had 
recourse  to  its  compulsory  transformation  into  time-wages. 
Hence,  e.g.,  in  1860  a  great  strike  among  the  ribbon-weavers 

to  which  the  bad  constitutions  of  the  potters  are  to  be  attributed."  (Child  Empl. 
Com.    I.   Rept.,  p.    xiii.) 

1  "Where  the  work  in  any  trade  is  paid  for  by  the  piece  at  so  much  per  job 
.  .  .  wages  may  very  materially  differ  in  amount.  .  .  .  But  in  work  by  the 
day  the.e  is  generally  an  uniform  rate  .  .  .  recognized  by  both  employer  and 
employed  as  the  standp.rd  of  wages  for  the  general  run  of  workmen  in  the  trade.' 
(Dunning,  1.  c.  p.  17.) 


6o8  Capitalist  Production. 

of  Coventry.^    Piece-wage  is  finally  one  of  the  chief  supports 
of  the  hour-system  described  in  the  preceding  chapter.^ 

From  what  has  been  shown  so  far,  it  follows  that  piece-wage 
is  the  form  of  wages  most  in  harmony  with  the  capitalist 
mode  of  production.  Although  by  no  means  new — it  figures 
side  hy  side  with  time-wages  officially  in  the  French  and 
English  lalx)ur  statutes  of  the  14th  century — it  only  conquers 
a  larger  field  for  action  during  the  period  of  Manufacture, 
properly  so-called.  In  the  stormy  youth  of  Modern  Industry, 
especially  from  1797  to  1815,  it  served  as  a  lever  for  the 
lengthening  of  the  working  day,  and  the  lowering  of  wages. 
Very  important  materials  for  the  fluctuation  of  wages  during 
that  period  are  to  be  found  in  the  Blue-books:  "Report  and 
Evidence  from  the  Select  Committee  on  Petitions  respecting 
the  Com  Laws,"  (Parliamentary  Session  of  1813-14),  and 
"Report  from  the  Lords'  Committee,  on  the  state  of  the 
Growth,  Commerce,  and  Consumption  of  Grain,  and  all  Laws 
relating  thereto,"  (Session  of  1814-15).  Here  we  find  docu- 
mentary evidence  of  the  constant  lowering  of  the  price  of 
labour  from  the  beginning  of  the  Anti-Jacobin  War.  In  the 
weaving  industry,  e.g.,  piece-wages  had  fallen  so  low  that  in 

*  "Le  travail  des  Compagnons-artisans  sera  regie  a  la  journee  ou  a  la  piece  .  .  . 
Ces  maitres-artisans  savent  a  peu  pres  combien  d'ouvrage  un  compagnon-artisan  peut 
faire  par  jour  dans  chaque  metier,  et  les  payent  souvent  a  proportion  de  I'ouvrage 
qu'ils  font;  ainsi  ces  compagnons  travaillent  autant  qu'ils  peuvent,  pour  leur  propre 
interet,  sans  autre  inspection."  (Cantillon,  Essai  sur  la  Nature  du  Commerce 
en  general,  Amst.  Ed.,  1756,  pp.  185  and  202.  The  first  edition  appeared  in  1755.) 
Cantillon,  from  whom  Quesnay,  Sir  James  Steuart  &  A.  Smith  have  largely  drawn, 
already  here  represents  piece-wage  as  simply  a  modified  form  of  time-wage.  The 
French  edition  of  Cantillon  professes  in  its  title  to  be  a  translation  from  the  Eng- 
lish, but  the  English  edition:  "The  analysis  of  Trade,  Commerce,  etc.,  by  Philip 
Cantillon,  late  of  the  city  of  London,  Merchant,"  is  not  only  of  later  date  (1759), 
but  proves  by  its  contents  that  it  is  a  later  and  revised  edition;  e.g.,  in  the  French 
edition,  Hume  is  not  yet  mentioned,  whilst  in  the  English,  on  the  other  hand,  Petty 
hardly  figures  any  longer.  The  English  edition  is  theoretically  less  important,  but 
it  contains  numerous  details  referring  specifically  to  English  commerce,  bullion 
trade,  etc.,  that  are  wanting  in  the  French  text.  The  words  on  the  title-page  of 
the  English  edition,  according  to  which  the  work  is  "Taken  chiefly  from  the  manu- 
script of  a  very  ingenious  gentleman,  deceased,  and  adapted,  etc,"  seem,  therefore, 
a  pure  fiction,  very  customary  at  that  time. 

*  "Combien  de  fois  n'avons-nous  pas  vu,  dans  certains  ateliers,  embaucher  beaucoup 
plus  d'ouvriers  que  ne  le  demandait  le  travail  a  mettre  en  main?  Souvent,  dans  la 
prevision  d'un  travail  aleatoire,  quelquefois  meme  imaginaire,  on  admet  des  ouvriers: 
comme  on  les  paie  aux  pieces,  on  se  dit  qu'on  ne  court  aucun  risque,  parceque  toutes 
les  pertes  de  temps  seront  a  la  charge  des  inoccup^s."  (H.  Gregoir:  "Les  Typo- 
graphes  devant  le  Tribunal  correctionnel  de  Bruxelles,"  Bruxelles,  1865,  p.  9.) 


Piece-Wages.  609 

spite  of  the  very  great  lengthening  of  the  working  day,  the 
daily  wages  were  then  lower  than  before.  "The  real  earnings 
of  the  cotton  weaver  are  now  far  less  than  they  were;  his 
superiority  over  the  common  labourer,  which  at  first  was  very 
great,  has  now  almost  entirely  ceased.  Indeed  .  .  .  the 
difference  in  the  wages  of  skilful  and  common  labour  is  far  less 
now  than  at  any  former  period."^  How  little  the  increased  in- 
tensity and  extension  of  labour  through  piece-wages  benefited 
the  agricultural  proletariat,  the  following  passage  borrowed 
from  a  work  on  the  side  of  the  landlords  and  farmers  shows: 
"By  far  the  greater  part  of  agricultural  operations  is  done  by 
people,  who  are  hired  for  the  day  or  on  piece-work.  Their 
weekly  wages  are  about  12s.,  and  although  it  may  be  assumed 
that  a  man  earns  on  piece-work  under  the  greater  stimulus  to 
labour,  Is.  or  perhaps  2s.  more  than  on  weekly  wages,  yet  it  is 
found,  on  calculating  his  total  income,  that  his  loss  of  employ- 
ment, during  the  year,  outweighs  this  gain  .  .  .  Fur- 
ther, it  will  generally  be  found  that  the  wages  of  these  men 
bear  a  certain  proportion  to  the  price  of  the  necessary  means 
of  subsistence,  so  that  a  man  with  two  children  is  able  to  bring 
up  his  family  without  recourse  to  parish  relief."^  Malthus  at 
that  time  remarked  with  reference  to  the  facts  published  by 
Parliament:  "I  confess  that  I  see,  with  misgiving,  the  great 
extension  of  the  practice  of  piece-wage.  Really  hard  work 
during  12  or  14  hours  of  the  day,  or  for  any  longer  time,  is 
too  much  for  any  human  being.  "^ 

In  the  workshops  under  the  Factory  Acts,  piece-wage  be- 
comes the  general  rule,  because  capital  can  there  only  increase 
the  efficacy  of  tlie  working  day  by  intensifying  labour.'* 

With  the  changing  productiveness  of  labour  the  same  quan- 
tum of  product  represents  a  varying  working  time.  There- 
fore, piece-wage  also  varies,  for  it  is  the  money  expression  of  a 
determined  working  time.  In  our  example  above,  24  pieces 
were  produced  in  12  hours,  whilst  the  value  of  the  product 

'  Remarks  on  the  Commercial  Policy  of  Great  Britain,  London,   1815. 

*  A  defence  on  the  Land-owners  and  Farmers  of  Great  Britain,  1814,  pp.   4,   5. 
'  Malthus,   Inquiry  into  the  Nature  and  Progress  of  Rent,  Lond.,  1815. 

♦  "Those  who  are  paid  by  piece-work  .  .  .  constitute  probably  four-fifths  of  the 
workers  in  the  factories."     "Report  of   Insp.   of   Fact.,   30th  April,    1858." 

2M 


6io  Capitalist  Production. 

of  the  12  hours  was  63.,  the  daily  value  of  the  labour- 
power  3s.,  the  price  of  the  labour-hour  3d.,  and  the  wage 
for  one  piece  l^d.  In  one  piece  half-an-hour's  labour  was 
absorbed.  If  the  same  working  day  now  supplies,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  doubled  productiveness  of  labour,  48  pieces 
instead  of  24,  and  all  other  circumstances  remain  unchanged, 
then  the  piece-wage  falls  from  l|d.  to  fd.,  as  every  piece  now 
only  represents  ^,  instead  of  ^  of  a  working  hour.  24  by  l|d. 
=3s.,  and  in  like  manner  48  by  fd.=3s.  In  other  words, 
piece-wage  is  lowered  in  the  same  proportion  as  the  number  of 
the  pieces  produced  in  the  same  time  rises,^  and  therefore  as 
the  working  time  spent  on  the  same  piece  falls.  This  change 
in  piece-wage,  so  far  purely  nominal,  leads  to  constant  battles 
between  capitalist  and  labour.  Either  because  the  capitalist 
uses  it  as  a  pretext  for  actually  lowering  the  price  of  labour, 
or  because  increased  productive  power  of  labour  is  accompanied 
by  an  increased  intensity  of  tlie  same.  Or  because  the  labourer 
takes  seriously  the  appearance  of  piece-wages,  viz.,  that  his 
product  is  paid  for,  and  not  his  labour-power,  and  therefore 
revolts  against  a  lowering  of  wages,  unaccompanied  by  a  lower- 
ing in  the  selling  price  of  the  commodity.  "The  operatives 
.  .  .  .  carefully  watch  the  price  of  the  raw  material  and 
the  price  of  manufactured  goods,  and  are  thus  enabled  to  form 
an  accurate  estimate  of  their  master's  profits."^ 

The  capitalist  rightly  knocks  on  the  head  such  pretensions 
as  gross  errors  as  to  the  nature  of  wage-labour.^  He  cries  out 
against  this  usurping  attempt  to  lay  taxes  on  the  advance  of 

*  "The  productive  power  of  his  spinning-machine  is  accurately  measured,  and  the 
rate  of  pay  for  work  done  with  it  decreases  with,  though  not  as,  the  increase  of  its 
productive  power."  (Ure,  1.  c,  p.  317.)  This  last  apologetic  phrase  Ure  himself 
again  cancels.  The  lengthening  of  the  mule  causes  some  increase  of  labour,  he 
admits.  The  labour  does  therefore  not  diminish  in  the  same  ratio  as  its  productivity 
increases.  Further:  "By  this  increase  the  productive  power  of  the  machine  will 
be  augmented  one-fifth.  When  this  event  happens  the  spinner  will  not  be  paid 
at  the  same  rate  for  work  done  as  he  was  before,  but  as  that  rate  will  not  be 
diminished  in  the  ratio  of  one-fifth,  the  improvement  will  augment  his  money  earn- 
ings for  any  given  number  of  hours'  work,"  but  "the  foregoing  statement  requires 
a  certain  modification.  .  .  .  The  spinner  has  to  pay  something  additional  for 
juvenile  aid  out  of  his  additional  sixpence,  accompanied  by  displacing  a  portion  of 
adults"   (1.  c.  p.  321),  which  has  in  no  way  a  tendency  to  raise  wages. 

'  H.  Fawcett :  "The  Economic  Position  of  the  British  Labourer.  Cambridge  and 
London,   1866,"   p.   178. 

•  In  the  London  Standard  of  October  26,  1861,  there  is  a  report  of  proceedings 


National  Differences  of  Wages.  6ii 

industry,    and    declares   roundly   that  the   productiveness   of 
labom-  does  not  concern  the  labourer  at  all.^ 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

NATIONAL    DIFFERENCES   OF   WAGES. 

In  the  17th  chapter  we  were  occupied  with  the  manifold 
combinations  which  may  bring  about  a  change  in  magnitude 
of  the  value  of  labour-power — this  magnitude  being  considered 
either  absolutely  or  relatively,  i.e.,  as  compared  with  surplus- 
value  ;  whilst  on  the  other  hand,  the  quantum  of  the  means  of 
subsistence  in  which  the  price  of  labour  is  realised  might 
again  undergo  fluctuations  independent  of,  or  different  from, 
the  changes  of  this  price. ^  As  has  been  already  said,  the  sim- 
ple translation  of  the  value  or  respectively  of  the  price  of 
labour-power  into  the  exoteric  form  of  wages  transforms  all 
these  laws  into  laws  of  the  fluctuations  of  wages.  That  which 
appears  in  these  fluctuations  of  wages  within  a  single  country 
as  a  series  of  varying  combinations,  may  appear  in  different 
countries  as  contemporaneous  difference  of  national  wages. 
In  the  comparison  of  the  wages  in  different  nations,  we  must 
therefore   take   into   account  all  the  factors  that  determine 

of  the  firm  of  John  Bright  &  Co.,  before  the  Rochdale  magistrates  "to  prosecute  for 
intimidation  the  agents  of  the  Carpet  Weavers  Trades'  Union.  Bright's  partners 
had  introduced  new  machinery  which  would  turn  out  240  yards  of  carpet  in  the 
time  and  with  the  labour  (!)  previously  required  to  produce  160  yards.  The  work- 
men had  no  claim  whatever  to  share  in  the  profits  made  by  the  investment  of  their 
employer's  capital  in  mechanical  improvements.  Accordingly,  Messrs.  Bright  pro- 
posed to  lower  the  rate  of  pay  from  lj4d.  per  yard  to  Id.,  leaving  the  earnings  of 
the  men  exactly  the  same  as  before  for  the  same  labour.  But  there  was  a  nominal 
reduction,  of  which  the  operatives,  it  is  asserted,  had  not  fair  warning  before  hand." 

1  "Trades'  Unions,  in  their  desire  to  maintain  wages,  endeavour  to  share  in  the 
benefits  of  improved  machinery.  (Quelle  horreurl)  .  .  .  the  demanding  higher 
wages,  because  labour  is  abbreviated,  is  in  other  words  the  endeavour  to  establish  a 
duty  on  mechanical  improvements."  ("On  Combination  of  Trades,  new  ed.,  London, 
1834,"  p.  42.) 

'  "It  is  not  accurate  to  say  that  wages"  (he  deals  here  with  their  money  expres- 
sion) "are  increased,  because  they  purchase  more  of  a  cheaper  article."  (David 
Buchanan  in  his  edition  of  Adam  Smith's  "Wealth,"  &c.,  1814,  Vol.  I;,  p.  417. 
Note.) 


6i2  Cc(Ayj/U  ProducCtAK. 

changes  in  the  amount  of  tho  value  of  labour-power ;  the  price 
and  the  extent  of  the  prime  neco&saries  of  life  as  naturally  and 
historically  developed,  the  cc&t  of  training  the  labourers,  the 
part  played  by  the  labour  of  women  and  children,  the  produc- 
tiveness of  labour,  its  ejlensive  and  intensive  magnitude. 
Even  the  most  superficial  comparison  requires  the  reduction 
first  of  the  average  day-wage  for  the  same  trades,  in  different 
countries,  to  a  uniform  working  day.  After  this  reduction  to 
the  same  terms  of  the  day-wages,  time-wage  must  again  be 
translated  into  piece-wage,  as  the  latter  only  can  be  a  measure 
both  of  the  productivity  and  the  intensity  of  labour. 

In  every  country  there  is  a  certain  average  intensity  of 
labour,  below  which  the  labour  for  the  production  of  a  com- 
modity requires  more  than  the  socially  necessary  time,  and 
therefore  does  not  reckon  as  labour  of  normal  quality.  Only 
a  degree  of  intensity  above  the  national  average  affects,  in  a 
given  country,  the  measure  of  value  of  the  mere  duration  of 
the  working  time.  This  is  not  the  case  on  the  universal 
market,  whose  integral  parts  are  die  individual  countries. 
The  average  intensity  of  labour  changes  from  country  to  coun- 
try; here  it  is  greater,  there  less.  These  national  averages 
form  a  scale,  whose  unit  of  measure  is  the  average  unit  of 
universal  labour.  The  more  intense  national  labour,  therefore, 
as  compared  with  the  less  intense,  produces  in  the  same  time 
more  value,  which  expresses  itself  in  more  money. 

But  the  law  of  value  in  its  international  application  is  yet 
more  modified  by  this,  that  on  the  world-market  the  more 
productive  national  labour  reckons  also  as  the  more  intense,  so 
long  as  the  more  productive  nation  is  not  compelled  by  com- 
petition to  lower  the  selling  price  of  its  commodities  to  the 
level  of  their  value. 

In  proportion  as  capitalist  production  is  developed  in  a 
country,  in  the  same  proportion  do  the  national  intensity  and 
productivity  of  labour  there  rise  above  the  international  level. ^ 
The  different  quantities  of  commodities  of  the  same  kind,  pro- 
duced in  different  countries  in  the  same  working  time,  have, 

*  We  shall  inquire,  in  another  place,  what  circumstances  in  relation  to  productivity 
may  modify  this  law  for  individual  branches  of  industry. 


National  Differences  of  Wages.  613 

llici'ef?re,  unequal  iniernational  values,  which  are  expressed  in 
tlifferent  prices^  i.e.,  in  sums  of  money  varying  according  to 
international  valuer.  The  relative  value  of  money  will,  there- 
fore, be  less  Ji\  the  nation  with  more  developed  capitalist 
mode  of  production  than  in  the  nation  with  less  developed. 
It  follows,  ihen,  that  the  nominal  wages,  the  equivalent  of 
labour-powf.r  expressed  in  money,  will  also  be  higher  in  the 
first  nation  than  in  the  second;  which  does  not  at  all  prove 
that  this  holds  also  for  the  real  wages,  i.e.,  for  the  means  of 
subsistence  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  labourer. 

But  even  apart  from  these  relative  differences  of  the  value 
of  money  in  different  countries,  it  will  be  found,  frequently, 
that  the  daily  or  weekly,  &c.,  wage  in  the  first  nation  is  higher 
than  in  the  second,  whilst  the  relative  price  of  labour,  i.e.,  the 
price  of  labour  as  compared  both  with  surplus-value  and  with 
the  value  of  the  product,  stands  higher  in  the  second  than  in 
the  first.  ^ 

J.  W.  Co  well,  member  of  the  Factory  Commission  of  1833, 
after  careful  investigation  of  the  spinning  trade,  came  to 
ihe  conclusion  that,  "  in  England  wages  are  virtually  lower  to 
the  capitalist,  though  higher  to  the  operative  than  on  the 
Continent  of  Europe."  (Ure,  p.  314.)  The  English  Factory 
Inspector,  Alexander  Redgrave,  in  his  Report  of  Oct.  31st, 
1S66,  proves  by  comparative  statistics  with  Continental  states, 
that  in  spite  of  lower  wages  and  much  longer  working-time, 
Continental  labour  is,  in  proportion  to  the  product,  dearer  than 
English.     An  English  manager  of  a  cotton  factory  in  Olden- 

'  James  Anderson  remarks  in  his  polemic  against  Adam  Smith :  "It  deserves, 
likewise,  to  be  remarked,  that  although  the  apparent  price  of  labour  is  usually  lower 
in  poor  countries,  where  the  produce  of  the  soil,  and  grain  in  general,  is  cheap;  yet 
it  is  in  fact  for  the  most  part  really  higher  than  in  other  countries.  For  it  is  not 
the  wages  that  is  given  to  the  labourer  per  day  that  constitutes  the  real  price  of 
labour,  although  it  is  its  apparent  price.  The  real  price  is  that  which  a  certain 
quantity  of  work  performed  actually  costs  the  employer;  and  considered  in  this  light, 
labour  is  in  almost  all  cases  cheaper  in  rich  countries  than  in  those  that  are  poorer, 
although  the  price  of  grain,  and  other  provisions,  is  usually  much  lower  in  the  last 
than  in  the  first.  .  .  .  Labour  estimated  by  the  day,  is  much  lower  in  Scotland 
than  in  England.  .  .  .  Labour  by  the  piece  is  generally  cheaper  in  England." 
(James  Anderson,  Observations  on  the  means  of  exciting  a  spirit  of  National  Indus- 
try, &c.,  Edin.  1777,  pp.  350,  351).  On  the  contrary,  lowness  of  wages  produces, 
in  its  turn,  dearness  of  labour.  "Labour  being  dearer  in  Ireland  than  it  is  in 
England  .  .  .  because  the  wages  are  so  much  lower."  (N.  2079  in  Royal  Com> 
mission    on    Railways,    Minutes,    1867.) 


6 14  Capitalist  Production. 

burg,  declares  that  the  working-time  there  lasted  from  5.30 
a.m.  to  8  p.m.,  Saturdays  included,  and  that  the  workpeople 
there,  when  under  English  overlookers,  did  not  supply  during 
this  time  quite  so  much  product  as  the  English  in  10  hours,  but 
under  German  overlookers  much  less.  Wages  are  much  lower 
than  in  England,  in  many  cases  50%,  but  the  number  of  hands 
in  proportion  to  the  machinery  was  much  greater,  in  certain 
departments  in  the  proportion  of  5  :3. — Mr.  Redgrave  gives 
very  full  details  as  to  the  Russian  cotton  factories.  The  data 
were  given  him  by  an  English  manager  until  recently  em- 
ployed there.  On  this  Russian  soil,  so  fruitful  of  all  infamies, 
the  old  horrors  of  the  early  days  of  English  factories  are  in  full 
swing.  The  managers  are,  of  course,  English,  as  the  native 
Russian  capitalist  is  of  no  use  in  factory  business.  Despite 
all  over-work,  continued  day  and  night,  despite  the  most 
shameful  under-payment  of  the  workpeople,  Russian  manu- 
facture manages  to  vegetate  only  by  prohibition  of  foreign 
competition.  I  give,  in  conclusion,  a  comparative  table  of  Mr. 
Redgrave's,  on  the  average  number  of  spindles  per  factory  and 
per  spinner  in  the  different  countries  of  Europe.  He,  himself, 
remarks  that  he  had  collected  these  figures  a  few  years  ago, 
and  that  since  that  time  the  size  of  the  factories  and  the 
number  of  spindles  per  labourer  in  England  has  increased. 
Ho  supposes,  however,  an  approximately  equal  progress  in  the 
Continental  countries  mentioned,  so  that  the  numbers  given 
would  still  have  their  value  for  purposes  of  comparison. 

Average  Number  of  Spindles  per  Factory. 


England, 

average 

of 

spindles 

per 

factory 

12,600 

France, 

}f 

,') 

)f 

1,500 

Prussia, 

» 

f> 

w 

1,500 

Belgium, 

ty 

ff 

w 

4,000 

Saxony, 

» 

if 

» 

4,500 

Austria, 

jj 

» 

yy 

7,000 

Switzerland  " 

if 

» 

8,000 

14 

spindles 

28 

37 

46 

49 

50 

50 

55 

55 

74 

National  Differences  of  Wages.  615 


Average  Number  of  Peesons  Employed  to  Spindles. 

France,    one   person   to 
Russia,  " 

Prussia,  " 

Bavaria,  " 

Austria,  " 

Belgium,  " 

Saxony,  " 

Switzerland,        " 
Smaller  States  of  Germany, 
Great  Britain,     " 

"  This  comparison,"  says  Mr.  Redgrave,  "  is  yet  more  un- 
favourable to  Great  Britaiti,  inasmuch  as  there  is  so  large  a 
number  of  factories  in  which  weaving  by  power  is  carried  on 
in  conjunction  with  spinning  [whilst  in  the  table  the  weavers 
are  not  deducted],  and  the  factories  abroad  are  chiefly  spinning 
factories  ;  if  it  were  possible  to  compare  like  with  like,  strictly, 
I  could  find  many  cotton  spinning  factories  in  my  district  in 
which  mules  containing  2,200  spindles  are  minded  by  one 
man  (the  "  minder  ")  and  two  assistants  only,  turning  off  daily 
220  lbs.  of  yarn,  measuring  400  miles  in  length."  (Reports 
of  Insp.  of  Fact.,  31st  Oct.,  1866,  p.  31-33,  passim.) 

It  is  well  known  that  in  Eastern  Europe  as  well  as  in  Asia, 
English  companies  have  undertaken  the  construction  of  rail- 
ways, and  have,  in  making  them,  employed  side  by  side  with 
the  native  labourers,  a  certain  number  of  English  working- 
men.  Compelled  by  practical  necessity,  they  thus  have  had  to 
take  into  account  the  national  difference  in  the  intensity  of 
labour,  but  this  has  brought  them  no  loss.  Their  experience 
shows  that  even  if  the  height  of  wages  corresponds  more  or 
less  with  the  average  intensity  of  labour,  the  relative  price  of 
labour  varies  generally  in  the  inverse  direction. 

^  "Essay  on  the  Rate  of  Wages,  with  an  Examination  of  the  Causes  of  the  Differ- 
ences in  the  Conditions  of  the  Labouring  Population  throughout  the  World,"  Phila* 
delphia,   1S35. 


6i6  Capitalist  Production. 

In  an  "  Essay  on  the  Rate  of  Wages," ^  one  of  his  first  econo- 
mic writings,  H.  Carey  tries  to  prove  that  the  wages  of  the 
different  nations  are  directly  proportional  to  the  degree  of 
productiveness  of  the  national  working  days,  in  order  to  draw 
from  this  international  relation,  the  conclusion  that  wages 
everywhere  rise  and  fall  in  proportion  to  the  productiveness 
of  labour.  The  whole  of  our  analysis  of  the  production  of 
surplus  value  shows  the  absurdity  of  this  conclusion,  even  if 
Carey  himself  had  proved  his  premises,  instead  of,  after  his 
usual  uncritical  and  superficial  fashion,  shuffling  to  and  fro  a 
confused  mass  of  statistical  materials.  The  best  of  it  is  that 
he  does  not  assert  that  things  actually  are  as  they  ought  to  be 
according  to  his  theory.  For  State  intervention  has  falsified 
the  natural  economic  relations.  The  different  national  wages 
must  be  reckoned,  therefore,  as  if  that  part  of  each  that  goes  to 
t]ie  State  in  the  form  of  taxes,  came  to  the  labourer  himself. 
Ought  not  Mr.  Carey  to  consider  further  whether  those  "  State 
expenses  "  are  not  the  "  natural  "  fruits  of  capitalistic  develop- 
ment? The  reasoning  is  quite  worthy  of  the  man  who  first 
declared  the  relations  of  capitalist  production  to  be  eternal  laws 
of  nature  and  reason,  whose  free,  harmonious  working  is  only 
disturbed  by  the  intervention  of  the  State,  in  order  after- 
wards to  discover  that  the  diabolical  influence  of  England  on 
the  world-market  (an  influence  which,  it  appears,  does  not 
spring  from  the  natural  laws  of  capitalist  production)  necessi- 
tates State  intervention,  i.e.,  the  protection  of  those  laws  of 
nature  and  reason  by  the  State,  alia^  the  System  of  Protection. 
He  discovered  further,  that  the  theorems  of  Ricardo  and  oth- 
ers, in  which  existing  social  antagonisms  and  contradictions 
are  formulated,  are  not  the  ideal  product  of  the  real  economic 
movement,  but  on  the  contrary,  that  the  real  antagonisms  of 
capitalist  production  in  England  and  elsewhere  are  the  result 
of  the  theories  of  Ricardo  and  others !  Einally,  he  discovered 
that  it  is,  in  the  last  resort,  commerce  that  destroys  the  inborn 
beauties  and  harmonies  of  the  capitalist  mode  of  production. 
A  step  further,  and  he  will,  perhaps,  discover  that  the  one 
evil  in  capitalist  production  is  capital  itself.     Only  a  man 


National  Differences  of  Wages.  617 

with  such  atrocious  want  of  the  critical  faculty  and  such 
spurious  erudition  deserved,  in  spite  of  his  Protectionist  her- 
esy, to  become  the  secret  source  of  the  harmonious  wisdom  of  a 
Bastiat,  and  of  all  the  other  Free  Trade  optimists  of  to-day. 


PART  VII. 
THE  ACCUMULATION  OF  CAPITAL. 


The  conversion  of  a  sum  of  money  into  means  of  production 
and  labour-power,  is  the  first  step  taken  by  the  quantum  of 
value  that  is  going  to  function  as  capital.  This  conversion 
takes  place  in  the  market,  within  the  sphere  of  circulation. 
The  second  step,  the  process  of  production,  is  complete  so  soon 
as  the  means  of  production  have  been  converted  into  commodi- 
ties whose  value  exceeds  that  of  their  component  parts,  and, 
therefore,  contains  the  capital  originally  advanced,  plus  a 
surplus-value.  These  commccilLies  must  thca  be  thrown  into 
circulation.  They  must  be  sold,  thsir  value  realised  in  money, 
this  money  afresh  converted  into  capital,  and  so  over  and  over 
again.  This  circular  movement,  in  which  the  same  phases  are 
continually  gone  through  in  succession,  forms  the  circulation 
of  capital. 

The  first  condition  of  accumulation  is  that  the  capitalist 
must  have  contrived  to  sell  his  commodities,  and  to  reconvert 
into  capital  the  greater  part  of  the  money  so  received.  In  the 
following  pages  we  shall  assume  that  capital  circulates  in  its 
normal  way.  The  detailed  analysis  of  the  process  will  be 
found  in  Book  II. 

The  capitalist  who  produces  surplus-value — i.e.,  who  ex- 
tracts unpaid  labour  directly  from  the  labourers,  and  fixes  it 
in  commodities,  is,  indeed,  the  first  appropriator,  but  by  no 
means  the  ultimate  owner,  of  this  surplus-value.  He  has  to 
share  it  with  capitalists,  with  landowners,  &c.,  who  fulfill 
other  functions  in  the  complex  of  social  production.  Surplus- 
value,  therefore,  splits  up  into  various  parts.  Its  fragments 
fall  to  various  categories  of  persons,  and  take  various  forms, 

618 


Simple  Reproduction.  619 

Independent  the  one  of  the  other,  such  as  profit,  interest,  mer- 
chants' profit,  rent,  kc.  It  is  only  in  Book  III.  that  we  can 
take  in  hand  these  modified  forms  of  surplus-value. 

On  the  one  hand,  then,  we  assume  that  the  Capitalist  sells 
at  their  value  the  commodities  he  has  produced,  without  con- 
cerning ourselves  either  about  the  new  formsi  that  .capital 
assumes  while  in  the  sphere  of  circulation,  or  about  the  con- 
crete conditions  of  reproduction  hidden  under  these  forms. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  treat  the  capitalist  producer  as  owner 
of  the  entire  surplus-value,  or,  better  perhaps,  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  all  the  sharers  with  him  in  the  booty.  We,  there- 
fore, first  of  all  consider  accumulation  from  an  abstract 
point  of  view — i.e.,  as  a  mere  phase  in  the  actual  process  of 
production. 

So  far  as  accumulation  takes  place,  the  capitalist  must  have 
succeeded  in  selling  his  commodities,  and  in  reconverting  the 
sale-money  into  capital.  Moreover,  the  breaking-up  of  sur- 
plus-value into  fragments  neither  alters  its  nature  nor  the  con- 
ditions under  which  it  becomes  an  element  of  accumulation. 
Whatever  be  the  proportion  of  surplus-value  which  the  indus- 
trial capitalist  retains  for  himself,  or  yields  up  to  others,  he  is 
the  one  who,  in  the  first  instance,  appropriates  it.  We,  there- 
fore, assume  no  more  than  what  actually  takes  place.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  simple  fundamental  form  of  the  process  of 
accumulation  is  obscured  by  the  incident  of  the  circulation 
which  brings  it  about,  and  by  the  splitting  up  of  surplus-value. 
An  exact  analysis  of  the  process,  therefore,  demands  that  we 
should,  for  a  time,  disregard  all  phenomena  that  hide  the  play 
of  its  inner  mechanism. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

SIMPLE    KEPRODUCTIOIT. 


Whatever  the  form  of  the  process  of  production  in  a  society, 
it  must  be  a  continuous  process,  must  continue  to  go  periodi- 
cally through  the  same  phases.     A  society  can  no  more  cease 


620  Capitalist  Production. 

to  produce  than  it  can  cease  to  consume.'  When  viewed,  there- 
fore, as  a  connected  whole,  and  as  flowing  on  with  incessant 
renewal,  every  social  process  of  production  is,  at  the  same  time, 
a  process  of  reproduction. 

The  conditions  of  production  are  also  those  of  reproduction. 
No  society  can  go  on  producing,  in  other  words,  no  society  can 
reproduce,  unless  it  constantly  reconverts  a  part  of  its  products 
into  means  of  production,  or  elements  of  fresh  products.  All 
other  circumstances  remaining  the  same,  the  only  mode  by 
which  it  can  reproduce  its  wealth,  and  maintain  it  at  one  level, 
is  by  replacing  the  means  of  production — i.e.,  the  instruments 
of  labour,  the  raw  material,  and  the  auxiliary  substances  con- 
sumed in  the  course  of  the  year — ^by  an  equal  quantity  of  the 
same  kind  of  articles ;  these  must  be  separated  from  the  mass 
of  the  yearly  products,  and  thrown  afresh  into  the  process  of 
production.  Hence,  a  definite  portion  of  each  year's  product 
belongs  to  the  domain  of  production.  Destined  for  productive 
consumption  from  the  very  first,  this  portion  exists,  for  the 
most  part,  in  the  shape  of  articles  totally  unfitted  for  individ- 
ual consumption. 

If  production  be  capitalistic  in  form,  so,  too,  will  be  repro- 
duction. Just  as  in  the  former  the  labour-process  figures  but 
as  a  means  towards  the  self-expansion  of  capital,  so  in  the  lat- 
ter it  figures  but  as  a  means  of  reproducing  as  capital — i.e.,  as 
self -expanding  value, — the  value  advanced.  It  is  only  be- 
cause his  money  constantly  functions  as  capital  that  the 
economical  guise  of  a  capitalist  attaches  to  a  man.  If,  for 
instance,  a  sum  of  £100  has  this  year  been  converted  into  capi- 
tal, and  produced  a  surplus-value  of  £20,  it  must  continue  dur- 
ing next  year,  and  subsequent  years,  to  repeat  the  same  opera- 
tion. As  a  periodic  increment  of  the ,  capital  advanced,  or 
periodic  fruit  of  capital  in  process,  surplus-value  acquires  the 
form  of  a  reven.ue  flowing  out  of  capital.^ 

*  "Mais  ces  riches,  qui  consomment  les  produits  du  travail  des  autres,  ne  peu- 
vent  les  obtcnir  que  par  des  echanges  [purchases  of  commodities.].  S'ils  donnent  ce- 
pendant  leur  richesse  acquise  et  accumulee  en  retour  centre  ces  produits  nouveaux 
qui  sont  I'objet  de  leur  fantaisie,  ils  semblent  exposes  a  ipuiser  bientot  leur  fonds  de 
reserve;  ils  ne  travaillent  point,  avons-nous  dit,  et  ils  ne  peuvent  meme  travailler; 
on  croirait  done  que  chaque  jour  doit  voir  diminuer  leurs  vieilles  richesses,  et  que 
loriqu'il  ne  leur  en  restera  plus,  rien  ne  sera  offert  en  exchange  aux  ouvriers  qui 


Simple  Reproduction.  621 

If  this  revenue  serve  the  capitalist  only  as  a  fund  to  provide 
for  his  consumption,  and  he  spent  as  periodically  as  it  is 
gained,  then,  ceteris  paribus,  simple  reproduction  will  take 
place.  And  although  this  reproduction  is  a  mere  repetition  of 
the  process  of  production  on  the  old  scale,  yet  this  mere  repe- 
tition, or  continuity,  gives  a  new  character  to  the  process,  or, 
rather,  causes  the  disappearance  of  some  apparent  character- 
istics which  it  possessed  as  an  isolated  discontinuous  process. 

The  purchase  of  labour-power  for  a  fixed  period  is  the  pre- 
lude to  the  process  of  production ;  and  this  prelude  is  con- 
stantly repeated  when  the  stipulated  term  comes  to  an  end, 
when  a  definite  period  of  production,  such  as  a  week  or  a 
month,  has  elapsed.  But  the  labourer  is  not  paid  until  after 
he  has  expended  his  labour-power,  and  realised  in  commodities 
not  only  its^  value,  but  surplus-value.  He  has,  therefore,  pro- 
duced not  only  surplus-value,  which  we  for  the  present  regard 
as  a  fund  to  meet  the  private  consumption  of  the  capitalist, 
but  he  has  also  produced,  before  it  flows  back  to  him  in  the 
shape  of  wages,  the  fund  out  of  which  he  himself  is  paid,  the 
variable  capital ;  and  his  employment  lasts  only  so  long  as  he 
continues  to  reproduce  this  fund.  Hence,  that  formula  of  the 
economists,  referred  to  in  Chapter  XVIII.,  which  represents 
wages  as  a  share  in  the  product  itself.*  What  flows  back  to 
the  labourer  in  the  shape  of  wages  is  a  portion  of  the  product 
that  is  continuously  reproduced  by  him.  The  capitalist,  it  is 
true,  pays  him  in  money,  but  this  money  is  merely  the  trans- 
muted form  of  the  product  of  his  labour.  While  he  is  con- 
verting a  portion  of  the  means  of  production  into  products,  a 
portion  of  his  former  product  is  being  turned  into  money.  It 
is  his  labour  of  last  week,  or  of  last  year,  that  pays  for  his 
labour-power  this  week  or  this  year.     The  illusion  begotten  by 

travaillent  exclusivement  pour  eux.  .  .  .  Mais  dans  I'ordre  social,  la  richesse  a 
acquis  la  propriete  de  se  reproduire  par  le  travail  d'autrui,  et  sans  que  son  pro- 
prietaire  y  concoure.  La  richesse,  comme  le  travail,  et  par  le  travail,  donne  un 
fruit  annuel  qui  peut  etre  detruit  chaque  annee  sans  que  le  riche  en  devienne  plus 
pauvre.  Ce  fruit  est  le  revenu  qui  nait  du  capital."  (Sismondi:  Nouv.  Princ. 
d'Econ.    Pol.     Paris,    1819.     t.    I.    pp.    81-82.) 

'  "Wages  as  well  as  profits  are  to  be  considered,  each  of  them,  as  really  a  por- 
tion of  the  finished  product."  (Ramsay,  I.e.,  p.  142.)  "The  share  of  the  product 
which  comes  to  the  labourer  in  the  form  of  wages."  (J.  Mill,  Elements,  &c.  Traxtt- 
;ated  by   Parissot.     Paris,  1823.     p.  34.) 


622  Capitalist  Production. 

the  intervention  of  money  vanishes  immediately,  if,  instead 
of  taking  a  single  capitalist  and  a  single  labourer,  we  take  the 
class  of  capitalists  and  the  class  of  labourers  as  a  whole.  The 
capitalist  class  is  constantly  giving  to  the  labouring  class  order- 
notes,  in  the  form  of  money,  on  a  portion  of  the  commodities 
produced  by  the  latter  and  appropriated  by  the  former.  The 
labourers  give  these  order-notes  back  just  as  constantly  to  the 
capitalist  class,  and  in  this  way  get  their  share  of  their  own 
product.  The  transaction  is  veiled  by  the  commodity-form  of 
the  product  and  the  money-form  of  the  commodity. 

Variable  capital  is  therefore  only  a  particular  historical  form 
of  appearance  of  the  fund  for  providing  the  necessaries  of  life, 
or  the  labour-fund  which  the  labourer  requires  for  the  main- 
tenance of  himself  and  family,  and  which,  whatever  be  the 
system  of  social  production,  he  must  himself  produce  and  re- 
produce. If  the  labour-fund  constantly  flows  to  him  in  the 
form  of  money  that  pays  for  his  labour,  it  is  because  the  pro- 
duct he  has  created  moves  constantly  away  from  him  in  the 
form  of  capital.  But  all  this  does  not  alter  the  fact,  that  it  is 
the  labourer's  own  labour,  realised  in  a  product,  which  is  ad- 
vanced to  him  by  the  capitalist.^  Let  us  take  a  peasant  liable 
to  do  compulsory  service  for  his  lord.  He  works  on  his  own 
land,  with  his  own  means  of  production,  for,  say,  3  days  a 
week.  The  3  other  days  he  does  forced  work  on  the  lord's  do- 
main. He  constantly  reproduces  his  own  labour-fund,  which 
never,  in  his  case,  takes  the  form  of  a  money  payment  for  his 
labour,  advanced  by  another  person.  But  in  return,  his  un- 
paid forced  labour  for  the  lord,  on  its  side,  never  acquires  the 
character  of  voluntary  paid  labour.  If  one  fine  morning  the 
lord  appropriates  to  himself  the  land,  the  cattle,  the  seed,  in  a 
word,  the  means  of  production  of  this  peasant,  the  latter  will 
thenceforth  be  obliged  to  sell  his  labour-power  to  the  lord.  He 
will,  ca}teris  paribus,  labour  6  days  a  week  as  before,  3  for  him- 
self, 3  for  his  lord,  who  thenceforth  becomes  a  wages-paying 
capitalist.     As  before,  he  will  use  up  the  means  of  production 

*  "When  capital  is  employed  in  advancing  to  the  workmen  his  wages,  it  adds 
nothing  to  the  funds  for  the  maintenance  of  labour."  (Cazenove  in  note  to  his 
edition   of   Malthus,    Definitions   in    Pol.    Econ.    London,    1853,   p.   22.) 


Simple  Reproduction.  623 

as  means  of  production,  and  transfer  their  value  to  the  product. 
As  before,  a  definite  portion  of  the  product  will  be  devoted  to 
reproduction.  But  from  the  moment  that  the  forced  labour  is 
changed  into  wage-labour,  from  that  moment  the  labour-fund, 
which  the  peasant  himself  continues  as  before  to  produce  and 
reproduce,  takes  the  form  of  a  capital  advanced  in  the  form  of 
wages  by  the  lord.  The  bourgeois  economist  whose  narrow 
mind  is  unable  to  separate  the  form  of  appearance  from  the 
thing  that  appears,  shuts  his  eyes  to  the  fact,  that  it  is  but  here 
and  there  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  that  even  now-a-days  the 
labour- fund  crops  up  in  the  form  of  capital.^ 

Variable  capital,  it  is  true,  only  then  loses  its  character  of  a 
value  advanced  out  of  the  capitalist's  funds,^  when  we  view 
tlie  process  of  capitalist  production  in  the  flow  of  its  constant 
renewal.  But  that  process  must  have  had  a  beginning  of  some 
kind.  From  our  present  stand-point  it  therefore  seems  likely 
that  the  capitalist,  once  upon  a  time,  became  possessed  of 
money,  by  some  accumulation  that  took  place  independently 
of  the  unpaid  labour  of  others,  and  that  this  was,  therefore, 
how  he  was  enabled  to  frequent  the  market  as  a  buyer  of 
labour-power.  However  this  may  be,  the  mere  continuity  of 
the  process,  the  simple  reproduction,  brings  about  some  other 
wonderful  changes,  which  affect  not  only  the  variable,  but  the 
total  capital. 

If  a  capital  of  £1000  beget  yearly  a  surplus-value  of  £200, 
and  if  this  surplus-value  be  consumed  every  year,  it  is  clear 
that  at  the  end  of  5  years  the  surplus-value  consumed  will 
amount  to  5X£200  or  the  £1000  originally  advanced.  If 
only  a  part,  say  one  half,  were  consumed,  the  same  result 
would  follow  at  the  end  of  10  years,  since  10  X  £100 =£1000. 
General  Rule :  The  value  of  the  capital  advanced  divided  by 
the  surplus-value  annually  consumed,  gives  the  number  of 
years,  or  reproduction  periods,  at  the  expiration  of  which  the 

*  "The  wages  of  labour '  are  advanced  by  capitalists  in  the  case  of  less  than  one 
fourth  of  the  labourers  of  the  earth."  (Rich.  Jones:  Textbook  of  Lectures  on  the 
Pol.   Econ.  of  Nations.     Hertford,   1852,   p.   16.) 

^  "Though  the  manufacturer"  {i.e.  the  labourer)  "has  his  wages  advanced  to  him 
by  his  master,  he  in  reality  costs  him  no  expense,  the  value  of  these  wages  being 
generally  reserved,  together  with  a  profit,  in  the  improved  value  of  the  subject  upon 
which  his  labour  is  bestowed."     (A.  Smith  1.  c.  Book  II.  ch.  III.  p.  311.) 


624  Capitalist  Production. 

capital  originally  advanced  has  been  consumed  by  the  capitalist 
and  has  disappeared.  The  capitalist  thinks,  that  he  is  consum- 
ing the  produce  of  the  unpaid  labour  of  others,  i.e.,  the  sur- 
plus-value, and  is  keeping  intact  his  original  capital ;  but  what 
he  thinks  cannot  alter  facts.  After  the  lapse  of  a  certain 
number  of  years  the  capital  value  he  then  possesses  is  equal 
to  the  sum  total  of  the  surplus-value  appropriated  by  him 
during  those  years,  and  the  total  value  he  has  consumed  is 
equal  to  that  of  his  original  capital.  It  is  true,  he  has  in  hand 
a  capital  whose  amount  has  not  changed,  and  of  which  a  part, 
viz.,  the  buildings,  machinery,  &c.,  were  already  there  when 
the  work  of  his  business  began.  But  what  we  have  to  do  with 
here,  is  not  the  material  elements,  but  the  value,  of  that  capital. 
When  a  person  gets  through  all  his  property,  by  taking  upon 
himself  debts  equal  to  the  value  of  that  property,  it  is  clear 
that  his  property  represents  nothing  but  the  sum  total  of  his 
debts.  And  so  it  is  with  the  capitalist;  when  he  has  con- 
sumed the  equivalent  of  his  original  capital,  the  value  of  his 
present  capital  represents  nothing  but  the  total  amount  of  the 
surplus-value  appropriated  by  him  without  payment.  Not  a 
single  atom  of  the  value  of  his  old  capital  continues  to  exist. 

Apart  then  from  all  accumulation,  the  mere  continuity  of 
the  process  of  production,  in  other  words  simple  reproduction, 
sooner  or  later,  and  of  necessity,  converts  every  capital  into 
accumulated  capital,  or  capitalised  surplus-value.  Even  if 
that  capital  was  originally  acquired  by  the  personal  labour  of 
its  employer,  it  sooner  or  later  becomes  value  appropriated 
without  an  equivalent,  the  unpaid  labour  of  others  materialised 
either  in  money  or  in  some  other  object  We  saw  in  chapter 
IV.  that  in  order  to  convert  money  into  capital  something  more 
is  required  than  the  production  and  circulation  of  commodities. 
We  saw  that  on  the  one  side  the  possessor  of  value  or  money, 
on  the  other,  the  possessor  of  the  value-creating  substance ;  on 
tho  one  side,  the  possessor  of  the  means  of  production  and  sub- 
sistence, on  the  other,  the  possessor  of  nothing  but  labour- 
power,  must  confront  one  another  as  buyer  and  seller.  The 
separation  of  labour  from  its  product,  of  subjective  labour- 
power  from  the  objective  conditions  of  labour,  was  therefore 


Simple  Reproduction.  625 

the  real  foundation  in  fact,  and  the  starting  point  of  capitalist 
production. 

But  that  which  at  first  was  but  a  starting  point,  becomes, 
bj  the  mere  continuity  of  the  process,  by  simple  reproduction, 
the  peculiar  result,  constantly  renewed  and  perpetuated,  of 
capitalist  production.  On  the  one  hand,  the  process  of  pro- 
duction incessantly  converts  material  wealth  into  capital,  into 
means  of  creating  more  wealth  and  means  of  enjoyment  for  the 
capitalist.  On  the  other  hand  the  labourer,  on  quitting  the 
process,  is  what  he  was  on  entering  it,  a  source  of  wealth,  but 
devoid  of  all  means  of  malcing  that  wealth  his  own.  Since, 
before  entering  on  the  process,  his  own  labour  has  already  been 
alienated  from  himself  by  the  sale  of  his  labour-power^  has 
been  appropriated  by  the  capitalist  and  incorporated  with  capi- 
tal, it  must,  during  the  process,  be  realised  in  a  product  that 
does  not  belong  to  him.  Since  the  process  of  production  is 
also  the  process  by  which  the  capitalist  consumes  labour-power, 
the  product  of  the  labourer  is  incessantly  converted,  not  only 
into  commodities,  but  into  capital,  into  value  that  sucks  up 
the  value-creating  power,  into  means  of  subsistence  that  buy 
the  person  of  the  labourer,  into  means  of  production  that 
command  the  producers.-^  The  labourer  therefore  constantly 
produces  material,  objective  wealth,  but  in  the  form  of  capital, 
of  an  alien  power  that  dominates  and  exploits  him;  and  the 
capitalist  as  constantly  produces  labour-power,  but  in  the  form 
of  a  subjective  source  of  wealth,  separated  from  the  objects 
in  and  by  which  it  can  alone  be  realised ;  in  short  he  produces 
the  labourer,  but  as  a  wage-labourer.^  This  incessant  repro- 
duction, this  perpetuation  of  the  labourer,  is  the  sine  qua  non 
of  capitalist  production. 

The  labourer  consumes  in  a  twofold  way.     While  producing 

*  "This  is  a  remarkably  peculiar  property  of  productive  labour.  Whatever  is 
productively  consumed  is  capital,  and  it  becomes  capital  by  consumption."  (James 
Mill  1.  c.  p.  242.)  James  Mill,  however,  never  got  on  the  track  of  this  "remarkably 
peculiar   property." 

"It  is  true  indeed,  that  the  first  introducing  a  manufacture  employs  many  poor, 
but  they  cease  not  to  be  so,  and  the  continuance  of  it  makes  many."  (Reasons  for  a 
limited  Exportation  of  Wool.  London,  1677,  p.  19.)  "The  farmer  now  absurdly 
asserts,  that  he  keeps  the  poor.  They  are  indeed  kept  in  misery."  (Reasons  for  the 
late  increase  of  the  Poor  Rates;  or  a  comparative  view  of  the  prices  of  labour  and 
provisions.     London,  1777,  p.  37.) 

2N 


626  Capitalist  Production. 

he  consumes  by  his  labour  the  means  of  production,  and  con- 
verts them  into  products  with  a  higher  value  than  that  of  the 
capital  advanced.  This  is  his  productive  consumption.  It  is 
at  the  same  time  consumption  of  his  labour-power  by  the 
capitalist  who  bought  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  labourer 
turns  the  money  paid  to  him  for  his  labour-power,  into  means 
of  subsistence:  this  is  his  individual  consumption.  The  la- 
bourer's productive  consumption,  and  his  individual  consump- 
tion, are  therefore  totally  distinct.  In  the  former,  he  acts  as 
the  motive  power  of  capital,  and  belongs  to  the  capitalist.  In 
the  latter,  he  belongs  to  himself,  and  performs  his  necessary 
vital  functions  outside  the  process  of  production.  The  result 
of  the  one  is,  that  the  capitalist  lives;  of  the  other,  that  the 
labourer  lives. 

When  treating  of  the  working-day,  we  saw  that  the  labourer 
is  often  compelled  to  make  his  individual  consumption  a  mere 
incident  of  production.  In  such  a  case,  he  supplies  himself 
with  necessaries  in  order  to  maintain  his  labour-power,  just  as 
coal  and  water  are  supplied  to  the  steam  engine  and  oil  to  the 
wheel.  His  means  of  consumption,  in  that  case,  are  the  mere 
means  of  consumption  required  by  a  means  of  production ;  his 
individual  consumption,  is  directly  productive  consumption. 
This,  however,  appears  to  be  an  abuse  not  essentially  apper- 
taining to  capitalist  production.^ 

The  matter  takes  quite  another  aspect,  when  we  contemplate, 
not  the  single  capitalist,  and  the  single  labourer,  but  the  capi- 
talist class  and  the  labouring  class,  not  an  isolated  process  of 
production,  but  capitalist  production  in  full  swing,  and  on  its 
actual  social  scale.  By  converting  part  of  his  capital  into 
laboui^power,  the  capitalist  augments  the  value  of  his  entire 
capital.  He  kills  two  birds  with  one  stone.  He  profits,  not 
only  by  what  he  receives  from,  but  by  what  he  gives  to,  the 
labourer.  The  capital  given  in  exchange  for  labour-power  is 
converted  into  necessaries,  by  the  consumption  of  which  the 
muscles,  nerves,  bones,  and  brains  of  existing  labourers  are 
reproduced,  and  new  labourers  are  begotten.     Within  the  lim- 

*  Rossi  would  not  declaim  so  emphatically  against  this,  had  he  really  penetrated 
the  secret  of  "productive  consumption.'' 


Simple  Reproduction.  627 

its  of  wliat  is  strictly  necessary,  tlie  individual  consumption  of 
the  working  class  is,  therefore,  the  reconversion  of  the  means 
of  subsistence  given  by  capital  in  exchange  for  labour-power, 
into  fresh  labour-power  at  the  disposal  of  capital  for  exploita- 
tion. It  is  the  production  and  reproduction  of  that  means  of 
production  so  indispensible  to  the  capitalist:  the  labourer  him- 
self. The  individual  consumption  of  the  labourer,  whether  it 
proceed  within  the  workshop  or  outside  it,  whether  it  be  part 
of  the  process  of  production  or  not,  forms  therefore  a  factor  of 
the  production  and  reproduction  of  capital;  just  as  cleaning 
machinery  does,  whether  it  be  done  while  the  machinery  is 
working  or  while  it  is  standing.  The  fact  that  the  labourer 
consumes  his  means  of  subsistence  for  his  ov/n  purposes,  and 
not  to  please  the  capitalist,  has  no  bearing  on  the  matter.  The 
consumption  of  food  by  a  beast  of  burden  is  none  the  less  a 
necessary  factor  in  the  process  of  production,  because  the  beast 
enjoys  what  it  eats.  The  maintenance  and  reproduction  of  the 
working-class  is,  and  must  ever  be,  a  necessary  condition  to  the 
reproduction  of  capital.  But  the  capitalist  may  safely  leave 
its  fulfillment  to  the  labourer's  instincts  of  self-preservation 
and  of  propagation.  All  the  capitalist  cares  for,  is  to  reduce 
the  labourer's  individual  consumption  as  far  as  possible  to 
what  is  strictly  necessary,  and  he  is  far  away  from  imitating 
those  brutal  South  Americans,  who  force  their  labourers  to 
take  the  more  substantial,  rather  than  the  less  substantial,  kind 
of  food.^ 

Henee  both  the  capitalist  and  his  ideological  representative, 
the  political  economist,  consider  that  part  alone  of  the  labour- 
er's individual  consumption  to  be  productive,  which  is  requi- 
site for  tbe  perpetuation  of  the  class,  and  which  therefore  must 
take  place  in  order  that  the  capitalist  may  have  labour-power 
to  consume;  what  the  labourer  consumes  for  his  own  pleasure 

*  "The  labourers  in  the  mines  of  S.  America,  whose  daily  task  (the  heaviest  per- 
haps in  the  world)  consists  in  bringing  to  the  surface  on  their  shoulders  a  load  of 
metal  weighing  from  180  to  200  pounds,  from  a  depth  of  450  feet,  live  on  bread  and 
beans  only;  they  themselves  would  prefer  the  bread  alone  for  food,  but  their 
masters,  who  have  found  out  that  the  men  cannot  work  so  hard  on  bread,  treat  them 
like  horses,  and  compel  them  to  eat  beans;  beans,  however,  are  relatively  much 
richer  in  bone-earth  (phosphate  of  lime)  than  is  bread"  (Liebig,  1.  c.  vol.  1,  p.  194» 
note). 


628  Capitalist  Production. 

beyond  that  part,  is  unproductive  consumption.^  If  the  ac- 
cumulation of  capital  were  to  cause  a  rise  of  wages  and  an 
increase  in  the  labourer's  consumption,  unaccompanied  by 
increase  in  the  consumption  of  labour-power  by  capital,  the 
additional  capital  would  be  consumed  unproductively.^  In 
reality,  the  individual  consumption  of  the  labourer  is  unpro- 
ductive as  regards  himself,  for  it  reproduces  nothing  but  tho 
needy  individual ;  it  is  productive  to  the  capitalist  and  the 
State,  since  it  is  the  production  of  the  power  that  creates  their 
wealth.^ 

From  a  social  point  of  view,  therefore,  the  working-class, 
even  when  not  directly  engaged  in  the  labour-process,  is  just 
as  much  an  appendage  of  capital  as  the  ordinary  instruments 
of  labour.  Even  its  individual  consumption  is,  vdthin  certain 
limits,  a  mere  factor  in  the  process  of  production.  That  proc- 
ess, however,  takes  good  care  to  prevent  these  self-conscious  in- 
struments from  leaving  it  in  the  lurch,  for  it  removes  their 
product,  as  fast  as  it  is  made,  from  their  pole  to  the  opposite 
pole  of  capital.  Individual  consumption  provides,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  means  for  their  maintenance  and  reproduction:  on 
the  other  hand,  it  secures  by  the  annihilation  of  the  necessaries 
of  life,  the  continued  reappearance  of  the  workman  in  the 
labour-market.  The  Roman  slave  was  held  by  fetters:  the 
wage-labourer  is  bound  to  his  owner  by  invisible  threads.  The 
appearance  of  independence  is  kept  up  by  means  of  a  constant 
change  of  employers,  and  by  the  fictio  juris  of  a  contract. 

In  former  times,  capital  resorted  to  legislation,  whenever 
necessary,  to  enforce  its  proprietary  rights  over  the  free  la- 
bourer. For  instance,  down  to  1815,  the  emigration  of  me- 
chanics employed  in  machine  making  was,  in  England,  for- 
bidden, under  grievous  pains  and  penalties. 

'  James  Mill,  1.  c,  p.  288. 

*  "If  the  price  of  labour  should  rise  so  high  that,  notwithstanding  the  increase  of 
capital,  no  more  could  be  employed,  I  should  say  that  such  increase  of  capital  would 
be  still  unproductively  consumed."     (Ricardo,  1.  c,  p.  163.) 

•  "The  only  productive  consumption,  properly  so-called,  is  the  consumption  or 
destruction  of  wealth"  (he  alludes  to  the  means  of  production)  "by  capitalists  with 
a  view  to  reproduction  ....  The  workman  ....  is  a  productive  con- 
sumer to  the  person  who  employs  him,  and  to  the  State,  but  not,  strictly  speaking, 
to  himself."     (Malthus'  Definitions,  &c.,  p.  30.) 


Simple  Reproduction.  629 

The  reproduction  of  the  working  class  carries  with  it  the 
accumulation  of  skill,  that  is  handed  down  from  one  genera- 
tion to  another.^  To  what  extent  the  capitalist  reckons  the 
existence  of  such  a  skilled  class  among  the  factors  of  produc- 
tion that  belong  to  him  by  right,  and  to  what  extent  he  actu- 
ally regards  it  as  the  reality  of  his  variable  capital,  is  seen  so 
soon  as  a  crisis  threatens  him  with  its  loss  In  consequence  of 
the  civil  war  in  the  United  States  and  of  the  accompanying 
cotton  famine,  the  majority  of  the  cotton  operatives  in  Lanca- 
shire were,  as  is  well  kno'vvn,  thrown  out  of  work.  Both  from, 
the  working-class  itself,  and  from  other  ranks  of  society,  there 
arose  a  cry  for  State  aid,  or  for  voluntary  national  subscrip- 
tions, in  order  to  enable  the  "superfluous"  hands  to  emigrate  to 
the  colonies  or  to  the  United  States.  Thereupon,  the  "Times" 
published  on  the  24th  March,  1863,  a  letter  from  Edmund 
Potter,  a  former  president  of  the  Manchester  Chamber  of 
Commerce.  This  letter  was  rightly  called  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  the  manufacturers'  manifesto.^  We  cull  here  a 
few  characteristic  passages,  in  which  the  proprietary  rights  of 
capital  over  labour-power  are  unblushingly  asserted. 

"He"  (the  man  out  of  work)  "may  be  told  the  supply  of 
cotton-workers  is  too  large  ....  and  ....  must  ....  in 
fact  be  reduced  by  a  third,  perhaps,  and  that  then  there  will  be 
a  healthy  demand  for  the  remaining  two-thirds  ....  Public 
opinion  ....  urges  emigration  ....  The  master  cannot 
willingly  see  his  labour  supply  being  removed ;  he  may  think, 
and  perhaps  justly,  that  it  is  both  wrong  and  unsound  .... 
But  if  the  public  funds  are  to  be  devoted  to  assist  emigration, 
he  has  a  right  to  be  heard,  and  perhaps  to  protest."  Mr. 
Potter  then  shows  how  useful  the  cotton  trade  is,  how  the 
"trade  has  undoubtedly  drawn  the  surplus-population  from 
Ireland  and  from  the  agricultural  districts,"  how  immense  is 
its  extent,  how  in  the  year  1860  it  yielded  ^ths  of  the  total 

1  "The  only  thing,  of  which  one  can  say,  that  it  is  stored  up  and  prepared  before- 
hand,  is  the  skill  of  the  labourer  ....  The  accumulation  and  storage  of  skilled 
labour,  that  most  important  operation,  is,  as  regards  the  great  mass  of  labourers, 
accomplished  without  any  capital  whatever."  (Tho.  Hodgskin:  Labour  Defended, 
&c.,   p.   13.) 

'^  "That  letter  might  be  looked  upon  as  the  manifesto  of  the  manufacturers." 
(Ferrand:  Motion  on  the  Cotton  Famine,  H.  o.  C,  27th  April,  1863.) 


630  Capitalist  Production. 

English  exports,  how,  after  a  few  years,  it  will  again  expand 
by  the  extension  of  the  market,  particularly  of  the  Indian  mar- 
ket, and  by  calling  forth  a  plentiful  supply  of  cotton  at  6d. 
per  lb.  He  then  continues:  "Some  time  .  .  .  ,  one,  two,  or 
three  years,  it  may  be,  will  produce  the  quantity  ....  The 
question  I  would  put  then  is  this — Is  the  trade  worth  retain- 
ing? Is  it  worth  while  to  keep  the  machinery  (he  means  the 
living  labour  machines)  in  order,  and  is  it  not  the  greatest 
folly  to  think  of  parting  with  that?  I  think  it  is.  I  allow 
that  the  workers  are  not  a  property,  not  the  property  of  Lanca- 
shire and  the  masters ;  but  they  are  the  strength  of  both ;  they 
are  the  mental  and  trained  power  which  cannot  be  replaced 
for  a  generation ;  the  mere  machinery  which  they  work  might 
much  of  it  be  beneficially  replaced,  nay  improved,  in  a  twelve- 
month.^ Encourage  or  allow  ( !)  the  working-power  to  emi- 
grate, and  what  of  the  capitalist  ?  »  .  .  .  Take  away  the 
cream  of  the  workers,  and  fixed  capital  will  depreciate  in  a 
great  degree,  and  the  floating  will  not  subject  itself  to  a  strug- 
gle with  the  short  supply  of  inferior  labour We 

are  told  the  workers  wish  it"  (emigration).  "Very  natural  it 
is  that  they  should  do  so  ...  .  .  Reduce,  compress  the 
cotton  trade  by  taking  away  its  working  power  and  reducing 
their  wages  expenditure,  say  one-fifth,  or  five  millions,  and 
what  then  would  happen  to  the  class  above,  the  small  shopkeep- 
ers ;  and  what  of  the  rents,  the  cottage  rents  ....  Trace 
out  the  effects  upward  to  the  small  farmer,  the  better  house- 
holder, and  ....  the  landowner,  and  say  if  there  could  be 
any  suggestion  more  suicidal  to  all  classes  of  the  country  than 
by  enfeebling  a  nation  by  exporting  the  best  of  its  manufac- 
turing population,  and  destroying  the  value  of  some  of  its  most 

*  It  will  not  be  forgotten  that  this  same  capital  sings  quite  another  song,  under- 
ordinary  circumstances,  when  there  is  a  question  of  reducing  wages.  Then  the 
masters  exclaim  with  one  voice:  "The  factory  operatives  should  keep  in  wholesome 
remembrance  the  fact  that  theirs  is  really  a  low  species  of  skilled  labour;  and  that 
there  is  none  which  is  more  easily  acquired,  or  of  its  quality  more  amply  remuner- 
ated, or  which,  by  a  short  training  of  the  least  expert,  can  be  more  quickly,  as  well 
as  abundantly,  acquired  ....  The  master's  machinery"  (which  we  now  learn 
can  be  replaced  with  advantage  in  12  months)  "really  plays  a  far  more  important 
part  in  the  business  of  production  than  the  labour  and  skill  of  the  operative"  (who 
cannot  now  be  replaced  under  30  years),  "which  six  months'  education  can  teach, 
and  a  common  labourer  can  learn."     (See  ante,  p.  423.) 


Simple  Reproduction.  631 

jDroductive  capital  and  enrichinent  ....  I  advise  a  loan 
(of  five  or  six  millions  sterling),  .  .  .  extending  it  may  be 
over  two  or  three  years,  administered  by  special  commission- 
ers added  to  the  Boards  of  Guardians  in  the  cotton  districts, 
under  special  legislative  regulations,  enforcing  some  occupa- 
tion or  labour,  as  a  means  of  keeping  up  at  least  the  moral 
standard  of  the  recipients  of  the  loan  ....  can  anything  be 
worse  for  landowners  or  masters  than  parting  with  the  best  of 
the  workers,  and  demoralising  and  disappointing  the  re&t  by 
an  extended  depletive  emigration,  a  depletion  of  capital  and 
value  in  an  entire  province  ?" 

Potter,  the  chosen  mouthpiece  of  the  manufacturers,  distin- 
guishes two  sorts  of  "machinery,"  each  of  which  belongs  to  the 
capitalist,  and  of  which  one  stands  in  his  factory,  the  other  at 
night-time  and  on  Sundays  is  housed  outside  the  factory,  in 
cottages.  The  one  is  inanimate,  the  other  living.  The  inani- 
mate machinery  not  only  wears  out  and  depreciates  from  day 
to  day,  but  a  great  part  of  it  becomes  so  quickly  super-annu- 
ated,  by  constant  technical  progress,  that  it  can  be  replaced 
with  advantage  by  new  machinery  after  a  few  months.  The 
living  machinery,  on  the  contrary,  gets  better  the  longer  it 
lasts,  and  in  proportion  as  the  skill,  handed  from  one  genera- 
tion to  another,  accumulates.  The  "Times"  answered  the 
cotton  lord  as  follows : 

"Mr.  Edmund  Potter  is  so  impressed  with  the  exceptional 
and  supreme  importance  of  the  cotton  masters  that,  in  order 
to  preserve  this  class  and  perpetuate  their  profession,  he  would 
keep  half  a  million  of  the  labouring  class  confined  in  a  great 
moral  workhouse  against  their  will.  'Is  the  trade  worth  re- 
taining ?'  asks  Mr.  Potter.  'Certainly  by  all  honest  means  it 
is,'  we  answer.  'Is  it  worth  while  keeping  the  machinery  in 
order  V  again  asks  Mr.  Potter.  Here  we  hesitate.  By  the 
'machinery'  Mr.  Potter  means  the  human  machinery,  for  he 
goes  on  to  protest  that  he  does  not  mean  to  use  them  as  an 
absolute  property.  We  must  confess  that  we  do  not  think  it 
'worth  while,'  or  even  possible,  to  keep  the  human  machinery 
in  order — that  is  to  shut  it  up  and  keep  it  oiled  till  it  is 
wanted.     Human  machinery  iviU  rust  under  inaction,  oil  and 


632       "  Capitalist  Production. 

rub  it  as  you  may.  Moreover,  the  human  machinery  will,  as 
we  have  just  seen,  get  the  steam  up  of  its  own  accord,  and 
burst  or  run  a  muck  in  our  great  towns.  It  might,  as  Mr. 
Potter  says,  require  some  time  to  reproduce  the  workers,  but, 
having  machinists  and  capitalists  at  hand,  we  could  always 
find  thrifty,  hard,  industrious  men  wherewith  to  improvise 
more  master  manufacturers  than  we  can  ever  want.  ]\Ir.  Pot- 
ter talks  of  the  trade  reviving  'in  one,  two,  or  three  years,'  and 
he  asks  us  not  'to  encourage  or  allow  ( !)  the  working  power  to 
emigrate.'  He  says  that  it  is  very  natural  the  workers  should 
wish  to  emigrate;  but  he  thinks  that  in  spite  of  their  desire, 
the  nation  ought  to  keep  this  half  million  of  workers  with 
their  700,000  dependents,  shut  up  in  the  cotton  districts ;  and 
as  a  necessary  consequence,  he  must  of  course  think  that  the 
nation  ought  to  keep  down  their  discontent  by  force,  and  sus- 
tain them  by  alms — and  upon  the  chance  that  the  cotton  mas- 
ters may  some  day  want  them  .  .  .  The  time  is  come  when 
the  great  public  opinion  of  these  islands  must  operate  to  save 
this  'working  power'  from  those  who  would  deal  with  it  as 
they  would  deal  with  iron,  and  coal,  and  cotton." 

The  "Times'  "  article  was  only  a  jeu  d'esprit.  The  "great 
public  opinion"  was,  in  fact,  of  Mr.  Potter's  opinion,  that  tlie 
factory  operatives  are  part  of  the  movable  fittings  of  a  factory. 
Their  emigration  was  prevented,^  They  were  locked  up  in 
that  "moral  workhouse,"  the  cotton  districts,  and  they  fonn, 
as  before,  "the  strength"  of  the  cotton  manufacturers  of  Lan- 
cashire. 

Capitalist  production,  therefore,  of  itself  reproduces  the 
separation  between  labour-power  and  the  means  of  labour.  It 
thereby  reproduces  and  perpetuates  the  condition  for  exploit- 
ing the  labourer.     It  incessantly  forces  him,  to  sell  his  labour- 

'  Parliament  did  not  vote  a  single  farthing  in  aid  of  emigration,  but  simply  passed 
some  Acts  empowering  the  municipal  corporations  to  keep  the  operatives  in  a  half- 
Starved  state,  i.e.,  to  exploit  them  at  less  than  the  normal  wages.  On  the  other 
hand,  when  3  years  later,  the  cattle  disease  broke  out.  Parliament  broke  wildly 
through  its  usages  and  voted,  straight  off,  millions  for  indemnifying  the  millionaire 
landlords,  whose  farmers  in  any  event  came  off  without  loss,  owinc;  to  the  rise  in  tlie 
price  of  meat.  The  bull-like  bellow  of  the  landed  proprietors  at  the  opening  of  Par- 
liament, in  1866,  showed  that  a  man  can  Worship  the  cow  Sabala  without  being  a 
Hindoo,  and  can  change  himself  into  an  o.x  without  being  a  Jupiter. 


Simple  Reproduction.  633 

power  in  order  to  live,  and  enables  the  capitalist  to  purchase 
labour-power  in  order  that  he  may  enrich  himself.^  It  is  no 
longer  a  mere  accident,  that  capitalist  and  labourer  confront 
each  other  in  the  market  as  buyer  and  seller.  It  is  the  process 
itself  that  incessantly  hurls  back  the  labourer  on  to  the  market 
as  a  vendor  of  his  labour-power,  and  that  incessantly  converts 
his  own  product  into  a  means  by  which  another  man  can  pur- 
chase him.  In  reality,  the  labourer  belongs  to  capital  before 
he  has  sold  himself  to  capital.  His  economical  bondage^  is 
both  brought  about  and  concealed  by  the  periodic  sale  of  him- 
self, by  his  change  of  masters,  and  by  the  oscillations  in  the 
market  price  of  labour-power.^ 

Capitalist  production,  therefore,  under  its  aspect  of  a  con- 
tinuous connected  process,  .of  a  process  of  reproduction,  pro- 
duces not  only  commodities,  not  only  surplus-value,  but  it  also 
produces  and  reproduces  the  capitalist  relation;  on  the  one 
side  the  capitalist,  on  the  other  the  wage-labourer.* 

*  "L'ouvrier  demandait  de  la  subsistence  pour  vivre,  le  chef  demandait  du  travail 
pour   gagner."      (Sismondi,   1.   c,   p.    91.) 

'  A  boorishly  clumsy  form  of  this  bondage  exists  in  the  county  of  Durham.  This 
is  one  of  the  few  counties,  in  which  circumstances  do  not  secure  to  the  farmer 
undisputed  proprietary  rights  over  the  agricultural  labourer.  The  mining  industry 
allows  the  latter  some  choice.  In  this  county,  the  farmer,  contrary  to  the  custom 
elsewhere,  rents  only  such  farms  as  have  on  them  labourers'  cottages.  The  rent  of 
the  cottage  is  a  part  of  the  wages.  These  cottages  are  known  as  "hinds'  houses." 
They  are  let  to  the  labourers  in  consideration  of  certain  feudal  services,  under  a  con- 
tract called  "bondage,"  which,  amongst  other  things,  binds  the  labourer  during  the 
time  he  is  employed  elsewhere,  to  leave  some  one,  say  his  daughter,  &c.,  to  supply  his 
place.  The  labourer  himself  is  called  a  "bondsman."  The  relationship  here  set  up 
also  shows  how  individual  consumption  by  the  labourer  becomes  consumption  on  be- 
half of  capital — or  productive  consumption — from  quite  a  new  point  of  view:  "It  is 
curious  to  observe  that  the  very  dung  of  the  hind  and  bondsman  is  the  perquisite  of 
the  calculating  lord  .  .  .  and  the  lord  will  allow  no  privy  but  his  own  to  exist 
in  the  neighbourhood,  and  will  rather  give  a  bit  of  manure  here  and  there  for  a 
garden  than  bate  any  'part  of  his  seigneurial  right."  (Public  Health,  Report  VII., 
1864,  p.  188.) 

'  It  will  not  be  forgotten,  that,  with  respect  to  the  labour  of  children,  &c.,  even 
the   formality   of  a  voluntary   sale   disappears. 

*  "Capital  pre-supposes  wage-labour,  and  wage-labour  pre-supposes  capital.  One 
is  a  necessary  condition  to  the  existence  of  the  other;  they  mutually  call  each  other 
into  existence.  Does  an  operative  in  a  cotton-factory  produce  nothing  but  cotton 
goods?  No,  he  produces  capital.  He  produces  values  that  give  fresh  command  over 
his  labour,  and  that,  by  means  of  such  command,  create  fresh  values."  (Karl  Marx: 
Lohnarbeit  und  Kapital,  in  the  Neue  Rheinische  Zeitung,  No.  266,  7th  April,  1849.) 
The  articles  published  under  the  above  title  in  the  N.  Rh.  Z.  are  parts  of  some 
lectures  given  by  me  on  that  subject,  in  1847,  in  the  German  "Arbeiter-Verein"  at 
Brussels,  the  publication  of  which  was  interrupted  by  the  revolution  of  February. 


634  Capitalist  Production. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

CONVERSION  OF  SURPLUS- VALUE  INTO  CAPITAL. 

SECTION     I. CAPITALIST     PRODUCTION     ON     A     PROGRES3I\nET.Y 

INCEEASING  SCALE*  TRANSITION  OF  THE  LAWS  OF  PROP- 
ERTY THAT  CHARACTERISE  PRODUCTION  OF  COMMODITIES 
INTO  LAWS  OF  CAPITALIST  APPROPRIATION. 

Hitherto  we  have  investigated  how  surplus-value  emanates 
from  capital;  we  have  now  to  see  how  capital  arises  from 
surplus-value.  Employing  surplus-value  as  capital,  reconver- 
ting it  into  capital,  is  called  accumulation  of  capital.^ 

First  let  us  consider  this  transaction  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  individual  capitalist.  Suppose  a  spinner  to  have  advanced 
a  capital  of  £10,000,  of  which  four-fifths  (£8000)  are  laid  out 
in  cotton,  machinery,  &c,,  and  one-fifth  (£2000)  in  wages. 
Let  him  produce  240,000  lbs.  of  yam  annually,  having  a  value 
of  £12,000.  The  rate  of  surplus-value  being  100%,  the  sur- 
plus-value lies  in  the  surplus  or  net  product  of  40,000  lbs.  of 
yam,  one  sixth  of  the  gross  product,  with  a  value  of  £2000 
which  will  be  realized  by  a  sale.  £2000  is  £2000.  We  can 
neither  see  nor  smell  in  this  sum  of  money  a  trace  of  surplus- 
value.  When  we  know  that  a  given  value  is  surplus-value,  we 
know  how  its  owner  came  by  it;  but  that  does  not  alter  the 
nature  either  of  value  or  of  money. 

In  order  to  convert  this  additional  sum  of  £2000  into  cap- 
ital, the  master  spinner  will,  all  circumstances  remaining  as 
before,  advance  four-fifths  of  it  (£1600)  in  the  purchase  of 
cotton,  &c.,  and  one-fifth  (£400)  in  the  purchase  of  additional 
spinners,  who  will  find  in  the  market  the  necessaries  of  life 
whose  value  the  master  has  advanced  to  them.     Then  the  new 

*  "Accumulation  of  capital ;  the  employment  of  a  portion  of  revenue  as  capital." 
(Maltbus:  Definitions,  &c.,  ed.  Cazenove  p.  11.)  "Conversion  of  revenue  into  capi- 
tal."    Malthus:   Princ.  of  Pol.   Econ.,  2nd   Ed.,  Lond.,   1836,  p.  319.) 


Conversion  of  Surplus-Value  into  Capital.         635 

capital  of  £2000  functions  in  the  spinning  mill,  and  brings 
in,  in  its  turil,  a  surplus-value  of  £400. 

The  capital-value  was  originally  advanced  in  the  money 
form.  The  surplus-value  on  the  contrary  is,  originally,  the 
value  of  a  definite  portion  of  the  gross  product.  If  this  gross 
product  be  sold,  converted  into  money,  the  capital-value  re- 
gains its  original  form.  From  this  moment  the  capital- 
value  and  the  surplus-value  are  both  of  them  sums  of  money, 
and  their  reconversion  into  capital  takes  place  in  precisely 
the  same  way.  The  one,  as  well  as  the  other,  is  laid  out  by 
the  capitalist  in  the  purchase  of  commodities  that  place  him 
in  a  position  to  begin  afresh  the  fabrication  of  his  goods, 
and  this  time,  on  an  extended  scale.  But  in  order  to  be  able 
to  buy  those  commodities,  he  must  find  them  ready  in  the 
market. 

His  own  yarns  circulate,  only  because  he  brings  his  annual 
product  to  market,  as  all  other  capitalists  likewise  do  with 
their  commodities.  But  these  commodities,  before  coming  to 
market,  were  part  of  the  general  annual  product,  part  of  the 
total  mass  of  objects  of  every  kind,  into  which  the  sum  of  the 
individual  capitals,  i.e.^  the  total  capital  of  society,  had  been 
converted  in  the  course  of  the  year,  and  of  which  each  capi- 
talist had  in  hand  only  an  aliquot  part.  The  transactions  in 
the  market  effectuate  only  the  interchange  of  the  individual 
components  of  this  annual  product,  transfer  them  from  one 
hand  to  another,  but  can  neither  augment  the  total  annual 
production,  nor  alter  the  nature  of  the  objects  produced. 
Hence  the  use  that  can  be  made  of  the  total  annual  product, 
depends  entirely  upon  its  own  composition,  but  in  no  way 
upon  circulation. 

The  annual  production  must  in  the  first  place  furnish  all 
those  objects  (use-values)  from  which  the  material  components 
of  capital,  used  up  in  the  course  of  the  year,  have  to  be  re- 
placed. Deducting  these  there  remains  the  net  or  surplus- 
product,  in  which  the  surplus-value  lies.  And  of  what  does 
this  surplus-product  consist?  Only  of  things  destined  to  sat- 
isfy the  wants  and  desires  of  the  capitalist  class,  things  which, 
consequently,  enter  into  the  consumption  fund  of  the  capital- 


636  Capitalist  Production. 

ists?  "Were  that  the  case,  the  cup  of  surpkis-vahie  would  he 
drained  to  the  verj^  dregs,  and  nothing  but  simple  reproduc- 
tion would  ever  take  place. 

To  accumulate  it  is  necessary  to  convert  a  portion  of  the 
surplus-product  into  capital.  But  we  cannot,  except  by  a 
miracle,  convert  into  capital  anything  but  euch  articles  as  can 
be  employed  in  the  labour-process  {i.e.,  means  of  production), 
and  such  further  articles  as  are  suitable  for  the  sustenance  of 
the  labourer,  {i.e.,  means  of  subsistence.)  Consequently,  a 
part  of  the  annual  surplus-labour  must  have  been  applied  to 
the  production  of  additional  means  of  production  and  subsist- 
ence, over  and  above  the  quwitity  of  these  things  required  to 
replace  the  capital  advanced.  In  one  word,  surplus-value  ia 
convertible  into  capital  solely  because  the  surplus-product, 
whose  value  it  is,  ali'eady  comprises  the  material  elements  of 
new  capital.* 

Now  in  order  to  dllow  of  these  elements  actually  function- 
ing as  capital^  the  capitalist  class  requires  additional  labour. 
If  the  exploitation  of  the  labourers  already  employed  do  not 
increase,  either  extensively  or  intensively,  then  additional 
labour-power  must  be  found.  For  this  the  mechanism  of 
capitalist  production  provides  beforehand,  by  converting  tho 
working  class  into  a  class  dependent  on  wages,  a  class  whoso 
ordinary  wages  suffice,  not  only  for  its  maintenance,  but  for  its 
increase.  It  is  only  necessary  for  capital  to  incorporate  this 
additional  labour-power,  annually  supplied  by  the  working 
class  in  the  shape  of  labourers  of  all  ages,  vdth  the  surplus 
means  of  production  comprised  in  the  annual  produce,  and 
che  conversion  of  surplus-value  into  capital  is  complete. 
From  a  concrete  point  of  view,  accumulation  resolves  itself 
into  the  reproduction  of  capital  on  a  progressively  increasing 
scale.     The  circle  in  which  simple  reproduction  moves,  alters 

*We  here  take  no  account  of  export  trade,  by  means  of  which  a  nation  can  change 
articles  of  luxury  cither  into  means  of  production  or  means  of  subsistence,  and  vice 
•  .ersa.  In  order  to  examine  the  object  of  our  investigation  in  its  integrity,  free  from 
all  disturbing  subsidiary  circumstances,  we  must  treat  the  whole  world  as  one  nation, 
and  assume  that  capitalist  production  is  everywhere  established  and  has  possessed 
iteslf  of  every  branch  of  industry. 


Conversion  of  Surplus-Value  into  Capital.        637 

its  form,  and,  to  use  Sismondi's  expression,  changes  into  a 
spiral.^ 

Let  us  now  return  to  our  illustration.  It  is  the  old  story: 
Abraham  begat  Isaac,  Isaac  begat  Jacob,  and  so  on.  The 
original  capital  of  £10,000  brings  in  a  surplus-value  of  £2000, 
which  is  capitalised.  The  new  capital  of  £2000  brings  in  a 
surplus-value  of  £400,  and  this,  too,  is  capitalised,  converted 
into  a  second  additional  capital,  which,  in  its  turn,  produces 
a  further  surplus-value  of  £80.     And  so  the  ball  rolls  on. 

We  here  leave  out  of  consideration  the  portion  of  the  sur- 
plus-value consumed  by  the  capitalist.  Just  as  little  does  it 
concern  us,  for  the  moment,  whether  the  additional  capital  is 
joined  on  to  the  original  capital,  or  is  separated  from  it  to 
function  independently;  whether  the  same  capitalist,  who 
accumulated  it,  employs  it,  or  whether  he  hands  it  over  to 
another.  This  only  we  must  not  forget,  that  by  the  side  of 
the  newly-formed  capital,  the  original  capital  continues  to  re- 
produce itself,  and  to  produce  surplus-value,  and  that  this  is 
also  true  of  all  accumulated  capital,  and  the  additional  capital 
engendered  by  it. 

The  original  capital  was  formed  by  the  advance  of  £10,000. 
How  did  the  owner  become  possessed  of  it?  "By  his  own 
labour  and  that  of  his  forefathers,"  answer  unanimously  the 
spokesmen  of  political  economy.^  And,  in  fact,  their  supposi- 
tion appears  the  only  one  consonant  with  the  laws  of  the  pro- 
duction of  commodities. 

But  it  is  quite  otherwise  with  regard  to  the  additional 
capital  of  £2000.  How  that  originated  we  know  perfectly 
well.  There  is  not  one  single  atom  of  its  value  that  does  not 
owe  its  existence  to  unpaid  labour.  The  means  of  production, 
with  which  the  additional  labour-power  is  incorporated,  as  well 
as  the  necessaries  with  which  the  labourers  are  sustained,  are 
nothing  but  component  parts  of  the  surplus  product,  of  the 
tribute  annually  exacted  from  the  working  class  by  the  capi- 

*  Sismondi's  analysis  of  accumulation  suffers  from  the  great  defect,  that  he  con- 
tents himself,  to  too  great  an  extent,  with  the  phrase  "conversion  of  revenue  into 
capital,"   without   fathoming  the   material  conditions  of   this  operation. 

-  "Le  travail  primitif  auquel  son  capital  a  dii  sa  naissance."  Sismondi,  1.  c,  ed. 
Paris,   t.   I.,  p.   109. 


638  Capitalist  Production. 

talist  class.  Though  the  latter  with  a  portion  of  that  tribute 
purchases  the  additional  labour-power  even  at  its  full  price,  so 
that  equivalent  is  exchanged  for  equivalent,  yet  the  transac- 
tion is  for  all  that  only  the  old  dodge  of  eve.ry  conquerer  who 
buys  commodities  from  the  conquered  with  the  money  he 
has  robbed  them  of. 

If  the  additional  capital  employs  the  person  who  produced 
it,  this  producer  must  not  only  continue  to  augment  the  value 
of  the  original  capital,  but  must  buy  back  the  fruits  of  his 
previous  labour  with  more  labour  than  they  cost  When 
viewed  as  a  transaction  between  the  capitalist  class  and  the 
working  class,  it  makes  no  difference  that  additional  labourers 
are  employed  by  means  of  the  unpaid  labour  of  the  previously 
employed  labourers.  The  capitalist  may  even  convert  the 
additional  capital  into  a  machine  that  throws  the  producers  of 
that  capital  out  of  work,  and  that  replaces  them  by  a  few 
children.  In  every  case  the  working  class  creates  by  tlie  sur- 
plus-labour of  one  year  the  capital  destined  to  employ  addi- 
tional labour  in  the  following  year.^  And  this  is  what  is 
called:  creating  capital  out  of  capital. 

The  accumulation  of  the  first  additional  capital  of  £2000 
presupposes  a  value  of  £10,000  belonging  to  the  capitalist  by 
virtue  of  his  "primitive  labour,"  and  advanced  by  him.  The 
second  additional  capital  of  £400  presupposes,  on  the  con- 
trary, only  the  previous  accumulation  of  the  £2000,  of  which 
the  £400  is  the  surplus-value  capitalised.  The  ownership  of 
past  unpaid  labour  is  thenceforth  the  sole  condition  for  the 
appropriation  of  living  unpaid  labour  on  a  constantly  increas- 
ing scale.  The  more  the  capitalist  has  accumulated,  the  more 
is  he  able  to  accumulate. 

In  so  far  as  the  surplus-value,  of  which  the  additional 
capital,  Xo.  1,  consists,  is  the  result  of  the  purchase  of  labour- 
power  with  part  of  the  original  capital,  a  purchase  that  con- 
formed to  the  laws  of  the  exchange  of  commodities,  and  that, 
from  a  legal  stand-point,  presupposes  nothing  beyond  the  free 
disposal,  on  the  part  of  the  labourer,  of  his  own  capacities,  and 

'  "Labour  creates  capital  before  capital  employs  labour."     E.  G.   Wakefield,   Eng- 
land and  America.     Lond.,  1833,  Vol.   II.,  p.   110. 


Conversion  of  Surplus-Value  into  Capital.         639 

on  the  part  of  the  owner  of  money  or  commodities,  of  the  values 
that  belong  to  him ;  in  so  far  as  the  additional  capital,  No.  2, 
kc,  is  the  mere  result  of  No.  1,  and,  therefore,  a  consequence 
of  the  above  condition;  in  so  far  as  each  single  transaction 
invariably  conforms  to  the  laws  of  the  exchange  of  commodi- 
ties, the  capitalist  buying  labour-power,  the  labourer  selling  it, 
and  we  will  assume  at  its  real  value;  in  so  far  as  all  this  is 
true,  it  is  evident  that  the  laws  of  appropriation  or  of  private 
property,  laws  that  are  based  on  the  production  and  circula- 
tion of  commodities,  become  by  their  own  inner  and  inexorable 
dialectic  changed  into  their  very  opposite.^  The  exchange  of 
equivalents,  the  original  operation  with  which  we  started,  has 
now  become  turned  round  in  such  a  way  that  there  is  only  an 
apparent  exchange.  This  is  owing  to  the  fact,  first,  that  the 
capital  which  is  exchanged  for  labour-power  is  itself  but  a 
portion  of  the  product  of  others'  labour  appropriated  without 
an  equivalent;  and,  secondly,  that  this  capital  must  not  only 
be  replaced  by  its  producer,  but  replaced  together  with  an 
added  surplus.  The  relation  of  exchange  subsisting  between 
capitalist  and  labourer  becomes  a  mere  semblance  appertaining 
to  the  process  of  circulation,  a  mere  form,  foreign  to  the  real 
nature  of  the  transaction,  and  only  mystify  it.  The  ever  re- 
peated purchase  and  sale  of  labour-power  is  now  the  mere 
form ;  what  really  takes  place  is  this — the  capitalist  again  and 
again  appropriates,  without  equivalent,  a  portion  of  the  pre- 
viously materialised  labour  of  others,  and  exchanges  it  for  a 
greater  quantity  of  living  labour.  At  first  the  rights  of  prop- 
erty seemed  to  us  to  be  based  on  a  man's  own  labour.  At 
least,  some  such  assumption  was  necessary  since  only  com- 
modity owners  with  equal  rights  confronted  each  other,  and 
the  sole  means  by  which  a  man  could  become  possessed  of  the 
commodities  of  others,  was  by  alienating  his  own  commodities ; 
and  these  could  be  replaced  by  labour  alone.     Now,  however, 

^  Just  as  at  a  given  stage  in  its  development,  commodity  production  necessarily 
passes  into  capitalistic  commodity  production  (in  fact,  it  is  only  on  the  basis  of 
capitalistic  production  that  products  take  the  general  and  predominant  form  of  com- 
modities), so  the  laws  of  property  that  are  based  on  commodity  production,  neces- 
sarily turn  into  the  laws  of  capitalist  appropriation.  We  may  well,  therefore,  feel 
astonished  at  the  cleverness  of  Proudhon,  who  would  abolish  capitalistic  property  by 
enforcing  the  eternal  laws  of  property  that  are  based  on  commodity  production! 


640  Capitalist  Production. 

property  turns  out  to  be  the  right,  on  the  part  of  the  capital- 
ist, to  appropriate  the  unpaid  labour  of  others  or  its  product 
and  to  be  the  impossibility,  on  the  part  of  the  labourer,  of  ap- 
propriating his  own  product  The  separation  of  property 
from  labour  has  become  the  necessary  consequence  of  a  law 
that  apparently  originated  in  their  identity.^ 

Iso  matter  how  severely  the  capitalist  mode  of  appropriation 
may  seem  to  slap  the  face  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  pro- 
duction of  commodities,  it  does  not  arise  from  a  violation,  but 
from  an  application  of  these  laws.  A  brief  retrospect  upon 
the  succession  of  phases,  whose  climax  the  capitalist  accumu- 
lation is,  may  serve  once  more  to  make  this  clear. 

We  have  seen,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  original  transfor- 
mation of  a  certain  quantity  of  values  into  capital  proceeded 
strictly  according  to  the  laws  of  exchange.  One  of  the  con- 
tracting parties  sells  his  labour-power,  the  other  buys  it.  The 
first  receives  the  exchange-value  of  his  commodity,  while 
its  use-value,  labour,  passes  into  the  possession  of  the  other. 
This  second  party  then  converts  means  of  production  belong- 
ing to  him  into  a  new  product  belonging  to  him  by  right 
through  the  instrumentality  of  labour  also  belonging  to  him. 

The  value  of  this  product  comprizes,  in  the  first  place,  the 
value  of  the  consumed  means  of  production.  Useful  labour 
cannot  consume  these  means  of  production  without  trans- 
ferring their  value  to  the  new  product  But  in  order  to  be 
saleable  labour-power  must  be  able  to  furnish  useful  labour  in 
that  line  of  industry  in  which  it  is  to  be  employed. 

The  value  of  the  new  product  comprizes,  furthermore,  the 
equivalent  of  the  value  of  labour-power  and  a  surplus-value. 
It  does  so  for  the  reason  that  the  labour-power  sold  for  a  cer- 
tain length  of  time,  such  as  a  day,  a  week,  etc.,  has  less  value 
than  is  produced  by  its  employment  during  that  time.  The 
labourer,  however,  has  received  the  exchange-value  of  his  la- 

*The  property  of  the  capitalist  in  the  product  of  the  labour  of  others  "is  a  strict 
consequence  of  the  law  of  appropriation,  the  fundamental  principle  of  which  was,  on 
the  contrary,  the  exclusive  title  of  every  labourer  to  the  product  of  his  own  labour." 
(Cherbuliez,  Riche  ou  Pauvre.  Paris,  1841,  p.  68,  where,  however,  the  dialectical 
reversal  is  not  properly  developed.) 


Conversion  of  Surplus-Value  into  Capital.         641 

bour-po^ver  aud  given  up  its  use-value  in  return,  as  happens 
in  every  sale  and  purchase. 

The  fact  that  tliis  particular  commodity  labour-power  has 
the  peculiar  use-value  of  supplying  labour  and  creating  value 
cannot  affect  the  general  law  of  the  production  of  commodi- 
ties.. Hence,  if  the  sum  of  values  advanced  in  wages  is  not 
merely  reproduce  in  the  product,  but  also  increased  by  a 
surplus-value,  this  is  not  due  to  an  advantage  gained  over  the 
seller,  who  received  the  value  of  his  commodity,  but  simply 
to  the  consumption  of  this  commodity  by  the  buyer. 

The  law  of  exchange  requires  equality  only  for  the  exchange- 
values  of  the  commodities  passed  from  hand  to  hand.  But 
it  requires  at  the  outset  a  disparity  of  their  use-values,  and 
has  nothing  to  do  with  their  consumption,  which  does  not 
begin  until  after  the  trade  has  been  made. 

The  original  transformation  of  money  into  capital  pro- 
ceeds, therefore,  in  strict  compliance  with  the  economic  laws 
of  the  production  of  "commodities  and  with  the  property  right 
derived  therefrom.     ISTevertheless  it  has  the  following  results : 

(1)  That  the  product  belongs  to  the  capitalist,  not  to  the 
labourer ; 

(2)  That  the  value  of  this  product  comprizes  a  surplus- 
value  over  and  above  the  v^iilue  of  the  advanced  capital. 
This  surplus-value  has  cost  the-  labourer  labour,  but  the  capi- 
talist nothing,  yet  it  becomes  the  lawful  property  of  the  capi- 
talist ; 

(3)  That  the  labourer  has  reproduced  his  labour-power 
and  can  sell  it  once  more,  if  he  finds  a  buyer  for  it. 

Simple  reproduction  is  but  a  periodical  repetition  of  this 
first  operation.  Money  is  thereby  transformed  again  and 
again  into  capital.  The  general  law  is  not  violated  thereby, 
but  rather  finds  an  opportunity  to  manifest  itself  permanently. 
"Several  successive  exchanges  have  merely  made  of  the  last 
a  representative  of  the  first."      (Sismondi,  1.  c,  p.  YO.) 

Nevertheless  we  have  seen  that  this   simple  reproduction 

suffices  to  impregnate  this  first  operation,  so  far  as  it  was 

considered   an   isolated  transaction,   with   a   totally   different 

character.     "Of    those,    who    divide    the    national    revenue 

20 


642  Capitalist  Production. 

among  themselves,  some  (the  labourers)  acquire  each  year  a 
new  title  to  it  by  new  labour,  while  others  (the  capitalists) 
have  previously  acquired  a  permanent  title  to  it  by  primitive 
work."  (Sismondi,  1.  c,  p.  111.)  The  domain  of  labour  is 
evidently  not  the  only  one  in  which  primogeniture  accom- 
plishes wonders. 

It  does  not  alter  matters  any,  if  simple  reproduction  is 
replaced  by  reproduction  on  an  enlarged  scale,  by  accumula- 
tion. In  the  first  instance  the  capitalist  consumes  the  entire 
surplus-value,  in  the  second  he  demonstrates  his  civic  virtue 
by  consuming  only  a  part  of  it  and  converting  the  remainder 
into  money. 

The  surplus-value  is  his  property,  it  has  never  belonged  to 
anybody  else.  If  he  advances  it  to  production,  he  makes  ad- 
vances from  his  own  funds  just  as  he  did  on  the  day  when 
he  first  came  on  the  market.  That  this  fund  in  the  present 
case  comes  from  the  unpaid  labour  of  his  labourers,  does  not 
alter  the  matter  in  the  least.  If  labourer  B  is  employed  with 
surplus-values  produced  by  labourer  A,  then,  in  the  fijst  place, 
A  supplied  this  surplus-value  without  having  the  just  price 
of  his  commodity  reduced  by  one  farthing,  and,  in  the  sec- 
ond place,  this  transaction  is  none  of  B's  concern.  What  B 
demands  and  has  a  right  to  demand  is  that  the  capitalist 
should  pay  him  the  value  of  his  labour-power.  "Both  sides 
are  gainers;  the  labourer,  by  having  the  fruit  of  his  labour 
advanced  to  him"  (that  is,  the  fruit  of  the  unpaid  labour  of 
others)  "before  he  has  performed  any  labour"  (that  is,  be- 
fore his  own  labour  has  borne  any  fruit)  ;  "the  master,  be- 
cause the  labour  of  this  labourer  was  worth  more  than  his 
wages"  (that  is,  produced  a  value  greater  than  that  of  his 
wages).     (Sismondi,  1.  c,  p.  135.) 

True,  the  matter  assumes  an  entirely  different  aspect  when 
we  look  upon  capitalist  production  in  the  uninterrupted  flow 
of  its  reproduction,  and  when  we  consider  the  capitalist  class 
as  a  whole  and  its  antagonist,  the  working  class,  instead  of 
the  individual  capitalist  and  the  individual  labourer.  But 
in  so  doing  we  should  be  applying  a  standard  which  is  totally 
foreign  to  the  production  of  commodities. 


Conversion  of  Surphis-Value  into  Capital.         643 

In  the  production  of  commodities  only  sellers  and  buyers, 
independent  of  one  another,  meet.  Their  mutual  relations 
cease  with  the  termination  of  their  mutual  contract.  If  the 
transaction  is  repeated,  it  is  done  by  a  new  contract,  which 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  former  one,  and  only  an  accident 
brings  the  same  seller  once  more  together  with  the  same  buyer. 

Hence,  if  the  production  of  commodities,  or  a  transaction 
belonging  to  it,  is  to  be  judged  by  its  own  economic  laws,  we 
must  consider  each  act  of  exchange  by  itself,  outside  of  all 
connection  with  the  act  of  exchange  preceding  it  and  following 
it.  And  since  purchases  and  sales  are  transacted  between  in- 
dividuals, it  will  not  do  to  seek  therein  relations  between  en- 
tire classes  of  society. 

iSTo  matter  how  long  may  be  the  series  of  periodical  repro- 
ductions and  former  accumulations  through  which  the  capital 
now  invested  may  have  passed,  it  always  retains  its  primal 
virginity.  So  long  as  the  laws  of  exchange  are  observed  in 
every  act  of  exchange,  individually  considered,  the  mode  of 
appropriation  may  be  completely  revolutionised  without  in 
the  least  affecting  the  property  right  bestowed  by  the  produc- 
tion of  commodities.  The  same  right  remains  in  force, 
whether  it  be  at  a  time  when  the  product  belonged  to  the  pro- 
ducer, and  when  this  producer,  exchanging  equivalent  for 
equivalent,  could  enrich  himself  only  by  his  own  labour,  or 
whether  it  be  under  capitalism,  where  the  social  wealth  be- 
comes in  an  ever  increasing  degree  the  property  of  those, 
who  are  in  a  position  to  appropriate  to  themselves  again  and 
again  the  unpaid  labour  of  others. 

This  result  becomes  inevitable,  as  soon  as  labour-power  is 
sold  as  a  commodity  by  the  "free"  labourer  himself.  It  is 
from  that  time  on  that  the  production  of  commodities  becomes 
universal  and  a  typical  form  of  production.  Henceforth 
every  product  is  intended  at  the  outset  for  sale,  and  all  pro- 
duced wealth  passes  through  the  circulation.  The  produc- 
tion of  commodities  jdoes  not  impose  itself  upon  the  whole 
society,  until  wage-labour  becomes  its  basis.  And  only  then 
does  it  unfold  all  its  powers.  To  say  that  the  intervention 
of   wage  labour   adulterates   the   production   of   commodities 


644  Capitalist  Production. 

means  to  say  that  the  production  of  commodities  must  not 
develop,  if  it  wishes  to  remain  unadulterated.  To  the  same 
extent  that  it  continues  to  develop  by  its  own  inherent  laws 
into  a  capitalist  production,  the  property  laws  of  the  produc- 
tion of  commodities  are  converted  into  the  laws  of  capitalistic 
appropriation.^ 

We  have  seen  that  even  in  the  case  of  simple  reproduction, 
all  capital,  whatever  its  original  source,  becomes  converted  in- 
to accvimulated  capital,  capitalised  surplus-value.  But  in  the 
flood  of  production  all  the  capital  originally  advanced  becomes 
a  vanishing  quantity  (magnitudo  evanescens,  in  the  mathema- 
tical sense),  compared  with  the  directly  accumulated  capital, 
i.e.,  with  the  surplus-value  or  surplus  product  that  is  recon- 
verted into  capital,  whether  it  function  in  the  hands  of  its 
accumulator,  or  in  those  of  others.  Hence,  political  economy 
describes  capital  in  general  as  "accumulated  wealth"  (con- 
verted surplus-value  or  revenue),  "that  is  employed  over 
again  in  the  production  of  surplus-value,"  ^  and  the  capitalist 
as  "the  owner  of  surplus-value."  ^  It  is  merely  another  way 
of  expressing  the  same  thing  to  say  that  all  existing  capital  is 
accumulated  or  capitalised  interest,  for  interest  is  a  mere 
fragment  of  surplus-value.* 

SECTION   2. ERRONEOUS  CONCEPTION  BY  POLITICAI.  ECONOMY 

OF    REPiRODUCTION    ON    A    PROOKESSIVELY    IN- 
CREASING   SCALE. 

Before  we  further  investigate  accumulation  or  the  reconver- 
sion of  surplus-value  into  capital,  we  must  brush  on  one  side 
an  ambiguity  introduced  by  the  classical  economists. 

*  Admire,  therefore,  the  craftiness  of  Proudhon  who  wishes  to  abolish  capitalist 
property  by  enforcing  against  it — the  eternal  property  laws  of  the  production  of 
commodities. 

*  "Capital,  viz.,  accumulated  wealth  employed  with  a  view  to  profit."  (Malthus, 
1.  c.)  "Capital  ....  consists  of  wealth  saved  from  revenue,  and  used  with 
a  view  to  profit."  (R.  Jones:  An  Introductory  Lecture  on  Polit.  Econ.,  Lond.,  1833, 
p.   10.) 

*  "The  possessors  of  surplus  produce  or  capital."  (The  Source  and  Remedy  of  the 
National  Difficulties.     A  Letter  to  Lord  John  Russell.     Lond.,  1821.) 

*  "Capital,  with  compound  interest  on  every  portion  of  capital  saved,  is  so  all 
engrossing  that  all  the  wealth  in  the  world  from  which  income  is  derived,  has  long 
ago  become  the  interest  on  capital."     (London  Economist,  19th  July,  1869.) 


Conversion  of  Surplus-Value  into  Capital.         645 

Just  as  little  as  the  commodities  that  the  capitalist  buys 
with  a  part  of  the  surplus-value  for  his  own  consumption, 
ccrve  the  purpose  of  production  and  of  creation  of  value,  so 
little  is  the  labour  that  he  buys  for  the  satisfaction  of  his 
natural  and  social  requirements,  productive  labour.  Instead 
of  converting  surplus-value  into  capital,  he,  on  the  contrary,  by 
the  purchase  of  those  commodities  and  that  labour,  consumes 
or  expends  it  as  revenue.  In  the  face  of  the  habitual  mode  of 
life  of  the  old  feudal  nobility,  which,  as  Hegel  rightly  says, 
"consists  in  consuming-  what  is  in  hand,"  and  more  especially 
displays  itself  in  the  luxury  of  personal  retainers,  it  was  ex- 
tremely important  for  bourgeois  economy  to  promulgate  the 
doctrine  that  accumulation  of  capital  is  the  first  duty  of  every 
citizen,  and  to  preach  without  ceasing,  that  a  man  cannot  ac- 
cumulate, if  he  eats  up  all  his  revenue,  instead  of  spending  a 
good  part  of  it  in  the  acquisition  of  additional  productive  la- 
bourers, Avho  bring  in  more  than  they  cost.  On  the  other  hand 
the  econom^ists  had  to  contend  against  the  popular  prejudice, 
that  confuses  capitalist  production  with  hoarding,^  and  fancies 
that  accumulated  wealth  is  either  wealth  that  is  rescued  from 
being  destroyed  in  its  existing  form,  i.e.,  from  being  con- 
sumed, or  wealth  that  is  withdrawn  from  circulation.  Exclu- 
sion of  money  from  circulation  would  also  exclude  absolutely 
its  self-expansion  as  capital,  while  accumulation  of  a  hoard  in 
the  shape  of  commodities  would  be  sheer  tomfoolery.^  The 
accumulation  of  commodities  in  great  masses  is  the  result 
either  of  overproduction  or  of  a  stoppage  of  circulation.^  It 
is  true  that  the  popular  mind  is  impressed  by  the  sight,  on  the 
one  hand,  of  the  mass  of  goods  that  are  stored  up  for  gradual 
consumption  by  the  rich,*  and  on  the  other  hand,  by  the  for- 

*  "No  political  economist  of  the  present  day  can  by  saving  mean  mere  hoarding: 
and  beyond  this  contracted  and  insufficient  proceeding,  no  use  of  the  term  in  refer- 
ence to  the  national  wealth  can  well  be  imagined,  but  that  which  must  arise  from 
a  different  application  of  what  is  saved,  founded  upon  a  real  distinction  between 
the  different  kinds  of  labour  maintained  by  it."      (Malthus,  1.  c,  p.  38,  39.) 

^  Thus  for  instance,  Balzac,  who  so  thoroughly  studied  every  shade  of  avarice, 
represents  the  old  usurer  Gobsec  as  in  his  second  childhood  when  he  begins  to  heap 
up  a  hoard  of  commodities. 

'  "Accumulation  of  stocks  .  .  .  non-exchange  .  .  .  over-production."  (Th. 
Corbet  1.  c,  p.  14.) 

*  In  this  sense  Necker  speaks  of  the  "objets  de  faste  et  de  somptuosite,"  of  which 


646  Capitalist  Production. 

mation  of  reserve  stocks ;  the  latter,  a  phenomenon  that  is  com- 
mon to  all  modes  of  production,  and  on  which  we  shall  dwell 
for  a  moment,  v/hen  we  come  to  analyse  circulation.  Classical 
economy  is  therefore  quite  right,  when  it  maintains  that  the 
consumption  of  surplus-products  by  productive,  instead  of  by 
unproductive  labourers,  is  a  characteristic  feature  of  the 
process  of  accumulation.  But  at  this  point  the  mistakes  also 
begin.  Adam  Smith  has  made  it  the  fashion,  to  represent 
accumulation  as  nothing  more  than  consumption  of  surplus- 
products  by  productive  labourers,  which  amounts  to  saying, 
that  the  capitalising  of  surplus-value  consists  in  merely  turn- 
ing surplus-value  into  labour-power.  Let  us  see  what  Ricardo 
e.g.,  says:  "It  must  be  understood  that  all  the  productions 
of  a  country  are  consumed;  but  it  makes  the  greatest  differ- 
ence imaginable  whether  they  are  consumed  by  those  who 
reproduce,  or  by  those  who  do  not  reproduce  another  value. 
When  we  say  that  revenue  is  saved,  and  added  to  capital,  what 
we  mean  is,  that  the  portion  of  revenue,  so  said  to  be  added 
to  capital,  is  consumed  by  productive  instead  of  unproductive 
labourers.  There  can  be  no  greater  error  than  in  supposing 
that  capital  is  increased  by  non-consumption."  ^  There  can 
be  no  greater  error  than  that  which  Ricardo  and  all  subsequent 
economists  repeat  after  A.  Smith,  viz.,  that  "the  part  of  rev- 
enue, of  which  it  is  said,  it  has  been  added  to  capital,  is  con- 
sumed by  productive  labourers."  According  to  this,  all  sur- 
plus-value that  is  changed  into  capital  becomes  variable  cap- 
ital. So  far  from  this  being  the  case,  the  surplus-value,  like 
the  original  capital,  divides  itself  into  constant  capital  and 
variable  capital,  into  means  of  production  and  labour-power. 
Labour-power  is  tlie  form  under  which  variable  capital  exists 
during  the  process  of  production.  In  this  process  the  labour- 
power  is  itself  consumed  by  the  capitalist  while  the  m.eans  of 
production  are  consumed  by  the  labour-power  in  the  exercise  of 
its  function,  labour.  At  the  same  time,  the  money  paid  for 
the  purchase  of  the  labour-power,  is  converted  into  necessaries, 

"le  temps  a  grossi  I'accumulation,"  and  which  "les  lois  de  propriety   ont  rassembl6s 
dans  une  seule  classe  dc  la  societe."     (Oeuvres  de  M.  Necker,  Paris  and  Lausanne, 
1789,  t.   ii.  p.  291.; 
^  Ricardo,  1.  c,  p.  163,  note. 


Conversion  of  Surplus-Value  into  Capital.         647 

(liac  are  consumed,  not  by  "productive  labour,"  but  by  the 
"productive  labourer."  Adam  Smith,  by  a  fundamentally 
perverted  analysis,  arrives  at  the  absurd  conclusion,  that  even 
though  each  individual  capital  is  divided  into  a  constant  and 
a  variable  part,  the  capital  of  society  resolves  itself  only  into 
variable  capital,  i.e.,  is  laid  out  exclusively  in  payment  of 
wages.  For  instance,  suppose  a  cloth  manufacturer  converts 
£2000  into  capital.  Ojie  portion  he  lays  out  in  buying 
weavers,  the  other  in  woollen  yam,  machinery,  &c.  But  the 
people,  from  whom  he  buys  the  yarn  and  the  machinery,  pay 
for  labour  with  a  part  of  the  purchase  money,  and  so  on  until 
the  whole  £2000  are  spent  in  the  payment  of  wages,  i.e.,  un- 
til the  entire  product  represented  by  the  £2000  has  been  con- 
sumed by  productive  labourers.  It  is  evident  that  the  whole 
gist  of  this  argument  lies  in  the  words  "and  so  on,"  which 
send  us  from  pillar  to  post.  In  truth,  Adam  Smith  breaks 
his  investigation  off,  just  where  its  difficulties  begin. ^ 

The  annual  process  of  reproduction  is  easily  understood,  so 
long  as  we  keep  in  view  merely  the  sum  total  of  the  year's 
production.  But  every  single  component  of  this  product  must 
be  brought  into  the  market  as  a  commodity,  and  there  the  diffi- 
culty begins.  The  movements  of  the  individual  capitals,  and 
of  the  personal  revenues,  cross  and  intermingle  and  are  lost  in 
the  general  change  of  places,  in  the  circulation  of  the  wealth  of 
society ;  this  dazes  the  sight,  and  propounds  very  complicated 
problems  for  solution.  In  the  third  part  of  Book  II.  I  shall 
give  the  analysis  of  the  real  bearings  of  the  facts.  It  is  one  of 
the  great  merits  of  the  Physiocrats,  that  in  their  Tableau 
economique  they  were  the  first  to  attempt  to  depict  the  annual 
production  in  the  shape  in  which  it  is  presented  to  us  after 
passing  through  the  process  of  circulation.^ 

*  In  spite  of  his  "Logic,"  John  St.  Mill  never  detects  even  such  faulty  analysis  as 
this  when  made  by  his  predecessors,  an  analysis  which,  even  from  the  bourgeois  stand- 
point of  the  science,  cries  out  for  rectification.  In  every  case  he  registers  with  the 
dogmatism  of  a  disciple,  the  confusion  of  his  master's  thoughts.  So  here:  "The 
capital  itself  in  the  long  run  becomes  entirely  wages,  and  when  replaced  by  the  sale 
of  produce  becomes  wages  again." 

*  In  his  description  of  the  process  of  reproduction,  and  of  accumulation,  Adam 
Smith,  in  many  ways,  not  only  made  no  advance,  but  even  lost  considerable  ground, 
compared    with    his    predecessors,    especially    the    Physiocrats.     Connected    with    the 


648  Capitalist  Prodtiction. 

For  the  rost,  it  is  a  matter  of  course,  that  political  economy, 
acting  in  the  interests  of  the  capitalist  class,  has  not  failed  to 
exploit  the  doctrine  of  Adam  Smith,  viz.,  that  the  whole  of 
that  part  of  the  surplus  product  which  is  converted  into 
capital,  is  consumed  by  the  working  class. 

SECTION     3. SEP.\JlATION     OF    SUBPLUS-VALUE     INTO     OAPITAl, 

AND  REVENUE.       THE  ABSTINENCE  THEOEY. 

In  the  last  preceding  chapter,  we  treated  surplus-value  (or 
the  surplus  product)  solely  as  a  fund  for  supplying  the  in- 
dividual consumption  of  the  capitalist.  In  this  chapter  we 
have,  so  far  treated  it  solely  as  a  fund  for  accumulation.  It 
is,  however,  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  but  is  both  to- 
gether. One  portion  is  consumed  by  the  capitalist  as  rev- 
enue,* the  other  is  employed  as  capital,  is  accumulated. 

Given  the  mass  of  surplus-value,  then,  the  larger  the  one  of 
these  parts,  the  smaller  is  the  other.  Casteris  paribus,  the 
ratio  of  these  parts  determines  the  magnitude  of  the  ac- 
cumulation. But  it  is  by  the  owner  of  the  surplus-value,  by 
the  capitalist  alone,  that  the  division  is  made.  It  is  his  de- 
liberate act.  That  part  of  the  tribute  exacted  by  him  which 
he  accumulates,  is  said  to  be  saved  by  him,  because  he  does 
not  eat  it,  i.e.,  because  he  performs  tbe  function  of  a  capitalist, 
and  enriches  himself. 

Except  as  personified  capital,  the  capitalist  has  no  historical 
value,  and  no  right  to  that  historical  existence,  which,  to  use 
an  expression  of  the  witty  Lichnowsky,  'Wasn't  got  no  date," 

illusion  mentioned  in  the  text,  is  the  really  wonderful  dogma,  left  by  him  as  an  in- 
heritance to  political  economy,  the  dogma,  that  the  price  of  commodities  is  made  up 
of  wages,  profit  (interest)  and  rent,  i.e.,  of  wages  and  surplus- value.  Starting  from 
this  basis,  Storch  naively  confesses,  "II  est  impossible  de  resoudrc  le  prix  necessaire 
dans  ses  elements  les  plus  simples."  (Storch,  1.  c.  Petersb.  Edit.  1816,  t.  i.  p.  140, 
note.)  A  fine  science  of  economy  this,  which  declares  it  impossible  to  resolve  the 
price  of  a  commodity  into  its  simplest  elements!  This  point  will  be  further  inves- 
tigated in   the  seventh  part  of   Book  iii. 

*  The  reader  will  notice,  that  the  word  revenue  is  used  in  a  double  sense:  first,  to 
desigrnate  surplus-value  so  far  as  it  is  the  fruit  periodically  yielded  by  capital; 
secondly,  to  designate  the  part  of  that  fruit  which  is  periodically  consumed  by  the 
capitalist,  or  added  to  the  fund  that  supplies  his  private  consumption.  I  have  retained 
this  double  meaning  because  it  harmonises  with  the  language  of  the  English  and 
French  economists. 


Conversion  of  Surplus-Value  into  Capital.        649 

And  so  far  only  is  the  necessity  for  his  own  transitory  ex- 
istence implied  in  the  transitory  necessity  for  the  capitalist 
mode  of  production.  But,  so  far  as  he  is  personified  capital, 
it  is  not  values  in  use  and  the  enjoyment  of  them,  but  exchange- 
value  and  its  augmentation,  that  spur  him  into  action.  Fan- 
atically bent  on  making  value  expand  itself,  he  ruthlessly 
forces  the  human  race  to  produce  for  production's  sake ;  he 
thus  forces  the  development  of  the  productive  powers  of  so- 
ciety, and  creates  those  material  conditions,  which  alone  can 
form  the  real  basis  of  a  higher  form  of  society,  a  society  in 
which  the  full  and  free  development  of  every  individual  forms 
the  ruling  principle.  Only  as  personified  capital  is  the 
capitalist  respectable.  As  such,  he  shares  with  the  miser  the 
passion  for  wealth  as  wealth.  But  that  which  in  the  miser 
is  a  mere  idiosyncrasy,  is,  in  the  capitalist,  the  effect  of  the 
social  mechanism,  of  which  he  is  but  one  of  the  wheels.  More- 
over, the  development  of  capitalist  production  makes  it  con- 
stantly necessary  to  keep  increasing  the  amount  of  the  capital 
laid  out  in  a  given  industriad  undertaking,  and  competition 
makes  the  immanent  laws  of  capitalist  production  to  be  felt 
by  each  individual  capitalist,  as  external  coercive  laws.  It 
compels  him  to  keep  constantly  extending  his  capital,  in  order 
to  preserve  it,  but  extend  it  he  cannot,  except  by  means  of 
progressive  accumulation. 

So  far,  therefore,  as  his  actions  are  a  mere  function  of 
capital — endowed  as  capital  is,  in  his  person,  with  conscious- 
ness and  a  will — his  own  private  consumption  is  a  robbery 
perpetrated  on  accumulation,  just  as  in  book-keeping  by  double 
entry,  the  private  expenditure  of  the  capitalist  is  placed 
on  the  debtor  side  of  his  account  against  his  capital.  To 
accumulate,  is  to  conquer  the  world  of  social  wealth,  to  in- 
crease the  mass  of  human  beings  exploited  by  him,  and  thus 
to  extend  both  the  direct  and  the  indirect  sway  of  the  capital- 
ist. ^ 

^  Taking  the  usurer,  that  old-fashioned  but  ever  renewed  specimen  of  the  capitalist 
for  his  text,  Luther  shows  very  aptly  that  the  love  of  power  is  an  element  in  the 
desire  to  get  rich.  "The  heathen  were  able,  by  the  light  of  reason,  to  conclude  that 
a  usurer  is  a  double-dyed  thief  and  murderer.  We  Christians,  however,  hold  them  in 
such  honour,   that   we  fairly  worship  them   for   the  sake  of  their  money     .... 


650  Capitalist  Production. 

But  original  sin  is  at  work  everywhere.  As  capitalist  pro- 
duction, accumulation,  and  wealth,  become  developed,  the 
capitalist  ceases  to  be  the  mere  incarnation  of  capital.  He  has 
a  fellow-feeling  for  his  own  Adam,  and  his  education  gradu- 
ally enables  him  to  smile  at  the  rage  for  asceticism,  as  a  mere 
prejudice  of  the  old-fashioned  miser.  While  the  capitalist  of 
the  classical  type  brands  individual  consumption  as  a  sin 
against  his  function,  and  as  "abstinence"  from  accumulating, 
the  modernised  capitalist  is  capable  of  looking  upon  accumula- 
tion as  "abstinence"  from  pleasure. 

"  Two  souls,  alas,  do  dwell  within  his  breast; 
The  one  is  ever  parting  from  the  other."  ^ 

At  the  historical  dawn  of  capitalist  production, — and  every 
capitalist  upstart  has  personally  to  go  through  this  historical 
stage — avarice,  and  desire  to  get  rich,  are  the  ruling  passions. 

Whoever  eats  up,  robs,  and  steals  the  nourishment  of  another,  that  man  commits  as 
great  a  murder  (so  far  as  in  him  lies)  as  he  who  starves  a  man  or  utterly  undoes 
him.  Such  does  a  usurer,  and  sits  the  while  safe  on  his  stool,  when  he  ought  rather 
to  be  hanging  on  the  gallows,  and  be  eaten  by  as  many  ravens  as  he  has  stolen 
guilders,  if  only  there  were  so  much  flesh  on  him,  that  so  many  ravens  could  stick 
their  beaks  in  and  share  it.  Meanwhile,  we  hang  the  small  thieves  .  .  .  Little 
thieves  are  put  in  the  stocks,  great  thieves  go  flaunting  in  gold  and  silk  .... 
Therefore  is  there,  on  this  earth,  no  greater  enemy  of  man  (after  the  devil)  than 
a  gripe-money,  and  usurer,  for  he  wants  to  be  God  over  all  men.  Turks,  soldiers, 
and  tyrants  are  also  bad  men,  yet  must  they  let  the  people  live,  and  confess  that  they 
are  bad,  and  enemies,  and  do,  nay,  must,  now  and  then  show  pity  to  some.  But  a 
usurer  and  money-glutton,  such  a  one  would  have  the  whole  world  perish  of  hunger 
and  thirst,  misery  and  want,  so  far  as  in  him  lies,  so  that  he  may  have  all  to  him- 
self, and  every  one  may  receive  from  him  as  from  a  God,  and  be  his  serf  for  ever. 
To  wear  fine  cloaks,  golden  chains,  rings,  to  wipe  his  mouth,  to  be  deemed  and  taken 
for  a  worthy,  pious  man  .  .  .  Usury  is  a  great  huge  monster,  like  a  were-wolf, 
who  lays  waste  all,  more  than  any  Cacus,  Gerion  or  Antus.  And  yet  decks  himself 
out,  and  would  be  thought  pious,  so  that  people  may  not  see  where  the  oxen  have 
gone,  that  he  drags  backwards  into  his  den.  But  Hercules  shall  hear  the  cry  of  the 
oxen  and  of  his  prisoners,  and  shall  seek  Cacus  even  in  cliffs  and  among  rocks,  t.id 
shall  set  the  oxen  loose  again  from  the  villain.  For  Cacus  means  the  villain  that 
is  a  pious  usurer,  and  steals,  robs,  eats  everything.  And  will  not  own  that  he  has 
done  it,  and  thinks  no  one  will  find  him  out,  because  the  oxen,  drawn  backwards 
into  his  den,  make  it  seem,  from  their  foot-prints,  that  they  have  been  Jot  out.  So 
the  usurer  would  deceive  the  world,  as  though  he  were  of  use  and  gave  the  world 
oxen,  while  he,  however,  rends,  and  eats  all  alone  .  .  .  And  since  we  break  on 
the  wheel,  and  behead  highwaymen,  murderers  and  housebreakers,  how  much  more 
ought  we  to  break  on  the  wheel  and  kill,  .  .  .  hunt  down,  curse  and  behead 
all  usurers."  (Martin  Luther,  1.  c.) 
^  See  Goethe's  Faust. 


Conversion  of  Surplus-Value  info  Capital.         651 

But  the  progress  of  capitalist  production  not  only  creates  a 
world  of  delights ;  it  lays  open,  in  speculation  and  the  credit 
system,  a  thousand  sources  of  sudden  enrichment.  When  a 
certain  stage  of  development  has  been  reached,  a  conventional 
degree  of  prodigality,  which  is  also  an  exhibition  of  wealth, 
and  consequently  a  source  of  credit,  becomes  a  business  neces- 
sity to  the  "unfortunate"  capitalist.  Luxury  enters  into 
capital's  expenses  of  representation.  Moreover,  the  capitalist 
gets  rich,  not  like  the  miser,  in  proportion  to  his  personal 
labour  and  restricted  consumption,  but  at  the  same  rate  as  he 
squeezes  out  the  labour-power  of  others,  and  enforces  on  the 
labourer  abstinence  from  all  life's  enjoyments.  Although, 
therefore,  the  prodigality  of  the  capitalist  never  possesses  the 
bona-fide  character  of  the  open-handed  feudal  lord's  prodigal- 
ity, but,  on  the  contrary,  has  always  lurking  behind  it  the  most 
sordid  avarice  and  the  most  anxious  calculation,  yet  his  ex- 
penditure grows  with  his  accumulation,  without  the  one  neces- 
sarily restricting  the  other.  But  along  with  this  growth,  there 
is  at  the  same  time  developed  in  his  breast,  a  Faustian  con- 
flict between  the  passion  for  accumulation,  and  the  desire  for 
enjoyment. 

Dr.  Aikin  says  in  a  work  published  in  1795 :  "The  trade  of 
Manchester  may  be  divided  into  four  periods.  First,  when 
manufacturers  were  obliged  to  work  hard  for  their  livelihood." 
They  enriched  themselves  chiefly  by  robbing  the  parents, 
whose  children  were  bound  as  apprentices  to  them :  the  parents 
paid  a  high  premium,  while  the  apprentices  were  starved.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  average  profits  were  low,  and  to  ac- 
cumulate, extreme  parsimony  was  requisite.  They  lived  like 
misers,  and  were  far  from  consuming  even  the  interest  on  their 
capital.  "The  second  period,  when  they  had  begun  to  acquire 
little  fortunes,  but  worked  as  hard  as  before," — for  direct  ex- 
ploitation of  labour  costs  labour,  as  every  slave-driver  knows 
— "and  lived  in  as  plain  a  manner  as  before.  ,  .  .  The 
third,  when  luxury  began,  and  the  trade  was  pushed  by  send- 
ing out  riders  for  orders  into  every  market  town  in  the  King- 
dom. .  .  .  It  isi  probable  that  few  or  no  capitals  of 
£3000  to  £4000  acquired  by  trade  existed  here  before  1690. 


652  Capitalist  Production. 

However,  about  that  time,  or  a  little  later,  the  traders  had  got 
money  beforehand,  and  began  to  build  modem  brick  houses, 
instead  of  those  of  wood  and  plaster."  Even  in  the  early  part 
of  the  18th  century,  a  Manchester  manufacturer,  who  placed 
a  pint  of  foreign  wine  before  his  guests,  exposed  himself  to 
the  remarks  and  headshakings  of  all  his  neighbors.  Beforf* 
the  rise  of  machinery,  a  manufacturer's  evening  expenditure  at 
the  public-house  where  they  all  met,  never  exceeded  sixpence 
for  a  glass  of  punch,  and  a  penny  for  a  screw  of  tobacco.  It 
was  not  till  1758,  and  this  marks  an  epoch,  that  a  person 
actually  engaged  in  business  was  seen  with  an  equipage  of 
his  own.  "The  fourth  period,"  the  last  30  years  of  the  18th. 
century,  "is  that  in  which  expense  and  luxury  have  made 
great  progress,  and  was  supported  by  a  trade  extended  by 
means  of  riders  and  factors  through  every  part  of  Europe."^ 
What  would  the  good  Dr.  Aikin  say  if  he  could  rise  from  his 
grave  and  see  the  Manchester  of  to-day  ? 

Accumulate,  accumulate !  That  is  Moses  and  the  prophets ! 
"Industry  furnishes  the  material  which  saving  accumulates."^ 
Therefore,  save,  save,  i.e.,  reconvert  the  greatest  possible  por- 
tion of  surplus-value,  or  surplus-product  into  capital !  Ac- 
cumulation for  accumulation's  sake,  production  for  produc- 
tion's sake:  by  this  formula  classical  economy  expressed  the 
historical  mission  of  the  bourgeoisie,  and  did  not  for  a  single 
instant  deceive  itself  over  the  birth-throes  of  wealth.^  But 
what  avails  lamentation  in  the*  face  of  historical  necessity? 
If  to  classical  economy,  the  proletarian  is  but  a  machine  for 
the  production  of  surplus-value ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  capital- 
ist is  in  its  eyes  only  a  machine  for  the  conversion  of  this 
'  surplus-value  into  additional  capital.  Political  economy  takes 
the  historical  function  of  the  capitalist  in  bitter  earnest.  In 
order  to  charm  out  of  his  bosom  the  awful  conflict  between 

*  Dr.  Aikin :   Description   of  the  country  from  30  to  40  miles  round  Manchester. 
Lond.,   1795,   p.    182,   sqq. 

*  A.   Smith :   1.  c,  bk.   iii.,  ch.  iii. 

*  Even  J.  B.  Say  says:  "Les  epargnes  des  riches  se  font  aux  d^pens  des  pauvres." 

"The   Roman  proletarian  lived  almost  entirely  at  the  expense   of  society 

It  can  almost  be  said  that  modern  lives  at  the  expense  of  the  proletarians,  on 
what  it  keeps  out  of  the  remuneration  of  labour."  (Sismondi:  Etudes,  &c.,  t.  L, 
p.  9i.) 


Conversion  of  Surplus-Value  into  Capital.         653 ' 

the  desire  for  enjoyment  and  the  chase  after  riches,  Malthus, 
about  the  year  1820,  advocated  a  division  of  labour,  which 
assigns  to  the  capitalist  actually  engaged  in  production,  the 
business  of  accumulating,  and  to  the  other  sharers  in  surplus- 
value,  to  the  landlords,  the  place-men,  the  beneficed  clergy, 
&c.,  the  business  of  spending.  It  is  of  the  highest  importance, 
he  says,  "to  keep  separate  the  passion  for  expenditure  and  ' 
the  passion  for  accumulation."^  The  capitalists  having  long 
been  good  livers  and  men  of  the  world,  uttered  loud  cries. 
What,  exclaimed  one  of  their  spokesmen,  a  disciple  of 
Ricardo,  Mr.  ]\Ialthus  preaches  high  rents,  heavy  taxes,  &c., 
so  that  the  pressure  of  the  spur  may  constantly  be  kept  on 
the  industrious  by  unproductive  consumers !  By  all  means, 
production,  production  on  a  constantly  increasing  scale,  nms 
the  shibboleth ;  but  "production  will,  by  such  a  process,  be  far 
more  curbed  in  than  spurred  on.  Nor  is  it  quite  fair  thus  to 
maintain  in  idleness  a  number  of  persons,  only  to  pinch  others, 
who  are  likely,  from  their  characters,  if  you  can  force  them  to 
work,  to  work  with  success."^  Unfair  as  he  finds  it  to  spur 
on  the  industrial  capitalist,  by  depriving  his  bread  of  its 
butter,  yet  he  thinks  it  necessary  to  reduce  the  labourer's 
wages  to  a  minimum  "to  keep  him  industrious."  Nor  does 
he  for  a  moment  conceal  the  fact,  that  the  appropriation  of  un- 
paid labour  is  tlie  secret  of  surplus-value.  "Increased  de- 
mand on  the  part  of  the  labourers  means  nothing  more  than 
their  willingness  to  take  less  of  their  own  product  for  them- 
selves, and  leave  a  greater  part  of  it  to  their  employer ;  and  if 
it  be  said,  that  this  begets  glut,  by  lessening  consumption" 
(on  the  part  of  the  labourers),  "I  can  only  reply  that  glut 
is  synonymous  with  large  profits."  ^ 

The  learned  disputation,  how  the  booty  pumped  out  of  the 
labourer  may  be  divided,  with  most  advantage  to  accumulation, 
between  the  industrial  capitalist  and  the  rich  idler,  was 
hushed  in  face  of  the  revolution  of  July.  Shortly  after- 
wards, the  town  proletariat  at  Lyons  sounded  the  tocsin  of 

1  Malthus,  1.  c,  p.  319,  320. 

*  An   Inquiry  into   those   Principles  respecting  the  Nature  of  Demand,  &c.,  p.  67. 

M.  c,  p.  50. 


654  Capitalist  Production. 

revolution,  and  the  country  proletariat  in  England  began  to 
set  fire  to  farmyards  and  comstacks.  On  this  side  of  the 
Channel  Owenism  began  to  spread ;  on  the  other  side,  St. 
Simonism  and  Fourierism.  The  hour  of  vulgar  economy  had 
struck.  Exactly  a  year  before  Nassau  W.  Senior  discovered 
at  Manchester,  that  the  profit  (including  interest)  of  capital 
is  the  product  of  the  last  hour  of  the  twelve,  he  had  an- 
nounced to  the  world  another  discovery.  "I  substitute,"  he 
proudly  says,  "for  the  word  capital,  considered  as  an  in- 
strument of  production,  the  word  abstinence."^  An  un- 
paralleled sample  this,  of  the  discoveries  of  vulgar  economy! 
It  substitutes  for  an  economic  category,  a  sycophantic  phrase 
— valid  tout.  "When  the  savage,"  says  Senior,  "makes  bows, 
he  exercises  an  industry,  but  he  does  not  practice  abstinence." 
This  explains  how  and  why,  in  the  earlier  states  of  society, 
the  implements  of  labour  were  fabricated  without  abstinence 
on  the  part  of  the  capitalist.  "The  more  society  progresses, 
the  more  abstinence  is  demanded,"^  namely,  from  those  who 
ply  the  industry  of  appropriating  the  fruits  of  others'  in- 
dustry. All  the  conditions  for  carrying  on  the  labour-process 
are  suddenly  converted  into  so  many  acts  of  abstinence  on 
the  part  of  the  capitalist  If  the  corn  is  not  all  eaten,  but 
part  of  it  also  sown — abstinence  of  the  capitalist.  If  the 
wine  gets  time  to  mature — abstinence  of  the  capitalist.^     The 

*  (Senior,  Principes  fondamentaux  de  I'Econ.  Pol.  trad.  Arrivabeue.  Paris,  1836, 
p.  308).  This  was  rather  too  much  for  the  adherents  of  the  old  classical  school. 
"Mr.  Senior  has  substituted  for  it"  (the  expression,  labour  and  profit)  "the  expres- 
sion Labour  and  Abstinence.  He  who  converts  his  revenue  abstains  from  the 
enjoyment  which  its  expenditure  would  afford  him.  It  is  not  the  capital,  but  the 
use  of  the  capital  productively,  which  is  the  cause  of  profits."  (John  Cazenove,  1.  c. 
p.  130,  Note.)  John  St.  Mill,  on  the  contrary,  accepts  on  the  one  hand  Ricardo's 
theory  of  profit,  and  annexes  on  the  other  hand  Senior's  "remuneration  of  absti- 
nence." He  i3  as  much  at  home  in  absurd  contradictions,  as  he  feels  at  sea  in  the 
Hegelian  contradiction,  the  source  of  all  dialectic.  It  has  never  occurred  to  the 
vulgar  economist  to  make  the  simple  reflexion,  that  every  human  action  may  be 
viewed,  as  "abstinence"  from  its  opposite.  Eating  is  abstinence  from  fasting,  walk- 
ing, abstinence  from  standing  still,  working,  abstinence  from  idling,  idling  absti- 
nence from  working,  &c.  These  gentlemen  would  do  well,  to  ponder,  once  in  a  way, 
over  Spinoza's:  "Determinatio  est  Negatio." 
'  Senior,  1.  c.  p.  342. 

*  "No   one     .     .     .     will   sow   his   wheat,    for   instance,   and   allow   it   to   remain   a  • 
twelve-month  in  the  ground,  or  leave  his  wine  in  a  cellar  for  years,  instead  of  con- 
suming these  things  or  their  equivalent  at  once     .     .     .     unless  he  expects  to  acquire 
additional   value,   &c."     (Scropr,    Polit.    Econ.   edit,   by  A.    Potter,    New   York,    1841, 
p.   133-134.) 


Conversion  of  Surplus-Value  into  Capital.  655 

capitalist  robs  his  own  self,  whenever  he  "lends  (!)  the  in- 
struments of  production  to  the  labourer,"  that  is,  whenever 
by  incorporating  labour-power  with  them,  he  uses  them  to  ex- 
tract surplus-value  out  of  that  labour-power,  instead  of  eating 
them  up,  steam-engines,  cotton,  railways,  manure,  horses,  and 
all;  or  as  the  vulgar  economist  childishly  puts  it,  instead  of 
dissipating  "their  value"  in  luxuries  and  other  articles  of  con- 
sumption.^ How  the  capitalist  as  a  class  are  to  perform  that 
feat,  is  a  secret  that  yulgar  economy  has  hitherto  obstinately 
refused  to  divulge.  Enough,  that  the  world  still  jogs  on, 
solely  through  the  self-chastisement  of  this  modem  penitent 
of  Vishnu,  the  capitalist.  ISTot  only  accumulation,  but  the 
simple  "conservation  of  a  capital  requires  a  constant  effort  to 
resist  the  temptation  of  consuming  it."^  The  simple  dictates 
of  humanity  therefore  plainly  enjoin  the  release  of  the  capital- 
ist from  this  martyrdom  and  temptation,  in  the  same  way 
that  the  Georgian  slave-owner  was  lately  delivered,  by  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  from  the  painful  dilemma,  whether  to 
squander  the  surplus-product  lashed  out  of  his  niggers,  en- 
tirely in  champagne,  or  whether  to  reconvert  a  part  of  it, 
into  more  niggers  and  more  land. 

In  economic  forms  of  society'  of  the  most  different  kinds, 
there  occurs,  not  only  simple  reproduction,  but,  in  varying  de- 
grees, reproduction  on  a  progressively  increasing  scale.  By 
degrees  more  is  produced  and  more  consumed,  and  conse- 
quently more  products  have  to  be  converted  into  means  of 
production.  This  process,  however,  does  not  present  itself  as 
accumulation  of  capital,  nor  as  the  function  of  a  capitalist, 
so  long  as  the  labourer's  means  of  production,  and  with  them, 
his  product  and  means  of  subsistence,  do  not  confront  him  in 
the  shape  of  capital.^  Richard  Jones,  who  died  a  few  years 
ago,   and  was  the  successor  of  Malthus  in  the  chair  of  po- 

*  "La  privation  que  s'impose  le  capitaliste,  en  pretant  (this  euphemism  used,  for 
the  purpose  of  identifying,  according  to  the  approved  method  of  vulgar  economy, 
the  labourer  who  is  exploited,  with  the  industrial  capitalist  who  exploits,  and  to 
whom  other  capitalists  lend  money)  ses  instruments  de  production  au  travailleur, 
au  lieu  d'en  consacrer  la  valeur  a  son  propre  usage,  en  la  transforment  en  objets 
d'utilite  ou  d'agrement."      (G.  de  Molinari,   I.   c.  p.  49.) 

*  "La  conservation  d'un  capital  exige  .  .  .  un  effort  constant  pour  resister  a  la 
tentation   de   le   consommer."      (Courcelles-Seneuil,   1.    c.   p.    57.) 

*  "The  particular  classes  of  income  which  yield  the  most  abundantly  to  the    prog- 


656  Capitalist  Production. 

litical  ecouomy  at  Ilaileybury  College,  discusses  this  point 
well  iu  the  light  of  two  important  facts.  Since  the  great  mass 
of  the  Hindoo  population  are  peasants  cultivating  their  land 
themselves,  their  products,  their  instruments  of  labour  and 
means  of  subsistence  never  take  "the  shape  of  a  fund  saved 
from  revenue,  which  fund  has,  therefore,  gone  through  a 
previous  process  of  accumulation."  ^  On  the  other  hand,  the 
non-agricultural  labourers  in  those  provinces  where  the  Eng- 
lish rule  has  least  disturbed  the  old  system,  are  directly  em- 
ployed by  the  magnates,  to  whom  a  portion  of  the  agricultural 
surplus-product  is  rendered  in  the  shape  of  tribute  or  rent. 
One  portion  of  this  product  is  consumed  by  the  magnates  in 
kind,  another  is  converted,  for  their  use,  by  the  labourers,  into 
articles  of  luxury  and  such  like  things;  while  the  rest  forms 
the  wages  of  the  labourers,  who  own  their  implements  of 
labour.  Here,  production  and  reproduction  on  a  progressively 
increasing  scale,  go  on  their  way  without  any  intervention 
from  that  queer  saint,  that  knight  of  the  woeful  countenance, 
the  capitalist  "abstainer."' 

SECTION    4. CIBCUMSTANCES    THAT,    INDEPENDENTLY    OF    THE 

DIVISION  OP  SUBPLUS-VALUE  INTO  CAPITAL  AND  REVENUE, 
DETERMINE  THE  AMOUNT  OF  ACCUMULATION.  DEGREE  OF 
EXPLOITATION  OF  LABOURrPOWER.  PRODUCTIVITY  OP 
LABOUR.  GROWING  DIFFERENCE  IN  AMOUNT  BETWEEN 
CAPITAL  EMPLOYED  AND  CAPITAL  CONSUMED.  MAGNI- 
TUDE OF  CAPITAL  ADVANCED. 

The  proportion  in  which  surplus-value  breaks  up  into 
capital  and  revenue  being  given,  the  magnitude  of  the  capital 
accumulated  clearly  depends  on  the  absolute  magnitude  of  the 
surplus-value.     Suppose  that  80  per  cent,   were  capitalised 

ress  of  national  capital,  change  at  different  stages  of  their  progress,  and  are,  there- 
fore, entirely  different  in  nations  occupying  different  positions  in  that  progress 
.  .  .  Profits  .  .  .  unimportant  source  of  accumulation,  compared  with  wages 
and  rents,  in  the  earlier  stages  of  society  .  .  .  When  a  considerable  advance  in 
the  powers  of  national  industry  has  actually  taken  place,  profits  rise  into  comparative 
importance  as  a  source  of  accumulation."  (Richard  Jones.  Textbook,  &c.,  p.  16.  21.) 
*  1.  c.  p.  30,  sq. — Note  to  the  4th  German  edition. — This  must  be  a  misuke.  This 
passage  has  not  been   located.     F.   E. — 


Conversion  of  Surplus-l'^alue  into  Capital.         657 

and  20  per  cent,  eaten  up,  the  aocnnuilated  capital  will  be 
£2,400  or  £1,200,  according  as  the  total  surplus-value  has 
amounted  to  £3,000  or  £1,500.  Hence  all  the  circumstances 
that  determine  the  mass  of  surplus-value,  operate  to  determine 
the  magnitude  of  the  accumulation.  We  sum  them  up  once 
again,  but  only  in  so  far  as  they  afford  new  points  of  view  in 
regard  to  accumulation. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  rate  of  surplus-value  de- 
pends, in  the  first  place,  on  the  degree  of  exploitation  of 
labour-power.  Political  economy  values  this  fact  so  highly, 
that  it  occasionally  identifies  the  acceleration  of  accumulation 
due  to  increased  productiveness  of  labour,  with  its  acceleration 
dut  to  increased  exploitation  of  the  labourer.-^  In  the  chapters 
on  the  production  of  surplus-value  it  was  constantly  presup- 
posed that  wages  are  at  least  equal  to  the  value  of  labour- 
power.  Forcible  reduction  of  wages  below  this  value  plays, 
however,  in  practice  too  important  a  part,  for  us  not  to  pause 
upon  it  for  a  moment.  It,  in  fact,  transforms,  within  certain 
limits,  the  labourer's  necessary  consumption-fund  into  a  fund 
for  the  accumulation  of  capital. 

"Wages,"  says  John  Stuart  Mill,  "have  no  productive 
power;  they  are  the  price  of  productive-power.  Wages  do 
not  contribute,  along  with  labour,  to  the  production  of  com- 
modities, no  more  than  the  price  of  tools  contributes  along 
with  the  tools  themselves.  If  labour  could  be  had  without 
purchase,  wages!  might  be  dispensed  with."^  But  if  the 
labourers  could  live  on  air  they  could  not  be  bought  at  any 
price.  The  zero  of  their  cost  is  therefore  a  limit  in  a  mathe- 
matical sense,  always  beyond  reach,  although  we  can  always 

*  "Ricardo  says:  'In  different  stages  of  society  the  accumulation  of  capital  or  of  the 
means  of  employing"  {i.e.,  exploiting)  "labour  is  more  or  less  rapid,  and  must  in  all 
cases  depend  on  the  productive  powers  of  labour.  Tlie  productive  powers  of  labour 
are  generally  greatest  where  there  is  an  abundance  of  fertile  land.'  If,  in  the  first 
sentence,  the  productive  powers  of  labour  mean  the  smallness  of  that  aliquot  part  of 
any  produce  that  goes  to  those  whose  manual  labor  produced  it,  the  sentence  is 
nearly  identical,  because  the  remaining  aliquot  part  is  the  fund  whence  capital  can, 
if  the  owner  pleases,  be  accumulated.  But  then  this  does  not  generally  happen,  where 
there  is  most  fertile  land."  ("Observations  on  certain  verbal  disputes,  &c.,"  pp. 
74,  75.) 

*  J.  Stuart  Mill:  "Essays  on  some  unsettled  questions  of  Political  Economy  Lond., 
1849,"  p.  90. 

SP 


658  Capitalist  Production. 

approximate  more  and  more  nearly  to  it.  The  constant 
tendency  of  capital  is  to  force  the  cost  of  labour  back  towards 
this  zero.  A  writer  of  the  18th  century,  often  quoted  already, 
the  author  of  the  "Essay  on  Trade  and  Commerce,"  only  be- 
trays the  innennost  secret  soul  of  English  capitalism,  when 
he  declares  the  historic  mission  of  England  to  be  the  forcing 
down  of  English  wages  to  the  level  of  the  French  and  the 
Dutch.^  With  other  things  he  says  naively:  "But  if  our 
poor"  (technical  term  for  labourers)  "will  live  luxuriously 
.  .  .  then  labour  must,  of  course,  be  dear.  .  .  .  When 
it  is  considered  what  luxuries  the  manufacturing  populace 
consume,  such  as  brandy,  gin,  tea,  sugar,  foreign  fruit,  strong 
beer,  printed  linens,  snuff,  tobacco,  &c."^  He  quotes  the 
work  of  a  Northamptonshire  manufacturer,  who,  with  eyes 
squinting  heavenward,  moans :  "Labour  is  one-third  cheaper  in 
France  than  in  England ;  for  their  poor  work  hard,  and  fare 
hard,  as  to  their  food  and  clothing.  Their  chief  diet  is  bread, 
fruit,  herbs,  roots,  and  dried  fish ;  for  they  very  seldom  eat 
flesh;  and  when  wheat  is  dear,  they  eat  very  little  bread."^ 
"To  which  may  be  added,"  our  essayist  goes  on,  "that  their 
drink  is  either  water  or  other  small  liquors,  so  that  they  spend 
very  little  money.  .  .  .  These  things  are  very  difficult  to 
be  brought  about;  but  they  are  not  impracticable,  since  they 
have  been  effected  both  in  France  and  in  Holland."^     Twenty 

*  "An  Essay  on  Trade  and  Commerce,  Lond.,  1770,"  p.  44.  The  "Times"  of 
December,  1866,  and  January,  1867,  in  like  manner  published  certain  outpourings  of 
the  heart  of  the  English  mineowner,  in  which  the  happy  lot  of  the  Belgian  miners 
was  pictured,  who  asked  and  received  no  more  than  was  strictly  necessary  for  them 
to  live  for  their  "masters."  The  Belgian  labourers  have  to  suffer  much,  but  to 
figure  in  the  "Times"  as  model  labourers!  In  the  beginning  of  February,  1867,  came 
the  answer:  strike  of  the  Belgian  miners  at  Marchienne,  put  down  by  powder  and 
lead, 

'  1.  c,  pp.  44,  46. 

*  The  Northamptonshire  manufacturer  commits  a  pious  fraud,  pardonable  in  one 
whose  heart  is  so  full.  He  nominally  compares  the  life  of  the  English  and  French 
manufacturing  labourer,  but  in  the  words  just  quoted  he  is  painting,  as  he  himself 
confesses  in  his  confused  way,  the  French  agricultural  labourers. 

*1.  c,  p.  70,  71.  Note  to  the  3rd  edition:  Today,  thanks  to  the  competition  on  the 
world-market,  established  since  then,  we  have  advanced  much  further.  "If  China," 
says  Mr.  Stapleton,  M.  P.,  to  his  constituents,  "should  become  a  great  manufacturing 
country,  I  do  not  see  how  the  manufacturing  population  of  Europe  could  sustain  the 
contest  without  descending  to  the  level  of  their  competitors."  ("Times,"  Sept.  9, 
1873,  p.  8.)  The  wished-for  goal  of  English  capital  is  no  longer  Continental  wages 
but  Chinese. 


Conversion  of  Surplus-Value  into  Capital.         659 

years  later,  an  American  humbug,  the  baronised  Yankee,  Ben- 
jamin Thompson  (alias  Count  Kumford)  followed  the  same 
line  of  philanthropy  to  the  great  satisfaction  of  God  and  man. 
His  "Essays"  are  a  cookery  book  with  receipts  of  all  kinds  for 
replacing  by  some  succedaneum  the  ordinary  dear  food  of  the 
labourer.  The  following  is  a  particularly  successful  receipt 
of  this  wonderful  philosopher :  "5  lbs.  of  barley  meal,  Y^d. ; 
5  lbs.  of  Indian  com,  Q-ld. ;  3d.  worth  of  red  herring,  Id. 
salt.  Id.  vinegar,  2d.  pepper  and  sweet  herbs,  in  all  20f  d. ; 
make  a  soup  for  64  men,  and  at  the  medium  price  of  barley 
and  of  Indian  com  .  .  .  this  soup  may  be  provided  at 
^d,  the  portion  of  20  ounces."^  With  the  advance  of  capital- 
istic production,  the  adulteration  of  food  rendered  Thomp- 
son's ideal  superfluous.^  At  the  end  of  the  18th  and  during 
the  first  ten  years  of  the  19th  century,  the  English  farmers 
and  landlords  enforced  the  absolute  minimum  of  wage,  by 
paying  the  agricultural  labourers  less  than  the  minimum  in 
the  form  of  wages,  and  the  remainder  in  the  shape  of  pa- 
rochial relief.  An  example  of  the  waggish  way  in  which  the 
English  Dogberries  acted  in  their  "legal"  fixing  of  a  wages 
tariff:  "The  squires  of  !N"orfolk  had  dined,  says  Mr.  Burke, 
when  they  fixed  the  rate  of  wages ;  the  squires  of  Berks  evi- 
dently thought  the  labourers  ought  not  to  do  so,  when  they 
fixed  the  rate  of  wages  at  Speenhamland,  1795.  . 
There  they  decide  that  income  (weekly)  should  be  3s,  for  a 

*  Benjamin  Thompson:  Essays,  Political,  Economical,  and  Philosophical,  &c.,  3 
vols.,  Lond.,  1790-1802,  vol.  i.,  p.  288.  In  his  "The  State  of  the  Poor,  or  an  History 
of  the  Labouring  Classes  in  England,  &c.,"  Sir  F.  M.  Eden  strongly  recommends  the 
Rumfordian  beggar-soup  to  workhouse  overseers,  and  reproachfully  warns  the  English 
labourers  that  "many  poor  people,  particularly  in  Scotland,  live,  and  that  very  com- 
fortably, for  months  together,  upon  oat-meal  and  barley-meal,  mixed  with  only  water 
and  salt."  (1.  c,  vol.  i.,  book  i.,  ch.  2.,  p.  503.)  The  same  sort  of  hints  in  the  19th 
century.  "The  most  wholesome  mixtures  of  flour  having  been  refused  (by  the 
English  agricultural  labourer)  ....  in  Scotland,  where  education  is  better, 
this  prejudice  is,  probably,  unknown."  (Charles  H.  Parry,  M.D. :  The  question  of 
the  necessity  of  the  existing  Corn  Laws  considered.  London,  1816,  p.  69.)  This 
same  Parry,  however,  complains  that  the  English  labourer  is  now  (1815)  in  a  much 
worse  condition   than  in   Eden's  time    (1787). 

*  From  the  reports  of  the  last  Parliamentary  Commission  on  adulteration  of  means 
of  subsistence,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  adulteration  even  of  medicines  is  the  rule,  not 
the  exception  of  England.  E.g.,  the  examination  of  34  specimens  of  opium,  pur- 
chased of  as  many  different  chemists  in  London,  showed  that  31  were  adulterated 
with  poppy  heads,  wheat-flour,  gum,  clay,  sand,  &c.  Several  did  not  contain  an  atom 
of  morphia.  ' 


66o  Capitalist  Production. 

nian,'  when  the  gallon  or  half -peck  loaf  of  8  lbs.  11  oz.  is 
at  Is.,  and  increase  regularly  till  bread  is  Is.  5d. ;  when  it  is 
above  that  sum,  decrease  regularly  till  it  be  at  2s.,  and  then 
his  food  slwuld  he  -^th  less."*  Before  the  Committee  of  In- 
quiry of  the  House  of  Lords,  1814,  a  certain  A.  Bennett,  a 
large  farmer,  magistrate,  poor-law  guardian,  and  wage-regu- 
lator, was  asked:  "Has  any  proportion  of  the  value  of  daily 
labour  been  made  up  to  the  labourers  out  of  the  poors'  rate  ?" 
Answer :  "Yes,  it  has ;  the  weekly  income  of  every  family  is 
made  up  to  the  gallon  loaf  (8  lbs.  11  oz.),  and  3d.  per  head! 
.  .  .  The  gallon  loaf  per  week  is  what  we  suppose  suffi- 
cient for  the  maintenance  of  every  person  in  the  family  for 
the  week ;  and  the  3d.  is  for  clothes,  and  if  the  parish  think 
proper  to  find  clothes,  the  3d.  is  deducted.  This  practice  goes 
through  all  the  western  part  of  Wiltshire,  and,  I  believe, 
throughout  the  country."^  "For  years,"  exclaims  a  bourgeois 
author  of  that  time,  "they  (the  farmers)  have  degraded  a  re- 
spectable class  of  their  countrymen,  by  forcing  them  to  have 
recourse  to  the  workhouse  .  .  .  the  farmer,  while  in- 
creasing his  own  gains,  has  prevented  any  accumulation  on  the 
part  t)f  his  labouring  dependants."*  The  part  played  in  our 
days  by  the  direct  robbery  from  the  labourer's  necessary  con- 
sumption-fund in  the  formation  of  surplus-value,  and,  there- 
fore, of  the  accumulation  fund  of  capital,  the  so-called  do- 
mestic industry  has  served  to  show.  (Ch.  xv.,  sect.  8,  c.) 
Further  facts  on  this  subject  will  be  given  later. 

Although  in  all  branches  of  industry  that  part  of  the 
constant  capital  consisting  of  instruments  of  labour  must  be 
sufficient  for  a  certain  number  of  labourers  (determined  by 
the  magnitude  of  the  undertaking),  it  by  no  means  always 
necessarily  increases  in  the  same  proportion  as  the  quantity 
of  labour  employed.     In  a  factory,  suppose  that  100  labourers 

*G.  B.  Newnham  (barrister-at-law) :  "A  Review  of  the  Evidence  before  the  Com- 
mittee of  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament  on  the  Corn  Laws.  Lond.,  1815,"  p.  28, 
note. 

*1.  c,  pp.  19,  20. 

»  C.  H.  Parry,  1.  c,  pp.  77,  69.  The  landlords,  on  their  side,  not  only  "indemni- 
fied" themselves  for  the  Anti-jacobin  war,  which  they  waged  in  the  name  of  Eng- 
land, but  enriched  themselves  enormously.  Their  rents  doubled,  trebled,  quadrupled, 
"and  in  one  instance,  increased  sixfold  in  eighteen  years."  (1.  c,  pp.  100,  101.) 


Conversion  of  Surplus-Value  into  Capital.        66 1 

working  8  hours  a  day  yield  800  -wGrking-hours.  If  the 
capitalist  wishes  to  raise  this  sum  by  one  half,  he  can  em- 
ploy 50  more  workers;  but  then  he  must  also  advance  more 
capital,  not  merely  for  wages,  but  for  instruments  of  labour. 
But  he  might  also  let  the  100  labourers  work  12  hours  in- 
stead of  8,  and  then  the  instruments  of  labour  already  on  hand 
would  be  enough.  These  would  them  simply  be  more  rapidly 
consumed.  Thus  additional  labour,  begotten  of  the  greater 
tension  of  labour-power,  can  augment  surplus-product  and  sur- 
plus-value (i.e.,  the  subject  matter  of  accumulation),  without 
corresponding  augmentation  in  the  constant  part  of  capital. 

In  the  extractive  industries,  mines,  &c.,  the  raw  materials 
form  no  part  of  the  capital  advanced.  The  subject  of  labour 
is  in  this  case  not  a  product  of  previous  labour,  but  is  furn- 
ished by  N^ature  gratis,  as  in  the  case  of  metals,  minerals,  coal, 
stone,  &c.  In  these  cases  the  constant  capital  consists  almost 
exclusively  of  instruments  of  labour,  which  can  very  well  ab- 
sorb an  increased  quantity  of  labour  (day  and  night  shifts 
of  labourers,  e.g.).  All  other  things  being  equal,  the  mass 
and  value  of  the  product  will  rise  in  direct  proportion  to  the 
labour  expended.  As  on  the  first  day  of  production,  the 
original  produce-formers,  now  turned  into  the  creators  of  the 
material  elements  of  capital — man  and  J^ature — still  work  to- 
gether. Thanks  to  the  elasticity  of  labour-power,  the  domain 
of  accumulation  has  extended  without  any  previous  enlarge- 
ment of  constant  capital. 

In  agriculture  the  land  under  cultivation  cannoti  be  in- 
creased without  the  advance  of  more  seed  and  manure.  But 
this  advance  once  made,  the  purely  mechanical  working  of 
the  soil  itself  produces  a  marvellous  effect  on  the  amount  of 
the  product.  A  greater  quantity  of  labour,  done  by  the  same 
number  of  labourers  as  before,  thus  increases  the  fertility, 
without  requiring  any  new  advance  in  the  instruments  of 
labour.  It  is  once  again  the  direct  action  of  man  on  Nature 
which  becomes  an  immediate  source  of  greater  accumulation, 
without  the  intervention  of  any  new  capital. 

Finally,  in  what  is  called  manufacturing  industry,  every 
additional  expenditure  of  labour  presupposes  a  corresponding 


662  '        Capitalist  Production. 

additional  expenditure  of  raw  materials,  but  not  necessarily 
of  instruments  of  labour.  And  as  extractive  industry  and 
agriculture  supply  manufacturing  industry  with  its  raw  ma- 
terials and  those  of  its  instruments  of  labour,  the  additional 
product  the  former  have  created  without  additional  advance 
of  capital,  tells  also  in  favour  of  the  latter. 

General  result :  by  incorporating  with  itself  the  two  primary 
creators  of  wealth,  labour-power  and  the  land,  capital  acquires 
a  power  of  expansion  that  permits  it  to  augument  the  elements 
of  its  accumulation  beyond  the  limits  apparently  fixed  by  its 
own  magnitude,  or  by  the  value  and  the  mass  of  the  means  of 
production,  already  produced,  in  which  it  has  its  being. 

Another  important  factor  in  the  accumulation  of  capital  is 
the  degree  of  productivity  of  social  labour. 

With  the  productive  power  of  labour  increases  the  mass  of 
the  products,  in  which  a  certain  value,  and  therefore,  a  sur- 
plus-value of  a  given  magnitude,  is  embodied.     The  rate  of 
surplus-value  remaining  the  same  or  even  falling,  so  long  as 
it  only  falls  more  slowly,  than  the  productive  power  of  labour 
rises,  the  mass  of  the  surplus-product  increases.     The  division 
of  this  product  into  revenue  and  additional  capital  remaining 
the  same,  the  consumption  of  the  capitalist  may,  therefore,  in- 
crease without  any  decrease  in  the  fund  of  accumulation.    The 
relative  magnitude  of  the  accumulation  fund  may  even  in- 
crease at  the  expense  of  the  consumption  fund,  whilst  the 
cheapening  of  commodities  places  at  the  disposal  of  the  capital- 
ist as  many  means  of  enjoyment  as  formerly,  or  even  more 
than  formerly.     But  hand-in-hand  with  the  increasing  pro- 
ductivity of  labour,  goes,  as  we  have  seen,  the  cheapening  of 
the  labourer,  therefore  a  higher  rate  of  surplus-value,  even 
when  the  real  wages  are  rising.     The  latter  never  rise  pro- 
portionally to  the  productive  power  of  labour.      The  same 
value  in  variable  capital  therefore  sets   in  movement  more 
labour-power,  and,  therefore,  more  labour.     The  same  value 
in  constant  capital  is  embodied  in  more  means  of  production, 
i.e.^  in  more  instruments  of  labour,  materials  of  labour  and 
auxiliary  materials;  it  therefore  also  supplies  more  elements 
for  the  production  both  of  use-value  and  of  value,  and  with 


Conversion  of  Surplus-Value  into  Capital.  663 

these  more  absorbers  of  labour.  The  value  of  the  additional 
capital,  therefore,  remaining  the  same  or  even  diminishing, 
accelerated  accumulation  still  takes  place.  Not  only  does  the 
scale  of  reproduction  materially  extend,  but  the  production 
of  surplus-value  increases  more  rapidly  than  the  value  of  the 
additional  capital. 

The  development  of  the  productive  power  of  labour  reacts 
also  on  the  original  capital  already  engaged  in  the  process  of 
production.  A  part  of  the  functioning  constant  capital  con- 
sists of  instruments  of  labour  such  as  machinery,  &c.,  which 
are  not  consumed,  and  therefore  not  reproduced,  or  replaced 
by  new  ones  of  the  same  kind,  until  after  long  periods  of  time. 
But  every  year  a  part  of  these  instruments  of  labour  perishes 
or  reaches  the  limit  of  its  productive  function.  It  reaches, 
therefore,  in  that  year,  the  time  for  its  periodical  reproduc- 
tion, for  its  replacement  by  new  ones  of  the  same  kind.  If  the 
productiveness  of  labour  has,  during  the  using  up  of  these  in- 
struments of  labour,  increased  (and  it  developes  continually 
with  the  uninterrupted  advance  of  science  and  technology), 
more  efficient  and  (considering  their  increased  efficiency), 
cheaper  machines,  tools,  apparatus,  &c.,  replace  the  old.  The 
old  capital  is  reproduced  in  a  more  productive  form,  apart 
from  the  constant  detail  improvements  in  the  instruments  of 
labour  already  in  use.  The  other  part  of  the  constant  capital, 
raw  material  and  auxiliary  substances,  is  constantly  repro- 
duced in  less  than  a  year;  those  produced  by  agriculture,  for 
the  most  part  annually.  Every  introduction  of  improved 
methods,  therefore,  works  almost  simultaneously  on  the  new 
capital  and  on  that  already  in  action.  Every  advance  in 
Chemistry  not  only  multiplies  the  number  of  useful  materials 
and  the  useful  applications  of  tliose  already  known,  thus  ex- 
tending with  the  growth  of  capital  its  sphere  of  investment. 
It  teaches  at  the  same  time  how  to  throw  the  excrements  of 
the  processes  of  production  and  consumption  back  again  into 
the  circle  of  the  process  of  reproduction,  and  thus,  without 
any  previous  outlay  of  capital,  creates  new  matter  for  capital. 
Like  the  increased  exploitation  of  natural  wealth  by  the  mere 
increase  in  the  tension  of  labour-power,  science  and  technology 


664  Capitalist  Production. 

give  capital  a  power  of  expansion  independent  of  the  given 
magnitude  of  the  capital  actually  functioning.  They  react  at 
the  same  time  on  that  part  of  the  original  capital  which  has  en- 
tered upon  its  stage  of  renewal.  This,  in  passing  into  its  new 
shape,  incorporates  gratis  the  social  advance  made  while  its 
old  shape  was  being  used  up.  Of  course,  this  development 
of  productive  power  is  accompanied  by  a  partial  depreciation 
of  functioning  capital.  So  far  as  this  depreciation  makes 
itself  acutely  felt  in  competition,  the  burden  falls  on  the 
labourer,  in  the  increased  exploitation  of  whom  the  capitalist 
looks  for  his  indemnification. 

Labour  transmits  to  its  product  the  value  of  the  means  of 
production  consumed  by  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  value  and 
mass  of  the  means  of  production  set  in  motion  by  a  given 
quantity  of  labour  increase  as  the  labour  becomes  more  pro- 
ductive. Though  the  same  quantity  of  labour  adds  always  to 
its  products  only  the  same  sum  of  new  value,  still  the  old 
capital-value,  transmitted  by  the  labour  to  the  products,  in- 
creases with  the  growing  productivity  of  labour. 

An  English  and  Chinese  spinner,  e.g.,  may  work  the  same 
number  of  hours  with  the  same  intensity ;  then  they  will  both 
in  a  week  create  equal  values.  But  in  spite  of  this  equality, 
an  immense  difference  will  obtain  between  the  value  of  the 
week's  product  of  the  Englishman,  who  works  with  a  mighty 
automaton,  and  that  of  the  Chinaman,  who  has  but  a  spinning 
wheel.  In  the  same  time  as  the  Chinaman  cpins  one  pound  of 
cotton,  the  Englishman  spins  several  hundreds  of  pounds.  A 
sum,  many  himdred  times  as  great,  of  old  values  swells  the 
value  of  his  product,  in  which  those  reappear  in  a  new,  useful 
form,  and  can  thus  function  anew  as  capital.  "In  1782,"  as 
Frederick  Engels  teaches  us,  "all  the  wool  crop  in  England  of 
the  three  preceding  years,  lay  untouched  for  want  of  labour- 
ers, and  so  it  must  have  lain,  if  newly  invented  machineiy  had 
not  come  to  its  aid  and  spun  it."*  Labour  embodied  in  the 
form  of  machinery  of  course  did  not  directly  force  into  life 
a  single  man,  but  it  made  it  possible  for  a  smaller  number  of 
labourers,  with  the  addition  of  relatively  less  living  labour, 

^  Frederick  Engels,  "Lage  dcr  arbeitenden  Klasse  in  England,"  p.  20. 


Conversion  of  Surplus-Value  into  Capital.         665 

not  only  to  consume  the  wool  productively,  and  put  into  it 
new  value,  but  to  preserve  in  tlie  form  of  yam,  &c.,  its  old 
value.  At  the  same  time,  it  caused  and  stimulated  increased 
reproduction  of  wool.  It  is  the  natural  property  of  living 
labour,  to  transmit  old  value,  whilst  it  creates  new.  Hence, 
with  the  increase  in  efficacy,  extent  and  value  of  its  means 
of  production,  consequently  with  the  accumulation  that  ac- 
companies the  development  of  its  productive  power,  labour 
keeps  up  and  eternises  an  always  increasing  capital-value  in 
a  form  ever  new.-^     This  natural  power  of  labour  takes  the 

^  Classic  economy  has,  on  account  of  a  deficient  analysis  of  the  labour-process,  and 
of  the  process  of  creating  value,  never  properly  grasped  this  weighty  element  of  re- 
production, as  may  be  seen  in  Ricardo;  he  says,  e.g.,  whatever  the  change  in  pro- 
ductive power,  "a  million  men  always  produce  in  manufactures  the  same  valde." 
This  is  accurate,  if  the  extension  and  degree  of  intensity  of  their  labour  are  given. 
But  it  does  not  prevent  (this  Ricardo  overlooks  in  certain  conclusions  he  draws)  a 
million  men  with  different  powers  of  productivity  in  their  labour,  turning  into 
products  very  different  masses  of  the  means  of  production,  and  therefore  preserving 
in  their  products  very  different  masses  of  value;  in  consequence  of  which  the  values 
of  the  products  yielded  may  vary  considerably.  Ricardo  has,  it  may  be  noted  in 
passing,  tried  in  vain  to  make  clear  to  J.  B.  Say,  by  that  very  example,  the  difference 
between  use-value  (which  he  here  calls  wealth  or  material  riches)  and  exchange- 
value.  Say  answers:  "Quant  a  la  difficulte  qu'eleve  Mr.  Ricardo  en  disant  que,  par 
des  procedes  mieux  entendus,  un  million  de  personnes  peuvent  produire  deux  fois, 
trois  fois  autant  de  richesses,  sans  produire  plus  de  valeurs,  cette  difficulte  n'est  pas 
line  lorsque  Ton  considere,  ainsi  qu'on  le  doit,  la  production  comme  un  echange  dans 
Icquel  on  donne  les  services  productifs  de  son  travail,  de  sa  terre,  et  de  ses  capitaux, 
pour  obtenir  des  produits.  C'est  par  le  moyen  de  ces  services  productifs,  que  nous 
acquerons  tous  les  produits  qui  sont  au  monde.  Or  ...  .  nous  sommes 
d'autant  plus  riches  nos  services  productifs  ont  d'autant  plus  de  valeur  qu'ils  obtiennent 
dans  I'echange  appele  production  une  plus  grande  quantite  de  choses  utiles."  (J. 
B.  Say;  "Lettres  a  M.  Malthus,  Paris,  1820,"  pp.  168,  169.)  The  "difficulte" — it 
exists  for  him,  not  for  Ricardo — that  Say  means  to  clear  up  is  this:  Why  does 
not  the  exchange-value  of  the  use-values  increase,  when  their  quantity  increases  in 
consequence  of  increased  productive  power  of  labour?  Answer;  the  difficulty  is 
met  by  calling  use-value,  exchange-value,  if  you  please.  Exchange-value  is  a  thing 
tlrat  is  connected  one  way  or  another  with  exchange.  If  therefore  production  is 
called  an  exchange  of  labour  and  means  of  production  against  the  product,  it  is 
clear  as  day  that  you  obtain  more  exchange-value  in  proportion  as  the  production 
yields  more  use-value.  In  other  words,  the  more  use-values,  e.g.,  stockings,  a  working 
day  yields  to  the  stocking-manufacturer,  the  richer  is  he  in  stockings.  Suddenly, 
however,  Say  recollects  that  "with  a  greater  quantity"  of  stockings  their  "price" 
(which  of  course  has  nothing  to  do  with  their  exchange-value!)  falls  "parce  que  la 
concurrence  les  (les  producteurs)  oblige  a  donner  les  produits  pour  ce  qu'ils  leur 
coutent."  But  whence  does  the  profit  come,  if  the  capitalist  sells  the  commodities 
at  cost  price?  Never  mind!  Say  declares  that,  in  consequence  of  increased  pro- 
ductivity, every  one  now  receives  in  return  for  a  given  equivalent  two  pairs  of  stock- 
ings instead  of  one  as  before.  The  result  he  arrives  at,  is  precisely  that  proposition 
of  Ricardo  that  he  aimed  at  disproving.  After  this  mighty  effort  of  thought,  he 
triumphantly  apostrophises  Malthus  in  the  words:  "Telle  est,  monsieur,  la  doctrine 
bien  liee,  sans  laquelle  il   est  impossible,  je  Ic  declare,   d'expliquer  les  plus  grandes 


666  Capitalist  Production. 

appearance  of  an  intrinsic  property  of  capital,  in  wliicli  it  is 
incorporated,  just  as  the  productive  forces  of  social  labour 
take  the  appearance  of  inherent  properties  of  capital,  and 
as  the  constant  appropriation  of  surplus-labour  by  the  capital- 
ists, takes  that  of  a  constant  self-expansion  of  capital. 

With  the  increase  of  capital,  the  difference  between  the 
capital  employed  and  the  capital  consumed  increases.  In 
other  words,  there  is  increase  in  the  value  and  the  material 
mass  of  the  instruments  of  labour,  such  as  buildings,  ma- 
chinery, drain-pipes,  working-cattle,  apparatus  of  every  kind 
that  function  for  a  longer  or  shorter  time  in  processes  of  pro- 
duction constantly  repeated,  or  that  serve  for  the  attain- 
ment of  particular  useful  effects,  whilst  they  themselves  only 
gradually  wear  out,  therefore  only  lose  their  value  piece- 
meal, therefore  transfer  that  value  of  the  product  only  bit  by 
bit.  In  the  same  proportion  as  these  instruments  of  labour 
serve  as  product-formers  without  adding  value  to  the  product, 
i.e.,  in  the  same  proportion  as  they  are  wholly  employed 
but  only  partly  consumed,  they  perform,  as  we  saw  earlier, 
the  same  gratuitous  service  as  the  natural  forces,  water,  steam, 
air,  electricity,  etc.  This  gratuitous  service  of  past  labour, 
when  seized  and  filled  with  a  soul  by  living  labour,  increases 
with  the  advancing  stages  of  accumulation. 

Since  past  labour  always  disguises  itself  as  capital,  i.e., 
since  the  passive  of  the  labour  of  A,  B,  C,  etc.,  takes  the  form 
of  the  active  of  the  non-labourer  X,  bourgeois  and  political 
economists  are  full  of  praises  of  the  services  of  dead  and  gone 
labour,  which,  according  to  the  Scotch  genius  M'Culloch, 
ought  to  receive  a  special  remuneration  in  the  shape  of  in- 

diflficultes  de  reconomie  politique,  et  notamment,  comment  il  se  peut  qu'une  nation 
soit  plus  riche  lorsque  ses  produits  diminuent  de  valeur,  quoique  la  richesse  soit  dc  la 
valeur."  (1.  c.  p.  170.)  An  English  economist  remarks  upon  the  conjuring  tricks  of 
the  same  nature  that  appear  in  Say's  "Lettres":  "Those  affected  ways  of  talking 
make  up  in  general  that  which  M.  Say  is  pleased  to  call  his  doctrine  and  which  he 
earnestly  urges  Malthus  to  teach  at  Hertford,  as  it  is  already  taught  'dans  plusieurs 
parties  de  I'Europe.'  He  says,  'Si  vous  trouvez  une  physionomie  de  paradoxe  a 
toutes  ces  propositions,  voyez  les  choses  qu'elles  expriment,  et  j'ose  croire  qu'elles 
vous  paraitront  fort  simples  et  fort  raisonnables.'  Doubtless,  and  in  consequence  of 
the  same  process,  they  will  appear  everything  else,  except  original."  (An  Inquiry 
into  those  Principles  respecting  the  Nature  of  Demand,  &c.,  p.  116,  110.) 


Conversion  of  Siir phis-Value  into  Capital.         66^ 

terest,  profit,  etc.^  The  powerful  and  ever-increasing  as- 
sistance given  by  past  labour  to  the  living  labour  process  under 
the  form  of  means  of  production,  is  therefore,  attributed  to 
that  form  of  past  labour  in  which  it  is  alienated,  as  unpaid 
labour,  from  the  worker  himself,  i.e.,  to  its  capitalistic  form. 
The  practical  agents  of  capitalistic  production  and  their  petti- 
fogging ideologists  are  as  unable  to  think  of  the  means  of 
production  as  separate  from  the  antagonistic  social  n.ask  they 
wear  to-day,  as  a  slave-owner  to  think  of  the  worker  himself 
as  distinct  from  his  character  as  a  slave. 

With  a  given  degree  of  exploitation  of  labour-power,  the 
mass  of  the  surplus-value  produced  is  determined  by  the  num- 
ber of  workers  simultaneously  exploited ;  and  this  corresponds, 
although  in  varying  proportions,  with  the  magnitude  of  the 
capital.  The  more,  therefore,  capital  increases  by  means  of 
successive  accumulations,  the  more  does  the  svim  of  the  value 
increase  that  is  divided  into  consumption-ftmd  and  accumu- 
lation-fund. The  capitalist  can  therefore,  live  a  more  jolly 
life,  and  at  the  same  time  show  more  "abstinence."  And, 
finally,  all  the  springs  of  production  act  with  greater  elasticity, 
the  more  its  scale  extends  with  the  mass  of  the  capital  ad- 
vanced. 

SBOnON  5. THE  SO-CALLED  LABOUR  FUND. 

It  has  been  shown  in  the  course  of  this  inquiry  that  capital 
is  not  a  fixed  magnitude,  but  is  a  part  of  social  wealth,  elastic 
and  constantly  fluctuating  with  the  division  of  fresh  sur- 
plus-value into  revenue  and  additional  capital.  It  has  been 
seen  further  that,  even  with  a  given  magnitude  of  function- 
ing capital,  the  labour-power,  the  science,  and  the  land  (by 
which  are  to  be  understood,  economically,  all  conditions  of 
labour  furnished  by  ISTature  independently  of  man),  embodied 
in  it,  from  elastic  powers  of  capital,  allowing  it,  within  cer- 
tain limits,  a  field  of  action  independent  of  its  own  magnitude. 
In  this  inquiry  we  have  neglected  all  effects  of  the  process  of 
circulation,  effects  which  may  produce  very  different  degrees 

^M'Culloch  took  out  a  patent  for  "wages  of  past  labour,"  long  before  Senior  did 
for  "waRCS  of  abstinence." 


668  Capitalist  Production. 

of  efficiency  in  the  same  mass  of  capital.  And  as  we  pre- 
supposed the  limits  set  by  capitalist  production,  that  is  to  say, 
pre-supposed  the  process  of  social  production  in  a  form  de- 
veloped by  purely  spontaneous  growth,  we  neglected  any  more 
rational  combination,  directly  and  systematically  practicable 
with  the  means  of  production,  and  the  mass  of  labour-power 
at  present  disposable.  Classical  economy  always  loved  to  con- 
ceive social  capital  as  a  fixed  magnitude  of  a  fixed  degree  of 
efficiency.  But  this  prejudice  was  first  established  as  a  dogma 
by  the  arch-Philistine,  Jeremy  Bentham,  that  insipid,  pe- 
dantic, leather-tongued  oracle  of  the  ordinary  bourgeois  in- 
telligence of  the  19th  century.^  Bentham  is  among  philoso- 
phers what  Martin  Tupper  is  among  poets.  Both  could  only 
have  been  manufactured  in  England.^  In  the  light  of  his 
dogma  the  commonest  phenomena  of  the  process  of  production, 
as,  e.g.,  its  sudden  expansions  and  contractions,  nay,  even 
accumulation    itself,    become  perfectly   inconceivable.*      The 

'  Compare  among  others,  Jeremy  Bentham :  "Theorie  des  Peines  et  des  Recom- 
penses, traduct.     d'Et.  Dumont,  3eme  edit.     Paris,  1826,"  p.  II.,  L.  IV.,  ch.  II. 

*  Bentham  is  a  purely  English  phenomenon.  Not  even  excepting  our  philosopher. 
Christian  Wolf,  in  no  time  and  in  no  country  has  the  most  homespun  common-place 
ever  strutted  about  in  so  self-satisfied  a  way.  The  principle  of  utility  was  no  dis- 
covery of  Bentham.  He  simply  reproduced  in  his  dull  way  what  Helvetius  and 
other  Frenchmen  had  said  with  esprit  in  the  18th  century.  To  know  what  is  useful 
for  a  dog,  one  must  study  dog-nature.  This  nature  itself  is  not  to  be  deduced 
from  the  principle  of  utility.  Applying  this  to  man,  he  that  would  criticise  all 
human  acts,  movements,  relations,  etc.,  by  the  principle  of  utility,  must  first  deal 
with  human  nature  in  general,  and  then  with  human  nature  as  modified  in  each 
historical  epoch.  Bentham  makes  short  work  of  it.  With  the  dryest  naivete  he 
takes  the  modern  shopkeeper,  especially  the  English  shopkeeper,  as  the  normal  man. 
Whatever  Is  useful  to  this  queer  normal  man,  and  to  his  world,  is  absolutely  useful. 
This  yard-measure,  then,  he  applies  to  past,  present,  and  future.  The  Christian 
religion,  e.g.,  is  "useful,"  because  it  forbids  in  the  name  of  religion  the  same  faults 
that  the  penal  code  condemns  in  the  name  of  the  law.  Artistic  criticism  is  "harm- 
ful," because  it  disturbs  worthy  people  in  their  enjoyment  of  Martin  Tupper,  etc. 
With  such  rubbish  has  the  brave  fellow,  with  his  motto,  "null  adies  sine  linea,"  piled, 
up  mountains  of  books.  Had  I  the  courage  of  my  friend,  Heinrich  Heine,  I  should 
call  Mr.  Jeremy  a  genius  in  the  way  of  bourgeois  stupidity. 

*  "Political  economists  are  too  apt  to  consider  a  certain  quantity  of  capital  and  a 
certain  number  of  labourers  as  productive  instruments  of  uniform  power,  or  operating 
with  a  certain  uniform  intensity  .  .  .  Those  .  .  .  who  maintain  .  .  . 
that  commodities  are  the  sole  agents  of  production  .  .  .  prove  that  production 
could  never  be  enlarged,  for  it  requires  as  an  indispensable  condition  to  such  an  en- 
largement that  food,  raw  materials,  and  tools  should  be  previously  augmented;  which 
is  in  fact  maintaining  that  no  increase  of  production  can  take  place  without  a 
previous  increase,  or,  in  other  words,  that  an  increase  is  impossible."  (S.  Bailey: 
"Money  and  its  vicissitudes,"  pp.  26  and  70.)  Bailey  criticises  the  dogma  mainly 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  process  of  circulation. 


Conversion  of  Surplus-Value  into  Capital.  669 

dogma  was  used  hy  Bentliam  himself,  as  well  as  by  Maltlius, 
James  Mill,  M'CuUoeli,  etc.,  for  an  apologetic  purpose,  and 
especially  in  order  to  represent  one  part  of  capital,  namely, 
variable  capital,  or  that  part  convertible  into  labour-power,  as 
a  fixed  magnitude.  The  material  of  variable  capital,  i.e.,  the 
mass  of  the  means  of  subsistence  it  represents  for  the  labourer, 
or  the  so-called  labour  fund^  was  fabled  as  a  separate  part  of 
social  wealth,  fixed  by  natural  laws  and  unchangeable.  To  set 
in  motion  the  part  of  social  wealth  which  is  to  function  as  con- 
stant capital,  or,  to  express  it  in  a  material  form,  as  means 
of  production,  a  definite  mass  of  living  labour  is  required. 
This  mass  is  given  technologically.  But  neither  is  the  num- 
ber of  labourers  required  to  render  fluid  this  mass  of  labour- 
power  given  (it  changes  with  the  degree  of  exploitation  of  the 
individual  labour-power),  nor  is  the  price  of  this  labour-power 
given,  but  only  its  minimum  limit,  which  is  moreover  very 
variable.  The  facts  that  lie  at  the  bottom  of  this  dogma  are 
these :  on  the  one  hand,  the  labourer  has  no  right  to  interfere 
in  the  division  of  social  wealth  into  means  of  enjoyment  for 
the  non-labourer  and  means  of  production.^  On  the  other 
hand,  only  in  favourable  and  exceptional  cases,  has  he  the 
power  to  enlarge  the  so-called  labour-fund  at  the  expense  of 
the  "revenue"  of  the  wealthy. 

What  silly  tautology  results  from  the  attempt  to  represent 
the  capitalistic  limits  of  the  labour-fund  as  its  natural  and 
social  limits  may  be  seen,  e.g.,  in  Professor  Fawcett.^  "The 
circulating  capital  of  a  country,"  he  says,  "is  its  wage-fund. 
Hence,  if  we  desire  to  calculate  the  average  money  wages  re- 
ceived by  each  labourer,  we  have  simply  to  divide  the  amount 

*  John  Stuart  Mill,  in  his  "Principles  of  Political  Economy,"  says:  "The  really 
exhausting  and  the  really  repulsive  labours  instead  of  being  better  paid  than  others, 
are  almost  invariably  paid  the  worst  of  all  .  .  .  The  more  revolting  the  occupa- 
tion, the  more  certain  it  is  to  receive  the  minimum  of  remuneration  .  .  .  The 
hardships  and  the  earnings,  instead  of  being  directly  proportional,  as  in  any  just 
arrangements  of  society  they  would  be,  are  generally  in  an  inverse  ratio  to  one  an- 
other." To  avoid  misunderstanding,  let  me  say  that  although  men  like  John  Stuart 
Mill  are  to  blame  for  the  contradiction  between  their  traditional  economic  dogmas 
and  their  modern  tendencies,  it  would  be  very  wrong  to  class  them  with  the  herd 
of  vulgar  economic  apologists. 

'  H.  Fawcett,  Professor  of  Political  Economy  at  Cambridge.  "The  Economic  Posi- 
tion of  the  British  Labourer."     London,  1865,  p.  120. 


6/0  Capitalist  Production. 

of  this  capital  by  the  number  of  the  labouring  population."* 
That  is  to  say  we  first  add  together  the  individual  wages 
actually  paid,  and  then  we  affirm  tliat  the  sum  thus  obtained, 
forms  the  total  value  of  the  "labour-fund"  determined  and 
vouchsafed  to  us  by  God  and  Nature.  Lastly,  we  divide  the 
sum  thus  obtained  by  the  number  of  labourers  to  find  out 
again  how  much  may  come  to  each  on  the  average.  An  un- 
commonly knowing  dodge  this.  It  did  not  prevent  Mr.  Faw- 
cett  saying  in  the  same  breath:  "The  aggregate  wealth  which 
is  annually  saved  in  England,  is  divided  into  two  portions; 
one  portion  is  employed  as  capital  to  maintain  our  industry, 
and  the  other  portion  is  exported  to  foreign  countries.  .  .  . 
Only  a  portion,  and  perhaps,  notl  a  large  portion  of  the 
wealth  which  is  annually  saved  in  this  country,  is  invested 
in   our  own  industry."^ 

The  greater  part  of  the  yearly  accruing  surplus-product, 
embezzled,  because  abstracted  without  return  of  an  equivalent, 
from  the  English  labourer,  is  thus  used  as  capital,  not  in 
England,  but  in  foreign  countries.  But  with  the  additional 
capital  thus  exported,  a  part  of  the  "labour-fund"  invented  by 
God  and  Bentham  is  also  exported.^ 

^  I  must  here  remind  the  reader  that  the  categories,  "variable  and  constant  capital," 
were  first  used  by  me.  Political  Economy  since  the  time  of  Adam  Smith  has  con- 
fusedly mixed  up  the  essential  distinctions  involved  in  these  categories,  with  the 
mere  formal  differences,  arising  out  of  the  process  of  circulation,  of  fixed  and 
circulating  capital.     For  further  details  on  this  point,  see  Book  II.,  Part  II. 

*  Fawcett,  1.  c.  pp.  122,  123. 

*  It  might  be  said  that  not  only  capital,  but  also  labourers,  in  the  shape  of  emi- 
grants, are  annually  exported  from  England.  In  the  text,  however,  there  is  no  ques- 
tion of  the  peculium  of  the  emigrants,  who  are  in  great  part  not  labourers.  The 
sons  of  farmers  make  up  a  great  part  of  them.  The  additional  capital  annually  trans- 
ported abroad  to  be  put  out  at  interest  is  in  much  greater  proportion  to  the  annual 
accumulation  than  the  yearly  emigration  is  to  the  yearly  increase  of  population. 


The  General  Lazv  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.     671 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

THE  GENEEAL  LAW  OF  CAPITALIST  ACCUMULATION. 

SBOTIOlSr     1. THE     INCKEASEO    DEMAND    FOR    LABOUR-POWEBi 

THAT  ACCOMPANIES  ACCUMULATION,  THE  COMPOSITION  OF 
CAPITAL  REMAINING  THE  SAME. 

In  this  chapter  we  consider  the  influence  of  the  growth  of 
capital  on  the  lot  of  the  labouring  class.  The  most  important 
factor  in  this  inquiry,  is  the  composition  of  capital  and  the 
changes  it  undergoes  in  the  course  of  the  process  of  accumu- 
lation. 

The  composition  of  capital  is  to  be  understood  in  a  two- 
fold sense.  On  the  side  of  value,  it  is  determined  by  the  pro- 
portion in  which  it  is  divided  into  constant  capital  or  value  of 
the  means  of  production,  and  variable  capital  or  value  of 
labour-power,  the  sum  total  of  wages.  On  the  side  of  ma- 
terial, as  it  functions  in  the  process  of  production,  all  capital 
is  divided  into  means  of  production  and  living  labour-power. 
This  latter  composition  is  determined  by  the  relation  between 
the  mass  of  the  means  of  production  employed,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  mass  of  labour  necessary  for  their  employment 
on  the  other.  I  call  the  former  the  value-composition^  the 
latter  the  technical  composition  of  capital.  Between  the  two 
there  is  a  strict  correlation.  To  express  this,  I  call  the  value- 
composition  of  capital,  in  so  far  as  it  is  determined  by  its 
technical  composition  and  mirrors  the  changes  of  the  latter, 
the  organic  composition  of  capital.  Wherever  I  refer  to  the 
composition  of  capital,  without  further  qualification,  its  or- 
ganic composition  is  always  understood. 

The  many  individual  capitals  invested  in  a  particular 
branch  of  production  have,  one  with  another,  more  or  less 
different  compositions.  The  average  of  their  individual 
compositions  gives  us  the  composition  of  the  total  capital  in 
this   branch   of   production.      Lastly,    the    average   of  these 


t'j2  Capitalist  Production. 

averages,  in  all  branches  of  production,  gives  us  the  composi- 
tion of  the  total  social  capital  of  a  country,  and  with  this  alone 
.are  we,   in  the  last   resort,   concerned   in   the   following  in- 
vestigation. 

Growth  of  capital  involves  growth  of  its  variable  constituent 
or  of  the  part  invested  in  labour-|X)wer.  A  part  of  tlie  sur- 
plus-value turned  into  additional  capital  must  always  be  re- 
transformed  into  variable  capital,  or  additional  labour-fund. 
If  we  suppose  that,  all  other  circumstances  remaining  the 
same,  the  composition  of  capital  also  remains  constant  {i.e., 
that  a  definite  mass  of  means  of  production  constantly  needs 
the  same  mass  of  labour-power  to  set  in  motion,)  then  the 
demand  for  labour  and  the  subsistence-fund  of  the  labourers 
clearly  increase  in  the  same  proportion  as  the  capital,  and 
the  more  rapidly,  the  more  rapidly  the  capital  increases. 
Since  the  capital  produces  yearly  a  surplus-value,  of  which 
one  part  is  yearly  added  to  the  original  capital;  since  this 
increment  itself  grows  yearly  along  with  the  augumentation 
of  the  capital  already  functioning;  since  lastly,  under  special 
stimulus  to  enrichment,  such  as  the  opening  of  new  markets, 
or  of  new  spheres  for  the  outlay  of  capital  in  consequence  of 
newly  developed  social  wants,  &c.,  the  scale  of  accumulation 
may  be  suddenly  extended,  merely  by  a  change  in  the  division 
of  the  surplus-value  or  surplus-product  into  capital  and 
revenue,  the  requirements  of  accumulating  capital  may  exceed 
the  increase  of  labour-power  or  of  the  number  of  labourers; 
the  demand  for  labourers  may  exceed  the  supply,  and,  there- 
fore, wages  may  rise.  This  must,  indeed,  ultimately  be  the 
case  if  the  conditions  supposed  above  continue.  For  since  in 
each  year  more  labourers  are  employed  than  in  its  predecessor, 
sooner  or  later  a  point  must  be  reached,  at  which  the  require- 
ments of  accumulation  begin  to  surpass  the  customary  supply 
of  labour,  and,  therefore,  a  rise  of  wages  takes  place.  A 
lamentation  on  this  score  was  heard  in  England  during  the 
whole  of  the  fifteenth,  and  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth 
centuries.  The  more  or  less  favourable  circumstances  in 
which  the  wage-working  class  supports  and  multiplies  itself, 
in  no  way  alter  the  fundamental  character  of  capitalist  pro- 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      673 

duction.  As  simple  reproduction  constantly  reproduces  the 
capital-relation  itself,  i.e.,  the  relation  of  capitalists  on  the  one 
hand,  and  wage-workers  on  the  other,  so  reproduction  on  a 
progressive  scale,  i.e.,  accumulation,  reproduces  the  capital- 
relation  on  a  progressive  scale,  more  capitalists  or  larger 
capitalists  at  this  pole,  more  wage-workers  at  that.  The  re- 
production of  a  mass  of  labour-power,  which  must  incessantly 
re-incorporate  itself  with  capital  for  that  capital's  self-expan- 
sion ;  which  cannot  get  free  from  capital,  and  whose  enslave- 
ment to  capital  is  only  concealed  by  the  variety  of  individual 
capitalists  to  whom  it  sells  itself,  this  reproduction  of  labour- 
power  forms,  in  fact,  an  essential  of  the  reproduction  of 
capital  itself.  Accumulation  of  capital  is,  therefore,  increase 
of  the  proletariat.^ 

"Classical  economy  grasped  this  fact  so  thoroughly  that 
Adam  Smith,  Ricardo,  &xj.,  as  mentioned  earlier,  inaccurately 
identified  accumulation  with  the  consumption,  by  the  pro- 
ductive labourers,  of  all  the  capitalised  part  of  the  surplus- 
product,  or  with  its  transformation  into  additional  wage- 
labourers.  As  early  as  1696  John  Sellers  says:  "For  if  one 
had  a  hundred  thousand  acres  of  land  and  as  many  pounds  of 
money^  and  as  many  cattle,  without  a  labourer,  what  would 
the  rich  man  be,  but  a  labourer  ?  And  as  the  labourers  make 
men  rich,  so  the  more  labourers,  there  will  be  the  more  rich 
men  .  .  .  the  labour  of  the  poor  being  the  mines  of  the 
rich."^  So  also  Bernard  de  Mandeville  at  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century:  "It  would  be  easier,  where  property 

^  Karl  Marx,  1.  c.  "A  egalite  d'oppression  des  masses,  plus  un  pays  a  de  prole- 
taires  et  plus  il  est  riche."  (Colins.  L'Economie  politique.  Source  des  Revolutions 
et  des  Utopies  pretendues  Socialistes.  Paris,  1857,  t.  III.  p.  331.)  Our  "prole- 
tarian" is  economically  none  other  than  the  wage-labourer,  who  produces  and  in- 
creases capital,  and  is  thrown  out  on  the  streets,  as  soon  as  he  is  superfluous  for  the 
needs  of  aggrandisement  of  "Monsieur  capital,"  as  Pecqueur  calls  this  person.  "The 
sickly  proletarian  of  the  primitive  forest,"  is  a  pretty  Roscherian  fancy.  The 
primitive  forester  is  owner  of  the  primitive  forest,  and  uses  the  primitive  forest  as 
his  property  with  the  freedom  of  an  orang-utang.  He  is  not,  therefore,  a  prole- 
tarian. This  would  only  be  the  case,  if  the  primitive  forest  exploited  him,  instead  of 
being  exploited  by  him.  As  far  as  his  health  is  concerned,  such  a  man  would 
well  bear  comparison,  not  only  with  the  modern  proletarian,  but  also  with  the 
syphilitic  and  scrofulous  upper  classes.  But,  no  doubt,  Herr  Wilhelm  Roscher, 
by  "primitive  forest"  means  his  native  heath  of  Luneburg. 

•  John  Bellers,  1.  c.  p.  2. 

20 


674  Capitalist  Production. 

is  well  secured,  to  live  without  money  than  without  poor ;  for 
who  would  do  the  work  ?  ...  As  they  [the  poor]  ought 
to  be  kept  from  starving,  so  they  should  receive  nothing  worth 
saving.  If  here  and  there  one  of  the  lowest  class  by  uncom- 
mon industry,  and  pinching  his  belly,  lifts  himself  above  the 
condition  he  was  brought  up  in,  nobody  ought  to  hinder  him ; 
nay,  it  is  undeniably  the  wisest  course  for  every  person  in  the 
society,  and  for  every  private  family  to  be  frugal ;  but  it  is 
the  interest  of  all  rich  nations,  that  the  greatest  part  of  the 
poor  should  almost  never  be  idle,  and  yet  continually  spend 
what  they  get.  .  .  .  Those  that  get  their  living  by  their 
daily  labour  .  .  .  have  nothing  to  stir  them  up  to  be 
serviceable  but  their  wants  which  it  is  prudence  to  relieve, 
but  folly  to  cure.  The  only  thing  then  than  can  render  the 
labouring  man  industrious,  is  a  moderate  quantity  of  money, 
for  as  too  little  will,  according  as  his  temper  is,  either  dispirit 
or  make  him  desperate,  so  too  much  will  make  him  insolent 
and  lazy.  .  .  .  From  what  has  been  said,  it  is  manifest, 
that,  in  a  free  nation,  where  slaves  are  not  allowed  of,  the 
surest  wealth  consists  in  a  multitude  of  laborious  poor;  for 
besides,  that  they  are  the  never-failing  nursery  of  fleets  and 
armies,  without  them  there  could  be  no  enjoyment,  and  no 
product  of  any  country  could  be  valuable.  To  make  the  so- 
ciety" [which  of  course  consists  of  non-workers]  "happy  and 
people  easier  under  the  meanest  circumstances,  it  is  requisite 
that  great  numbers  of  them  should  be  ignorant  as  well  as  poor ; 
knowledge  both  enlarges  and  multiplies  our  desires,  and  the 
fewer  things  a  man  wishes  for,  the  more  easily  his  necessities 
may  be  supplied."^  What  Mandeville,  an  honest,  clear- 
headed man,  had  not  yet  seen,  is  that  the  mechanism  of  the 
process  of  accumulation  itself  increases,  along  with  the  capital, 
the  mass  of  "labouring  poor,"  i.e.,  the  wage-labourers,  who 
turn  their  labour-power  into  an  increasing  power  of  self-ex- 

*  Bernard  de  Mandeville:  "The  Fable  of  the  Bees,"  5th  edition,  London,  1728. 
Remarks,  pp.  212,  213,  328.  "Temperate  living  and  constant  employment  is  the 
direct  road,  for  the  poor,  to  rational  happiness"  [by  which  he  most  probably  means 
long  working  days  and  little  means  of  subsistence],  "and  to  riches  and  strength  for 
the  state"  (viz.,  for  the  landlords,  capitalists,  and  their  political  dignitaries  and 
agents).     (An   Essay  on  Trade  and   Commerce,   London,   1170,   p.   54.) 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.     675 

pansion  of  the  growing  capital,  and  even  by  doing  so  must 
eternize  their  dependent  relation  on  their  own  product,  ad 
personified  in  the  capitalists.  In  reference  to  this  relation 
of  dependence,  Sir  F.  M.  Eden  in  his  "The  State  of  the  Poor, 
an  History  of  the  Labouring  Classes  in  England,"  says  "the 
natural  produce  of  our  soil  is  certainly  not  fully  adequate  to 
our  subsistence ;  we  can  neither  be  clothed,  lodged  nor  fed  but 
in  consequence  of  some  previous  labour.  A  portion  at  least 
of  the  society  must  be  indefatigably  employed.  .  .  . 
There  are  others  who,  though  they  'neither  toil  nor  spin,'  can 
yet  command  the  produce  of  industry,  but  who  owe  their  ex- 
emption from  labour  solely  to  civilisation  and  order.  .  .  . 
They  are  peculiarly  the  creatures  of  civil  institutions,^  which 
have  recognised  that  individuals  may  acquire  property  by 
various  othcT  means  besides  the  exertion  of  labour. 
Persons  of  independent  fortune  .  .  .  owe  their  superior 
advantages  by  no  means  to  any  superior  abilities  of  their  own, 
but  almost  entirely  ...  to  the  industry  of  others.  It  is 
not  the  possession  of  land,  or  of  money,  but  the  command  of 
labour  which  distinguishes  the  opulent  from  the  labouring 
part  of  the  community.  .  .  .  This  [scheme  approved  by 
Eden]  would  give  the  people  of  property  sufficient  (but  by  no 
means  too  much)  influence  and  authority  over  those  who 
.  work  for  them ;  and  it  would  place  such  labourers, 
not  in  an  abject  or  servile  coTidition,  but  in  such  a  state  of 
easy  and  liberal  dependenco  as  all  who  know  human  nature, 
and  its  history,  will  allow  to  be  necessary  for  their  owu  com- 
fort."^ Sir  F.  M.  Eden^,  it  may  be  remarked  in  passing,  is 
the  only  disciple  of  Adam  Smith  during  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tiiTy  that  produced  any  work  of  importance.^ 

*  Ec*en  should  have  asked,  whose  creatures  then  are  "the  civil  institutions?" 
From  his  standpoint  of  juridical  illusion,  he  does  not  regard  the  law  as  a  product  of 
the  material  relations  of  production,  but  conversely  the  relations  of  production  as 
products  of  the  law,  Linguet  overthrew  Montesquieu's  illusory  "Esprit  des  lois" 
with  one  word;   "L'esprit  des  lois,  c'est  la  propriete." 

"Eden  1.  c.  Vol.  I,  book  I.  chapter  I.  pp.  1,  2,  and  preface,  p.  xx. 

'  If  the  reader  reminds  me  of  Malthus,  whose  "Essay  on  Population"  appeared 
in  1798,  I  remind  him  tha*  this  work  in  its  first  form  is  nothing  more  than  a 
schoolboyish,  superficial  plagiary  of  De  Foe,  Sir  James  Steuart,  Townsend,  Franklin, 
Wallace.  S-c,  and  does  not  contain  a  single  sentence  thought  out  by  himself.  The 
great  s.'f^sation  this  pamphlet  caused,  was  due  solely  to  party  interest.     The  French 


6/6  Capitalist  Production. 

Under  the  conditions  of  accumulation  supposed  thus  far, 
which  conditions  are  those  most  favourable  to  the  labourers, 
their  relation  of  dependence  upon  capital  takes  on  a  form  en- 
durable, or,  as  Eden  says;  "easy  and  liberal."  Instead  of  be- 
coming more  intensive  with  the  growth  of  capital,  this  relation 

Revolution  had  found  passionate  defenders  in  the  United  Kingdom;  the  "principle 
of  population,"  slowly  worked-out  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  then,  in  the  midst 
of  a  great  social  crisis,  proclaimed  with  drums  and  trumpets  as  the  infallible  antidote 
to  the  teachings  of  Condorcet,  &c.,  was  greeted  with  jubilance  by  the  English 
oligarchy  as  the  great  destroyer  of  all  hankerings  after  human  development. 
Malthus,  hugely  astonished  at  his  success,  gave  himself  to  stuffing  into  his  book  ma- 
terials superficially  compiled,  and  adding  to  it  new  matter,  not  discovered  but  an- 
nexed by  him.  Note  further:  Although  Malthus  was  a  parson  of  the  English  State 
Church,  he  had  taken  the  monastic  vow  of  celibacy — one  of  the  conditions  of  hold- 
ing a  Fellowship  in  Protestant  Cambridge  University:  "Socios  collegiorum  maritos 
esse  non  permittimus,  sed  statim  postquam  quis  uxorem  duxerit,  socius  collegii  desinat 
esse."  (Reports  of  Cambridge  University  Commission,  p.  172.)  This  circumstance 
favourably  distinjguishes  Malthus  from  the  other  Protestant  parsons,  who  have 
shuffled  off  the  command  enjoining  celibacy  of  the  priesthood  and  have  taken, 
"Be  fruitful  and  multiply,"  as  their  special  Biblical  mission  in  such  a  degree  that 
they  generally  contribute  to  the  increase  of  population  to  a  really  unbecoming  extent, 
whilst  they  preach  at  the  same  time  to  the  labourers  the  "principle  of  population." 
It  is  characteristic  that  the  economic  fall  of  man,  the  Adam's  apple,  the  urgent 
.  appetite,  "the  checks  which  tend  to  blunt  the  shafts  of  Cupid,"  as  Parson  Townsend 
waggishly  puts  it,  that  this  delicate  question  was  and  is  monopolised  by  the  Reverends 
of  Protestant  Theology,  or  rather  of  the  Protestant  Church.  With  the  exception 
of  the  Venetian  monk,  Ortes,  an  original  and  clever  writer,  most  of  the  population- 
theory  teachers  are  Protestant  parsons.  For  instance,  Bruckner,  "Theorie  du  Systeme 
animal,"  Leyden,  1767,  in  which  the  whole  subject  of  the  modern  population  theory 
in  exhausted,  and  to  which  the  passing  quarrel  between  Quesnay  and  his  pupil,  the 
elder  Mirabeau,  furnished  ideas  on  the  same  topic;  then  Parson  Wallace,  Parson 
Townsend,  Parson  Malthus  and  his  pupil,  the  arch-Parson  Thomas  Chalmers,  to  say 
nothing  of  lesser  reverend  scribblers  in  this  line.  Originally,  political  economy  was 
studied  by  philosophers  like  Hobbes,  Locke,  Hume;  by  business  men  and  statesmen, 
like  Thomas  More,  Temple,  Sully,  De  Witt,  North,  Law,  Vanderlint,  Cantillon, 
Franklin;  and  especially,  and  with  the  greatest  success,  by  medical  men  like  Petty, 
Barbon,  Mandeville,  Quesnay.  Even  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Tucker,  a  notable  economist  of  his  time,  excused  himself  for  meddling  with 
the  things  of  Mammon.  Later  on,  and  in  truth  with  this  very  "principle  of  popu- 
lation," struck  the  hour  of  the  Protestant  parsons.  Petty,  who  regarded  the 
population  as  the  basis  of  wealth,  and  was,  like  Adam  Smith,  an  outspoken  foe  to 
parsons,  says,  as  if  he  had  a  presentiment  of  their  bungling  interference,  "that 
Religion  best  flourishes  when  the  Priests  are  most  mortified,  as  was  before  said  of  the 
Law,  which  best  flourisheth  when  lawyers  have  least  to  do."  He  advises  the  Protestant 
priests,  therefore  if  they  once  for  all,  will  not  follow  the  Apostle  Paul  and  "mortify" 
themselves  by  celibacy,  "not  to  breed  more  Churchmen  than  the  Benefices,  as  they 
now  stand  shared  out,  will  receive,  that  is  to  say,  if  there  be  places  for  about  twelve 
thousand  in  England  and  Wales,  it  will  not  be  safe  to  breed  up  24,000  ministers,  for 
then  the  twelve  thousand  which  are  unprovided  for,  will  seek  ways  bow  to  get  them- 
selves a  livelihood,  which  they  cannot  do  more  easily  then  by  persuading  the  people 
that  the  twelve  thousand  incumbents  do  poison  or  starve  their  souls,  and  misguide 
them  in  their  way  to  Heaven."  (Petty;  "A  Treatise  on  Taxes  and  Contributions, 
London,   1667,"   p.    57.)     Adam    Smith's   position    with   the   Protestant   priesthood   of 


The  General  Lazv  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      677 

of  dependence  only  becomes  more  extensive,  i.e.,  the  sphere  of 
capital's  exploitation  and  rule  merely  extends  with  its  own 
dimensions  and  the  number  of  its  subjects.  A  larger  part  of 
their  own  surplus-product,  always  increasing  and  continually 
transformed  into  additional  capital,  comes  back  to  them  in  the 
shape  of  means  of  payment,  so  that  they  can  extend  the  circle 
of  their  enjoyments ;  can  make  some  additions  to  their  con- 
sumption-fund of  clothes,  furniture,  &c.,  and  can  lay  by  small 
reserve-funds  of  money.  But  just  as  little  as  better  clothing, 
food,  and  treatment,  and  a  larger  peculium,  do  away  with  the 
exploitation  of  the  slave,  so  little  do  they  set  aside  that  of  the 
wage-worker.  A  rise  in  the  price  of  labour,  as  a  consequence 
of  accumulation  of  capital,  only  means,  in  fact,  that  the  length 
and  weight  of  the  golden  chain  the  wagcrworker  has  already 
forged  for  himself,  allow  of  a  relaxation  of  the  tension  of  it. 
In  the  controversies  on  this  subject  the  chief  fact  has  generally 

his  time  is  shown  by  the  following.  In  "A  Letter  to  A.  Smith,  L.L.D.  On  the 
Life,  Death  and  Philosophy  of  his  Friend,  David  Hume.  By  one  of  the  People 
called  Christians,  4th  Edition,  Oxford,  1784,"  Dr.  Home,  Bishop  of  Norwich,  re- 
proves Adam  Smith,  because  in  a  published  letter  to  Mr.  Strahan,  he  "embalmed 
his  friend  David"  (sc.  Plume) ;  because  he  told  the  world  how  "Hume  amused  him- 
self on  his  deathbed  with  I.ucian  and  Whist,"  and  because  he  even  had  the  impu- 
dence to  write  of  Hume:  "I  have  always  considered  him,  both  in  his  life-time  and  since 
his  death,  as  approaching  as  nearly  to  the  idea  of  a  perfectly  wise  and  virtuous  man, 
as,  perhaps,  the  nature  of  human  frailty  will  permit."  The  bishop  cries  out,  in  a 
passion:  "Is  it  right  in  you,  Sir,  to  hold  up  to  our  view  as  'perfectly  wise  and 
virtuous,*  the  character  and  conduct  of  one,  who  seems  to  have  been  possessed  with 
an  incurable  antipathy  to  all  that  is  called  Religion;  and  who  strained  every  nerve 
to  explode,  suppress  and  txtirpate  the  spirit  of  it  among  men,  that  it's  very  name,  if 
he  could  effect  it,  might  no  more  be  had  in  remembrance?"  (1.  c.  p.  8).  "But  let 
not  the  lovers  of  truth  be  discouraged.  Atheism  cannot  be  of  long  continuance." 
(p.  17.)  Adam  Smith,  "had  the  atrocious  wickedness  to  propagate  atheism  through 
the  land  (viz.  by  his  "Theory  of  moral  sentiments.")  Upon  the  whole.  Doctor,  your 
meaning  is  good;  but  I  think  you  will  not  succeed  this  time.  You  would  persuade  us, 
by  the  example  of  David  Hume,  Esq.,  that  atheism  is  the  only  cordial  for  low  spirits, 
and  the  proper  antidote  against  the  fear  of  death  .  .  .  You  may  smile  over 
Babylon  in  ruins  and  congratulate  the  hardened  Pharaoh  on  his  overthrow  in  the  Red 
Sea."  (1.  c.  pp.  21,  22.)  One  orthodox  individual,  amongst  Adam  Smith's  college 
friends,  writes  after  his  death:  "Smith's  well-placed  affection  for  Hume  .  .  . 
hindered  him  from  being  a  Christian  .  .  .  When  he  met  with  honest  men  whom 
he  liked  ...  he  would  believe  almost  anything  they  said.  Had  he  been  a 
friend  of  the  worthy  ingenious  Horrox  he  would  have  believed  that  the  moon  some- 
times disappeared  in  a  clear  sky  without  the  interposition  of  a  cloud.  .  .  .  He  ap- 
proached to  republicanism  in  his  political  principles."  (The  Bee.  By  James  Ander- 
son, 18  Vols.,  Vol.  3,  pp.  165,  164,  Edinburgh,  1791-93.)  Parson  Thomas  Chalmers 
has  his  suspicions  as  to  Adam  Smith  having  invented  the  category  of  "unproductive 
labourers,"  solely  for  the  Protestant  parsons,  in  spite  of  their  blessed  work  in  the 
vineyard  of  the  Lord. 


678  Capitalist  Production. 

been  overlooked,  viz.,  the  dlffereniia  specifica  of  capitalistic 
production.  Labour-power  is  sold  to-day,  not  with  a  view  of 
satisfying,  by  its  service  or  by  its  product,  the  personal  needs 
of  the  buyer.  His  aim  is  augmentation  of  his  capital,  produc- 
tion of  commodities  containing  more  laboui  than  he  pays  for, 
containing  therefore  a  portion  of  value  that  costs  him  nothing, 
and  that  is  nevertheless  realised  when  the  commodities  are 
sold.  Production  of  surplus-value  is  the  absolute  law  of  this 
mode  of  production.  Labour-power  is  only  saleable  so  far  as 
it  preserves  the  means  o£  production  in  their  capacity  of 
capital,  reproduces  its  own  value  as  capital,  and  yields  in  un- 
paid labour  a  source  of  additional  capital.^  The  conditions 
of  its  sale,  whether  more  or  less  favourable  to  the  labourer, 
include  therefore  the  necessity  of  its  constant  re-selling,  and 
the  constantly  extended  reproduction  of  all  wealth  in  the  shape 
of  capital.  Wages,  as  we  have  seen,  by  their  very  nature,  al- 
ways imply  the  performance  of  a  certain  quantity  of  unpaid 
labour  on  the  part  of  the  labourer.  Altogether,  irrespective 
of  the  case  of  a  rise  of  wages  with  a  falling  price  of  labour, 
&c.,  such  an  increase  only  means  at  best  a  quantitative  diminu- 
tion of  the  unpaid  labour  that  the  worker  has  to  supply.  This 
diminution,  can  never  reach  the  point  at  which  it  would 
threaten  the  system  itself.  Apart  from  violent  conflicts  as  to 
the  rate  of  wages  (and  Adam  Smith  has  already  shown  that 
in  such  a  conflict,  taken  on  the  whole,  the  master  is  always 
master),  a  rise  in  the  price  of  labour  resulting  from  ac- 
cunuilation  of  capital  implies  the  following  alternative: 

Either  the  price  of  labour  keeps  on  rising,  because  its  rise 
does  not  interfere  with  the  progress  of  accumulation.  In  this 
there  is  nothing  wonderful,  for,  says  Adam  Smith,  "after  these 
(profits)  are  diminished,  stock  may  not  only  continue  to  in- 
crease, but  to  increase  much  faster  than  before.  ...  A 
great  stock,   though   with   small   profits,   generally   increases 

*  "The  limit,  however,  to  the  employment  of  both  the  operative  and  the  labourer 
is  the  same;  namely,  the  possibility  of  the  employer  realising  a  profit  on  the  produce 
of  their  industry.  If  the  rate  of  wages  is  such  as  to  reduce  the  master's  gains  below 
the  average  profit  of  capital,  he  will  cease  to  employ  them,  or  he  will  only  employ 
them  on  condition  of  submission  to  a  reduction  of  wages."  (John  Wade,  I.  c, 
p.   241.) 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      679 

faster  than  a  small  stock  with  great  profits."  (1.  c.  ii.,  p. 
189.)  In  this  case  it  is  evident  that  a  diminution  in  the  un- 
paid labour  in  no  way  interferes  with  the  extension  of  the 
domain  of  capital. — Or,  on  the  other  hand,  accumulation 
slackens  in  consequence  of  the  rise  in  the  price  of  labour,  be- 
cause the  stimulus  of  gain  is  blunted.  The  rate  of  accumula- 
tion lessens ;  but  with  its  lessening,  the  primary  cause  of  that 
lessening  vanishes,  i.e.,  the  disproportion  between  capital  and 
exploitable  labour-power.  The  mechanism  of  the  process  of 
capitalist  production  removes  the  very  obstacles  that  it  tempo- 
rarily creates.  The  price  of  labour  falls  again  to  a  level  cor- 
responding with  the  needs  of  the  self-expansion  of  capital, 
whether  the  level  be  below,  the  same  as,  or  above  the  one 
which  was  normal  before  the  rise  of  wages  took  place.  We 
see  thus :  In  the  first  case,  it  is  not  the  diminished  rate  either 
of  the  absolute,  or  of  the  proportional,  increase  in  labour- 
power,  or  labouring  population,  which  causes  capital  to  be  in 
excess,  but  conversely  the  excess  of  capital  that  makes  ex- 
ploitable labour-power  insufficient.  In  the  second  case,  it  is 
not  the  increased  rate  either  of  the  absolute,  or  of  the  pro- 
portional, increase  in  labour-power,  or  labouring  population, 
that  makes  capital  insufficient;  but,  conversely,  the  relative 
diminution  of  capital  that  causes  the  exploitable  labour- 
f)ower,  or  rather  its  price,  to  be  in  excess.  It  is  these  absolute- 
mo  vements  of  the  accumulation  of  capital  which  are  reflected 
as  relative  movements  of  the  mass  of  exploitable  labour- 
power,  and  therefore  seem  produced  by  the  latter's  own  in- 
dependent movement.  To  put  it  mathematically:  the  rate  of 
accumulation  is  the  independent  not  the  dependent,  variable ; 
the  rate  of  wages,  the  dependent,  not  the  independent,  vari- 
able. Thus,  when  the  industrial  cycle  is  in  the  phase  of 
crisis,  a  general  fall  in  the  price  of  commodities  is  expressed 
as  a  rise  in  the  value  of  money,  and,  in  the  phase  of  prosperity, 
a  general  rise  in  the  price  of  commodities,  as  a  fall  in  the  value 
of  money.  The  so-called  currency  school  concludes  from  this 
that  with  high  prices  too  little,  with  low  prices  too  much 
ttioney  is  in  circulation.     Their  ignorance  and  complete  mis- 


68o  Capitalist  Production. 

understanding  of  facts^  are  worthily  paralleled  by  the  econo- 
mists, who  interpret  the  above  phenomena  of  accumulation  by 
saying  that  there  are  now  too  few,  now  too  many  wage 
labourers. 

The  law  of  capitalist  production,  that  is  at  the  bottom  of 
the  pretended  ^'natural  law  of  population,"  reduces  itself 
simply  to  this:  The  coiTelation  between  accumulation  of 
capital  and  rate  of  wages  is  nothing  else  than  the  correlation 
between  the  unpaid  labour  transformed  into  capital,  and  the 
additional  paid  labour  necessary  for  the  setting  in  motion  of 
this  additional  capital.  It  is  therefore  in  no  way  a  relation 
between  two  magnitudes,  independent  one  of  the  other :  on  the 
one  hand,  the  magnitude  of  the  capital;  on  the  other,  the 
number  of  the  labouring  population ;  it  is  rather,  at  bottom, 
only  the  relation  between  the  unpaid  and  the  paid  labour  of 
the  same  labouring  population.  If  the  quantity  of  unpaid 
labour  supplied  by  the  working-class,  and  accumulated  by  the 
capitalist  class,  increases  so  rapidly  that  its  conversion  into 
capital  requires  an  extraordinary  addition  of  paid  labour, 
then  wages  rise,  and,  all  other  circumstances  remaining  equal, 
the  unpaid  labour  diminishes  in  proportion.  But  as  soon  as 
this  diminution  touches  the  point  at  which  the  surplus-labour 
that  nourishes  capital  is  no  longer  supplied  in  normal  quan- 
tity, a  reaction  sets  in :  a  smaller  part  of  revenue  is  capitalised, 
accumulation  lags,  and  the  movement  of  rise  in  wages  receives 
a  check.  The  rise  of  wages  therefore  is  confined  within  liinits 
that  not  only  leave  intact  the  foundations  of  the  capitalistic 
system,  but  also  secure  its  reproduction  on  a  progressive  scale. 
The  law  of  capitalistic  accumulation,  metamorphosed  by  econo- 
mists into  a  pretended  law  of  nature,  in  reality  merely  states 
that  the  very  nature  of  accumulation  excludes  every  diminu- 
tion in  the  degree  of  exploitation  of  labour,  and  every  rise  in 
the  price  of  labour,  which  could  seriously  imperil  the  con- 
tinual reproduction,  on  an  ever  enlarging  scale,  of  the  capital- 
istic relation.  It  cannot  be  otherwise  in  a  mode  of  produc- 
tion in  which  the  labourer  exists  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  self- 
expansion  of  existing  values,  instead  of  on  the  contrary,  ma- 

^  Cf.  Karl  Marx:  Zur  Kritik  der  Politischen  Oekonomie,  pp.  166,  acq. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.     68 1 

terial  wealth  existing  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  development  on 
the  part  of  the  labourer.  As,  in  religion,  man  is  governed  by 
the  products  of  his  own  brain,  so  in  capitalistic  production, 
he  is  governed  by  the  products  of  his  own.  hand.^ 

SECTION  2. ^RELATIVE  DIMINUTION  OF  THE  VAEIABLE  PART  OF 

CAPITAL  SIMULTANEOUSLY  WITH  THE  PROGRESS  OF  AC- 
CUMULATION AND  OF  THE  CONCENTRATION  THAT  AC- 
COMPANIES IT. 

According  to  the  economists  themselves,  it  is  neither  the 
actual  extent  of  social  wealth,  nor  the  magnitude  of  the  capital 
already  functioning,  that  lead  to  a  rise  of  wages,  but  only  the 
constant  growth  of  accumulation  and  the  degree  of  rapidity  of 
that  growth.  (Adam  Smith,  Book  I.,  chapter  8.)  So  far,  we 
have  only  considered  one  special  phase  of  this  process,  that  in 
which  the  increase  of  capital  occurs  along  with  a  constant 
technical  composition  of  capital.  But  the  process  goes  beyond 
this  phase. 

Once  given  the  general  basis  of  the  capitalistic  system,  then, 
in  the  course  of  accumulation,  a  point  is  reached  at  which  the 
development  of  the  productivity  of  social  labour  becomes  the 
most  powerful  lever  of  accumulation.  "The  same  cause,"  says 
Adam  Smith,  ''which  raises  the  wages  of  labour,  the  increase 
of  stock,  tends  to  increase  its  productive  powers,  and  to  make  a 
smaller  quantity  of  labour  produce  a  greater  quantity  of 
work." 

Apart  from  natural  conditions,  such  as  fertility  of  the  soil, 
&c.,  and  from  the  skill  of  independent  and  isolated  producers 
(shown  rather  qualitatively  in  the  goodness  than  quantitatively 
in  the  mass  of  their  products),  the  degree  of  productivity  of 
labour,  in  a  given  society,  is  expressed  in  the  relative  extent 
of  the  means  of  production  that  one  labourer,  during  a  given 

*  "If  we  now  return  to  our  first  inquiry,  wherein  it  was  shown  that  capital  itself 

is  only  the   result  of   human   labour it   seems   quite   incomprehensible 

that  man  can  have  fallen  under  the  denomination  of  capital,  his  own  product;  can 
be  subordinated  to  it;  and  as  in  reality  this  is  beyond  dispute  the  case,  involuntarily 
the  question  arises:  How  has  the  labourer  been  able  to  pass  from  being  master  of 
capital — as  its  creator — to  being  its  slave?"  (Von  Thiinen.  "Der  isolirte  Staat." 
Part  ii..  Section  ii.  Rostock,  1863,  pp.  5,  6.)  It  is  Thiinen's  merit  to  have  asked 
this  question.     His  answer  is  simply  childish. 


682  Capitalist  Production. 

time,  with  the  same  tension  of  labour-power,  turns  into  pro- 
ducts. The  mass  of  the  means  of  production  which  he  thus 
transforms,  increases  with  the  productiveness  of  his  labour. 
But  those  means  of  production  play  a  double  part.  The  in- 
crease of  some  is  a  consequence,  that  of  the  others  a  condition 
of  the  increasing  productivity  of  labour.  E.g.,  with  the  divi- 
sion of  labour  in  manufacture,  and  with  the  use  of  machinery, 
more  raw  material  is  worked  up  in  the  same  time,  and,  there- 
fore, a  greater  mass  of  raw  material  and  auxiliary  substances 
enter  into  the  labour-process.  That  is  the  consequence  of  the 
increasing  productivity  of  labour.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
mass  of  machinery,  beasts  of  burden,  mineral  manures,  drain- 
pipes, &c.,  is  a  condition  of  the  increasing  productivity  of 
labour.  So  also  is  it  with  the  means  of  production  concen- 
trated in  buildings,  furnaces,  means  of  transport,  &c.  But 
whether  condition  or  consequence,  the  growing  extent  of  the 
means  of  production,  as  compared  with  the  labour-power  in- 
corporated with  them,  is  an  expression  of  the  growing  produc- 
tiveness of  labour.  The  increase  of  the  latter  appears,  there- 
fore, in  the  diminution  of  the  mass  of  labour  in  proportion  to 
the  mass  of  means  of  production  moved  by  it,  or  in  the  dimi- 
nution of  the  subjective  factor  of  the  labour  process  as  com- 
pared with  the  objective  factor. 

This  change  in  the  technical  composition  of  capital,  this 
growth  in  the  mass  of  means  of  production,  as  compared  with 
the  mass  of  the  labour-power  that  vivifies  them,  is  reflected 
again  in  its  value-composition,  by  the  increase  of  the  constant 
constituent  of  capital  at  the  expense  of  its  variable  constitu- 
ent. There  may  be,  e.g.,  originally  50  per  cent,  of  a  capital 
laid  out  in  means  of  production,  and  50  per  cent,  in  the 
labour-power;  later  on,  with  the  development  of  the  product- 
ivity of  labour,  80  per. cent,  in  means  of  production,  20  per 
cent,  in  labour-power,  and  so  on.  This  law  of  the  progressive 
increase  in  constant  capital,  in  proportion  to  the  variable,  is 
confirmed  at  every  step  (as  already  shown)  by  the  comparative 
analysis  of  the  prices  of  commodities,  whether  we  compare  dif- 
ferent economic  epochs  or  different  nations  in  the  same  epoch. 
The  relative  magnitude  of  the  element  of  price,  which  repre- 


TJie  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      683 

sents  the  value  of  the  means  of  production  only,  or  the  con- 
stant part  of  capital  consumed,  is  in  direct,  the  relative  magni- 
tude of  the  other  element  of  price  that  pays  labour  (the  vari- 
able part  of  capital)  is  in  inverse  proportion  to  the  advance 
of  accumulation. 

This  diminution  in  the  variable  part  of  capital  as  compared 
with  the  constant,  or  the  altered  value-composition  of  the 
capital,  however,  only  shows  approximately  the  change  in  the 
composition  of  its  material  constituents.  If,  e.g.,  the  capital- 
value  employed  to-day  in  spinning  is  f  constant  and  ^  vari- 
able, whilst  at  the  beginning  of  the  18th  century  it  was  ^  con- 
stant and  \  variable,  on  the  other  hand,  the  mass  of  raw  ma- 
terial, instruments  of  labour,  &c.,  that  a  certain  quantity  of 
spinning  labour  consumes  productively  to-day,  is  many  hun- 
dred times  greater  than  at  the  beginning  of  the  18th  century. 
The  reason  is  simply  that,  with  the  increasing  productivity  of 
labour,  not  only  does  the  mass  of  the  means  of  production  con- 
sumed by  it  increase,  but  their  value  compared  with  their  mass 
diminishes.  Their  value  therefore  rises  absolutely,  but  not  in 
proportion  to  their  mass.  The  increase  of  the  difference  be- 
tween constant  and  variable  capital  is,  therefore,  much  less 
than  that  of  the  difference  between  the  mass  of  the  means  of 
production  into  which  the  constant,  and  the  mass  of  the 
labour-power  into  which  the  variable,  capital  is  converted. 
The  former  difference  increases  with  the  latter,  but  in  a 
smaller  degree. 

But,  if  the  progress  of  accumulation  lessens  the  relative 
magnitude  of  the  variable  part  of  capital,  it  by  no  means,  in 
doing  this,  excludes  the  possibility  of  a  rise  in  its  absolute 
magnitude.  Suppose  that  a  capital-value  at  first  is  divided 
into  50  per  cent,  of  constant  and  50  per  cent,  of  variable 
capital ;  later  into  80  per  cent,  of  constant  and  20  per  cent, 
of  variable.  If  in  the  meantime  the  original  capital,  say 
£6,000,  has  increased  to  £18,000,  its  variable  constituent  has 
also  increased.  It  was  £3,000,  it  is  now  £3,600.  But  where- 
as formerly  an  increase  of  capital  by  20  per  cent,  would  have 
sufficed  to  raise  the  demand  for  labour  20  per  cent.,  now  this 
latter  rise  requires  a  tripling  of  the  original  capital. 


684  Capitalist  Production. 

In  Part  IV.  it  was  shown,  how  the  development  of  the 
productiveness  of  social  labour  presupposes  co-operation  on 
a  large  scale;  how  it  is  only  upon  this  supposition  that  divi- 
Bion  and  combination  of  labour  can  be  organised,  and  the 
means  of  production  economised  by  concentration  on  a  vast 
scale;   how   instruments  of  labour  which,    from   their  very 
nature,  are  only  fit  for  use  in  common,  such  as  a  system  of 
machinery,  can  be  called  into  being;  how  huge  natural  forces 
can  be  pressed  into  the  service  of  production;  and  how  the 
transformation  can  be  effected  of  the  process  of  production 
into  a  technological  application  of  scienca     On  the  basis  of 
the  production  of  commodities,  where  the  means  of  produc- 
tion are  the  property  of  private  persons,  and  where  the  artisan ' 
therefore  either  produces  commodities,  isolated  from  and  in- 
dependent of  others,  or  sells  his  labour-power  as  a  commodity, 
because  he  lacks  the  means  for  independent  industry,  co-opera- 
tion on  a  large  scale  can  realise  itself  only  in  the  increase  of 
individual  capitals,  only  in  proportion  as  the  means  of  social 
production  and  the  means  of  subsistence  are  transformed  into 
the  private  property  of  capitalists.     The  basis  of  the  pro- 
duction of  commodities  can  admit  of  production  on  a  large 
scale  in  the  capitalistic  form  alone.     A  certain  accumulation 
of  capital,    in   the  hands   of  individual   producers   of  com- 
modities,  forms  therefore  the  necessary  preliminary  of  the 
specifically  capitalistic  mode  of  production.     We  had,  there- 
fore, to  assume  that  this  occurs  during  the  transition  from 
handicraft  to  capitalistic  industry.     It  may  be  called  primi- 
tive accumulation,  because  it  is  the  historic  basis,  instead  of 
the  historic  result  of  specifically  capitalist  production.     How 
it  itself  originates,  we  need  not  here  inquire  as  yet.     It  is 
enough  that  it  forms  the  starting-point.     But  all  methods  for 
raising  the  social  productive  power  of  labour  that  are  de- 
veloped on  this  basis,  are  at  the  same  times  methods  for  the 
increased    production    of    surplus-value    or    surplus-product, 
which  in  its  turn  is  the  formative  element  of  accumulation. 
They  are,  therefore,  at  the  same  time  methods  of  the  produc- 
tion of  capital  by  capital,  or  methods  of  its  accelerated  ac- 
cumulation.     The    continual    re-transformation    of    surplus- 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      685 

value  into  capital  now  appears  in  the  shape  of  the  increasing 
magnitude  of  the  capital  tliat  enters  into  the  process  of  pro- 
duction. This  in  turn  is  the  hasis  of  an  extended  scale  of 
production,  of  the  methods  for  raising  the  productive  power 
of  labour  that  accompany  it,  and  of  accelerated  production  of 
surplus-value.  If,  therefore,  a  certain  degree  of  accumula- 
tion of  capital  appears  as  a  condition  of  the  specifically  capital- 
ist mode  of  production,  the  latter  causes  conversely  an  ac- 
celerated accumulation  of  capital.  With  the  accumulation  of 
capital,  therefore,  the  specifically  capitalistic  mode  of  pro- 
duction developes,  and  with  the  capitalist  mode  of  production 
II10  accumulation  of  capital.  Both  these  economic  factors 
bring  about,  in  the  compound  ratio  of  the  irapluses  they  reci- 
procally give  one  another,  that  change  in  the  technical  compo- 
sition of  capital  by  which  the  variable  constituent  becomes  al- 
ways smaller  and  smaller  as  compared  with  the  constant. 

Every  individual  capital  is  a  larger  or  smaller  concentration 
of  means  of  production,  with  a  corresponding  command  over  a 
larger  or  smaller  labour-army.  Every  accumulation  becomes 
the  means  of  new  accumulation.  With  the  increasing  mass  of 
wealth  which  functions  as  capital,  accumulation  increases  the 
concentration  of  that  wealth  in  the  hands  of  individual  capital- 
ists, and  thereby  widens  the  basis  of  production  on  a  large 
scale  and  of  the  specific  methods  of  capitalist  production. 
The  growth  of  social  capital  is  effected  by  the  growth  of  many 
individual  capitals.  All  other  circumstances  remaining  the 
same,  individual  capitals,  and  with  them  the  concentration  of 
the  means  of  production,  increases  in  such  proportion  as  they 
form  aliquot  parts  of  the  total  social  capital.  At  the  same 
time  portions  of  the  original  capitals  disengage  themselves  and 
function  as  new  independent  capitals.  Besides  other  causes, 
the  division  of  property,  within  capitalist  families,  plays  a 
great  part  in  this.  With  the  accumulation  of  capital,  there- 
fore, the  number  of  capitalists  grows  to  a  greater  or  less  ex- 
tent. Two  points  characterise  this  kind  of  concentration 
which  grows  directly  out  of,  or  rather  is  identical  with,  ac- 
cumulation. First :  The  increasing  concentration  of  the  social 
means  of  production  in  the  hands  of  individual  capitalist®  is, 


686  Capitalist  Production. 

other  things  remaining  equal,  limited  by  the  degree  of  increase 
of  social  wealth.  Second :  The  part  of  social  capital  domiciled 
in  each  particular  sphere  of  production  is  divided  among 
many  capitalists  who  face  one  another  as  independent  com- 
modity-producers competing  with  each  other.  Accumulation 
and  the  concentration  accompanying  it  are,  therefore,  not  only 
scattered  over  many  points,  but  the  increase  of  each  function- 
ing capital  is  thwarted  by  the  formation  of  new  and  the  sub- 
division of  old  capitals.  Accumulation,  therefore,  presents 
itself  on  the  one  hand  as  increasing  concentration  of  the  means 
of  production,  and  of  the  command  over  labour;  on  the  other, 
as  repulsion  of  many  individual  capitals  one  from  another. 

This  splitting-up  of  the  total  social  capital  into  many  in- 
dividual capitals  or  the  repulsion  of  its  fractions  one  from  an- 
other, is  counteracted  by  their  attraction.  This  last  does  not 
mean  that  simple  concentration  of  the  means  of  production 
and  of  the  command  over  labour,  which  is  identical  with  ac- 
cumulation. It  is  concentration  of  capitals  already  formed, 
destruction  of  their  individual  independence,  expropriation  of 
capitalist  by  capitalist,  transformation  of  many  small  into  few 
large  capitals.  This  process  differs  from  the  former  in  this, 
that  it  only  presupposes  a  change  in  the  distribution  of  capital 
already  to  hand,  and  functioning;  its  field  of  action  is  there- 
fore not  limited  by  the  absolute  growth  of  social  wealth,  by 
the  absolute  limits  of  accumulation.  Capital  grows  in  one 
place  to  a  huge  mass  in  a  single  hand,  because  it  has  in  an- 
other place  been  lost  by  many.  This  is  centralisation  proper, 
as  distinct  from  accumulation  and  concentration. 

The  laws  of  this  centralisation  of  capitals,  or  of  the  attrac- 
tion of  capital  by  capital,  cannot  be  developed  here.  A  brief 
hint  at  a  few  facts  must  suffice.  The  battle  of  cempetition  is 
fought  by  cheapening  of  commodities.  The  cheapness  of 
commodities  depends,  cceteris  paribus,  on  the  productiveness  of 
labour,  and  this  again  on  the  scale  of  production.  Therefore, 
the  larger  capitals  beat  the  smaller.  It  will  further  be  re- 
membered that,  with  the  development  of  the  capitalist  mode 
of  production,  there  is  an  increase  in  the  minimum  amount  of 
individual  capital  necessary  to  carry  on  a  business  under  its 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation^      687 

normal  conditions.  The  smaller  capitals,  therefore,  crowd 
into  s])heres  of  production  which  Modern  Industry  has  only 
sporadically  or  incompletely  got  hold  of.  Here  competition 
rages  in  direct  proportion  to  the  number,  and  in  inverse  pro- 
portion to  the  magnitudes,  of  the  antagonistic  capitals.  It 
always  ends  in  the  ruin  of  many  small  capitalists,  whose 
capitals  partly  pass  into  the  hand  of  their  conquerors,  partly 
vanish.  Apart  from  this,  with  capitalist  production  an  al- 
together new  force  comes  into  play — the  credit  system. 

In  its  beginnings,  the  credit  system  sneaks  in  as  a  modest 
lielper  of  accumulation  and  draws  by  invisible  threads  the 
money  resources  scattered  all  over  the  surface  of  society  into 
the  hands  of  individual  or  associated  capitalists.  But  soon  it 
becomes  a  new  and  formidable  weapon  in  the  competitive 
struggle,  and  finally  it  transforms  itself  into  an  immense  so- 
cial mechanism  for  the  centralisation  of  capitals. 

Competition  and  credit,  the  two  most  powerful  levers  of 
competition,  develop  in  proportion  as  capitalist  production  and 
accumulation  do.  At  the  same  time  the  progress  of  ac- 
cumulation increases  the  matter  subject  to  centralisation,  that 
is,  the  individual  capitals,  while  the  expansion  of  capitalist 
production  creates)  the  social  demand  here,  the  technical  re- 
quirements there,  for  those  gigantic  industrial  enterprises, 
which  depend  for  their  realisation  on  a  previous  centralisation 
of  capitals.  ITowadays,  then,  the  mutual  attraction  of  in- 
dividual capitals  and  the  tendency  to  centralisation  are 
stronger  than  ever  before.  However,  while  the  relative  ex- 
pansion and  energy  of  the  centralisation  movement  is  de- 
termined to  a  certain  degree  by  the  superiority  of  the  economic 
mechanism,  yet  the  progress  of  centralisation  is  by  no  means 
dependent  upon  the  positive  growth  of  the  volume  of  social 
capital.  This  is  the  particular  distinction  between  central- 
isation and  concentration,  the  latter  being  but  another  expres- 
sion for  reproduction  on  an  enlarged  scale.  Centralisation 
may  take  place  by  a  mere  change  in  the  distribution  of  al- 
ready existing  capitals,  a  simple  change  in  the  quantitative  ar- 
rangement of  the  components  of  social  capital.  Capital  may 
in  that  case  acciunulate  in  one  hand  in  large  masses  by  with- 


688  Capitalist  Production. 

drawing  it  from  many  individual  hands.  Centralisation  in  a 
certain  line  of  industry  would  have  reached  its  extreme  limit, 
if  all  the  individual  capitals  invested  in  it  would  have  been 
amalgamated  into  one  single  capital.^ 

•  This  limit  would  not  be  reached  in  any  particular  society 
until  the  entire  social  capital  would  be  united,  either  in  the 
hands  of  one  single  capitalist,  or  in  those  of  one  single  cor- 
poration. 

Centralisation  supplements  the  work  of  accumulation,  by 
enabling  the  industrial  capitalists  to  expand  the  scale  of  their 
operations.  The  economic  result  remains  the  same,  whether 
this  consummation  is  brought  about  by  accumulation  or  cen- 
tralisation, whether  centralisation  is  accomplished  by  the  vio- 
lent means  of  annexation,  by  which  some  capitals  become  such 
overwhelming  centers  of  gravitation  for  others  as  to  break 
their  individual  cohesion  and  attracting  the  scattered  frag- 
ments, or  whether  the  amalgamation  of  a  number  of  capitals, 
which  already  exist  or  are  in  process  of  formation,  proceeds  by 
the  smoother  road  of  forming  stock  companies.  The  in- 
creased volume  of  industrial  establishments  forms  everywhere 
the  point  of  departure  for  a  more  comprehensive  organisation 
of  the  co-operative  labor  of  many,  for  a  wider  development  of 
their  material  powers,  that  is,  for  the  progressive  transfor- 
mation of  isolated  processes  of  production  carried  on  in  ac- 
customed ways  into  socially  combined  and  scientifically  man- 
aged processes  of  production. 

It  is  evident,  however,  that  accumulation,  the  gradual  prop- 
agation of  capital  by  a  reproduction  passing  from  a  circular 
into  a  spiral  form,  is  a  very  slow  process  as  compared  with 
centralisation,  which  needs  but  to  alter  the  quantitative 
grouping  of  the  integral  parts  of  social  capital.  The  world 
would  still  be  without  railroads,  if  it  had  been  obliged  to  wait 
until  accumulation  should  have  enabled  a  few  individual 
capitals  to  undertake  the  construction  of  a  railroad.  Central- 
isation, on  the  other  hand,  accomplished  this  by  a  turn  of  the 

*  Note  to  the  4th  German  -edition — The  latest  English  and  American  "trusts"  are 
aiming  to  accomplish  this  by  trying  to  unite  at  least  all  the  large  establishments  of 
a  certain  line  of  industry  into  one  great  stock  company  with  a  practical  monopoly. — 
F.  £. 


The  General  Latv  of  Capitalist  Acctunulation.     689 

hand  through  stock  companies.  Centralisation,  by  thus  a©- 
celerating  and  intensifying  the  effects  of  accumulation,  ex- 
tends and  hastens  at  the  same  time  the  revolutions  in  the 
technical  composition  of  capital,  which  increase  its  constant 
part  at  the  expense  of  its  variables  part  and  thereby  reduce 
the  relative  demand  for  labor. 

The  masses  of  capital  amalgamated  over  night  by  central- 
isation reproduce  and  augment  themselves  like  the  others,  only 
faster,  and  thus  become  new  and  powerful  levers  of  social  ac- 
cumulation. Hence,  if  the  progress  of  social  accumulation 
is  mentioned  nowadays,  it  comprizes  as  a  matter  of  course  the 
effects  of  centralisation.  The  additional  capitals  formed  in 
the  course  of  normal  accumulation  (see  chapter  XXIV,  1.) 
serve  mainly  as  vehicles  for  the  exploitation  of  new  inven- 
tions and  discoveries,  or  of  industrial  improvements  in  gen- 
eral. However,  the  old  capital  likewise  arrives  in  due  time 
at  the  moment  when  it  must  renew  its  head  and  limbs,  when 
it  casts  off  its  old  skin  and  is  likewise  bom  again  in  its  per- 
fected industrial  form,  in  which  a  smaller  quantity  of  labor 
suffices  to  set  in  motion  a  larger  quantity  of  machinery  and 
raw  materials.  The  absolute  decrease  of  the  demand  for 
labor  necessarily  following  therefrom  will  naturally  be  so 
much  greater,  the  more  these  capitals  going  through  the  pro- 
cess of  rejuvenation  have  become  accumulated  in  masses  by 
means  of  the  movement  of  centralisation. 

On  the  one  hand,  therefore,  the  additional  capital  formed 
in  the  course  of  accumulation  attracts  fewer  and  fewer  la- 
bourers in  proportion  to  its  magnitude.  On  the  other  hand, 
■die  old  capital  periodically  reproduced  with  change  of  compo- 
sition, repels  more  and  more  of  the  labourers  formerly  em- 
ployed by  it. 

SECTION    3. PROGRESSIVE    PRODUCTION    OF    A    RELATIVE    SUR- 
PLUS-POPULATION  OR  INDUSTRIAL   RESERVE   ARMY. 

The  accumulation  of  capital,  though  originally  appearing  as 

its  quantitative  extension  only,  is  effected,  as  we  have  seen, 

under   a    progressive   qualitative   change   in  its   composition, 

2  R 


696  Capitalist  Production. 

under  a  constant  increase  of  its  constant,  at  the  expense  of  its 
variable  constitutent.^ 

The  specifically  capitalist  mode  of  production,  the  develop- 
ment of  the  productive  power  of  labour  corresponding  to  it, 
and  the  change  thence  resulting  in  the  organic  composition  of 
capital,  do  not  merely  keep  pace  with  the  advance  of  accumu- 
lation, or  with  the  growth  of  social  wealth.  They  develop  at 
a  much  quicker  rate,  because  mere  accumulation,  the  absolute 
increase  of  the  total  social  capital,  is  accompanied  by  the  cen- 
tralisation of  the  individual  capitals  of  which  that  total  is 
made  up;  and  because  the  change  in  the  technological  com- 
position of  the  additional  capital  goes  hand  in  hand  with  a 
similar  change  in  the  technological  composition  of  the  original 
capital.  With  the  advance  of  accumulation,  therefore,  the 
proportion  of  constant  to  variable  capital  changes.  It  it  was 
originally  say  1:1,  it  now  becomes  successively  2:1,  3:1,  4:1, 
5  :1,  7 :1,  &c.,  so  that,  as  the  capital  increases,  instead  of  ^  of 
its  total  value,  only  ^,  ^,  ^,  ^,  ^,  &c.,  is  transformed  into  la- 
bour-power, and,  on  the  other  hand,  f,  f,  f ,  f ,  ^  into  means 
of  production.  Since  the  demand  for  labour  is  determined 
not  by  the  amount  of  capital  as  a  whole,  but  by  its  variable 
constituent  alone,  that  demand  falls  progressively  with  the  in- 
crease of  the  total  capital,  instead  of,  as  previously  assumed, 
rising  in  proportion  to  it.  It  falls  relatively  to  the  magni- 
tude of  the  total  capital,  and  at  an  accelerated  rate,  as  this 
magnitude  increases.  With  the  growth  of  the  total  capital,  its 
variable  constituent  or  the  labour  incorporated  in  it,  also 
does  increase,  but  in  a  constantly  diminishing  proportion. 
The  intermediate  pauses  are  shortened,  in  which  accumu- 
lation works  as  simple  extension  of  production,  on  a  given 
technical  basis.  It  is  not  merely  that  an  accelerated  accumu- 
lation of  total  capital,  accelerated  in  a  constantly  growing 
progression,  is  needed  to  absorb  an  additional  number  of 
labourers,  or  even,  on  account  of  the  constant  metamorphosis" 

*  Note  to  the  8rd  edition.  In  Marx's  copy  there  is  here  the  marginal  note:  "Here 
note  for  working  out  later;  if  the  extension  is  only  quantitative,  then  for  a  greater 
and  a  smaller  capital  in  the  same  branch  of  business  the  profits  are  as  the  magnitudes 
of  the  capitals  advanced.  If  the  quantitative  extension  induces  qualitative  change, 
then  the  rate  of  profit  on  the  larger  capital  rises  simultaneously." 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.     691 

of  old  capital,  to  keep  employed  those  already  functioning. 
In  its  turn,  this  increasing  accumulation  and  centralisation 
becomes  a  source  of  new  changes  in  the  composition  of  capital, 
of  a  more  accelerated  diminution  of  its  variable,  as  compared 
with  its  constant  constituent.  This  accelerated  relative 
diminution  of  the  variable  constituent,  that  goes  along  with 
the  accelerated  increase  of  the  total  capital,  and  moves  more 
rapidly  than  this  increase,  takes  the  inverse  form,  at  the  other 
pole,  of  an  apparently  absolute  increase  of  the  labouring  pop- 
ulation, an  increase  always  moving  more  rapidly  than  that  of 
the  variable  capital  or  the  means  of  employment.  But  in  fact, 
it  is  capitalistic  accumulation  itself  that  constantly  produces, 
and  producesi  in  the  direct  ratio  of  its  own  energy  and  ex- 
tent, a  relatively  redundant  population  of  labourers,  i.e.,  a 
population  of  greater  extent  than  suffices  for  the  average  needs 
of  the  self -expansion  of  capital,  and  therefore  a  surplus-pop- 
ulation. 

Considering  the  social  capital  in  its  totality,  the  movement 
of  its  accumulation  now  causes  periodical  changes,  affecting 
it  more  or  less  as  a  whole,  now  distributes  its  various  phases 
simultaneously  over  the  different  spheres  of  production.  In 
some  spheres  a  change  in  the  composition  of  capital  occurs 
without  increase  of  its  absolute  magnitude,  as  a  consequence 
of  simple  centralisation;  in  others  the  absolute  growth  of 
capital  is  connected  with  absolute  diminution  of  its  variable 
constituent,  or  of  the  labour-power  absorbed  by  it;  in  others 
again,  capital  continues  growing  for  a  time  on  its  given  tech- 
nical basis,  and  attracts  additional  labour-power  in  proportion 
to  its  increase,  while  at  other  times  it  undergoes  organic 
change,  and  lessens  its  variable  constituent;  in  all  spheres, 
the  increase  of  the  variable  part  of  capital,  and  therefore  of 
the  number  of  labourers  employed  by  it,  is  always  connected 
with  violent  fluctuations  and  transitory  production  of  sur- 
plus-population, whether  this  takes  the  more  striking  form  of 
the  repulsion  of  labourers  already  employed,  or  the  less  evi- 
dent but  not  less  real  form  of  the  more  difficult  absorption  of 
the  additional  labouring  population  through  the  usual  chan- 


692  Capitalist  Production. 

nels.*  With  the  magnitude  of  social  capital  already  function- 
ing, and  the  degree  of  its  increase,  with  the  extension  of  the 
scale  of  production,  and  the  mass  of  the  labourers  set  in  mo- 
tion, "with  the  development  of  the  productiveness  of  their 
labour,  with  the  greater  breadth  and  fulness  of  all  sources  of 
wealth,  there  is  also  an  extension  of  the  scale  on  which  greater 
attraction  of  labourers  by  capital  is  accompanied  by  their 
greater  repulsion;  the  rapidity  of  the  change  in  the  organic 
composition  of  capital,  and  in  its  technical  form  increases, 
and  an  increasing  number  of  spheres  of  production  becomes 
involved  in  this  change,  now  simultaneously,  now  alternately. 
The  labouring  population  therefore  produces,  along  with  the 
accumulation  of  capital  produced  by  it,  the  means  by  which 
itself  is  made  relatively  superfluous,  is  turned  into  a  relative 
surplus  population ;  and  it  does  this  to  an-  always  increasing 
extent.^    This  is  a  law  of  population  peculiar  to  the  capitalist 

*  The  census  of  England  and  Wales  shows:  all  persons  employed  in  agriculture 
(landlords,  farmers,  gardeners,  shepherds,  &c.,  included):  1851,  2,011,447:  1861, 
1,924,110.  Fall,  87,337.  Worsted  manufacture:  1851,  102,714  persons:  1861, 
79,242.  Silk  weaving:  1851,  111,940:  1861,  101,678.  Calico-printing:  1851, 
12,098:  1861,  12,556.  A  small  rise  that,  in  the  face  of  the  enormous 
extension  of  this  industry  and  implying  a  great  fall  proportionally  in  the 
number  of  labourers  employed.  Hat-making:  1851,  15,957:  1861,  13,814.  Straw- 
hat  and  bonnet-making:  1851,  20,393:  1861,  18,176.  Malting:  1851,  10,566:  1861, 
10,677.  Chandlery,  1851,  4949:  1861,  4686.  This  fall  is  due,  besides  other  causes, 
to  the  increase  in  lighting  by  gas.  Comb-making:  1851,  2,038:  1861,  1,478.  Sawyers: 
1851,  30,552:  1861,  31,647 — a  small  rise  in  consequence  of  the  increase  of  sewing- 
machines.  Nail-making:  1851,  26,940:  1861,  26,130 — fall  in  consequence  of  the 
competition  of  machinery.  Tin  and  copper-mining:  1861,  31,360:  1861,  32,041.  On 
the  other  hand:  Cotton-spinning  and  weaving:  1851,  371,777:  1861,  456,646.  Coal- 
mining: 1851,  183,389:  1861,  246,  613.  "The  increase  of  labourers  is  generally 
greatest,  since  1851,  in  such  branches  of  industry  in  which  machinery  has  not  up 
to  the  present  been  employed  with  success."  (Census  of  England  and  Wales  for 
1862.     Vol.   III.     London,   1863,   p.  36.) 

*  The  law  of  the  progressive  decrease  of  the  relative  size  of  the  variable  capital, 
and  of  its  effects  on  the  condition  of  the  wage-working  class,  has  been  more  intui- 
tively felt  than  actually  comprehended  by  some  excellent  economists  of  the  classic 
school.  The  greatest  honor  in  this  respect  is  due  to  John  Barton,  although  he, 
like  all  the  others,  jumbles  together  the  constant  with  the  fixed  capital  and  the 
circulating  with  the  variable  capital.  He  says :  "The  demand  for  labour  depends  on 
the  increase  of  circulating,  and  rot  of  fixed  capital.  Were  it  true  that  the  propor- 
tion between  these  two  sorts  of  capital  is  the  same  at  all  times,  and  in  all  circum- 
stances, then,  indeed,  it  follows  that  the  number  of  labourers  employed  is  in  pro- 
portion to  the  wealth  of  the  state.  But  such  a  proposition  has  not  the  semblance  of 
probability.  As  arts  are  cultivated,  and  civilization  is  extended,  fixed  capital  bears 
a  larger  and  larger  proportion  to  circulating  capital.  The  amount  of  fixed  capital 
employed  in  the  production  of  a  piece  of  British  muslin  is  at  least  a  hundred, 
probably  a  thousand  times  greater  than  that  employed  in  a  similar  piece  of  Indian 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      693 

mode  of  production;  and  in  fact  every  special  historic  mode 
of  production  has  its  own  special  laws  of  population,  his- 
torically valid  within  its  limits  alone.  An  abstract  law  of 
population  exists  for  plants  and  animals  only,  and  only  in  so 
far  as  man  has  not  interfered  with  them. 

But  if  a  surplus  labouring  population  is  a  necessary  pro- 
duct of  accumulation  or  of  the  development  of  wealth  on  a 
capitalist  basis,  this  surplus  population  becomes,  conversely, 
the  lever  of  capitalistic  accumulation,  nay,  a  condition  of  ex- 
istence of  the  capitalist  mode  of  production.  It  forms  a  dis- 
posable industrial  reserve  army,  that  belongs  to  capital  quit© 
as  absolutely  as  if  the  latter  had  bred  it  at  its  own  cost.  In- 
dependently of  the  limits  of  the  actual  increase  of  population, 
it  creates,  for  the  changing  needs  of  the  self-expansion  of 
capital,  a  mass  of  human  material  always  ready  for  ex- 
ploitation. With  accumulation,  and  the  development  of  the 
productiveness  of  labour  that  accompanies  it,  the  power  of 
sudden  expansion  of  capital  grows  also;  it  grows,  not  merely 
because  the  elasticity  of  the  capital  already  functioning  in- 
creases, not  merely  because  the  absolute  wealth  of  society  ex- 
pands, of  which  capital  only  forms  an  elastic  part,  not  merely 
because  credit,  under  every  special  stimulus,  at  once  places 
an  unusual  part  of  this  wealth  at  the  disposal  of  production 
in  the  form  of  additional  capital;  it  grows,  also,  because  the 
technical, conditions  of  the  process  of  production  themselves — 
machinery,  means  of  transport,  &c. — now  admit  of  the  rapid- 

muslin.  And  the  proportion  of  circulating  capital  is  a  hundred  or  thousand  times 
less  .  .  .  the  whole  of  the  annual  savings,  added  to  the  fixed  capital,  would 
have  no  effect  in  increasing  the  demand  for  labour."  (John  Barton.  "Observations 
on  the  Circumstances  which  Influence  the  Condition  of  the  Labouring  Classes  of 
Society."  London,  1817,  pp.  16,  17.)  "The  same  cause  which  may  increase  the 
net  revenue  of  the  country  may  at  the  same  time  render  th»  population  redundant, 
and  deteriorate  the  condition  of  the  labourer."  (Ricardo,  1.  c,  p.  469.)  With  in- 
crease of  capital,  "the  demand  [for  labour]  will  be  in  a  diminishing  ratio."  (ibid, 
p.  480,  Note.)  "The  amount  of  capital  devoted  to  the  maintenance  of  labour  may 
vary,  independently  of  any  changes  in  the  whole'  amount  of  capital.  .  .  . 
Great  fluctuations  in  the  amount  of  employment,  and  great  suffering  may  become 
more  frequent  as  capital  itself  becomes  more  plentiful."  (Richard  Jones.  "An 
Introductory  Lecture  on  Pol.  Econ.,  Lond.  1833,"  p.  13.)  "Demand  [for  labour] 
will  rise  .  .  .  not  in  proportion  to  the  accumulation  of  the  general  capital. 
.  .  .  Every  augmentation,  therefore,  in  the  national  stock  destined  for  reproduc- 
tion, comes,  in  the  progress  of  society,  to  have  less  and  less  influence  upon  the 
condition  of  the  labourer."     (Ramsay,  1.  c,  pp.  90,  91.) 


694  Capitalist  Production. 

est  transfoiination  of  masses  of  surplus  product  into  addi- 
tional means  of  production.  The  mass  of  social  wealth,  over- 
flowing with  the  advance  of  accumulation,  and  transformable 
into  additional  capital,  thrusts  itself  frantically  into  old 
branches  of  production,  whose  market  suddenly  expands,  or 
into  newly  formed  branches,  such  as  railways,  &c.,  the  need 
for  which  grows  out  of  the  development  of  the  old  ones.  In 
all  such  cases,  there  must  be  the  possibility  of  throwing  great 
masses  of  men  suddenly  on  the  decisive  points  without  injury 
to  the  scale  of  production  in  other  spheres.  Over-population 
supplies  these  masses.  The  course  characteristic  of  modem 
industry,  viz.,  a  decennial  cycle  (interrupted  by  smaller  oscil- 
lations), of  periods  of  average  activity,  production  at  high 
pressure,  crisis  and  stagnation,  depends  on  the  constant  for- 
mation, the  greater  or  less  absorption,  and  the  re-formation 
of  the  industrial  reserve  army  of  surplus  population.  In 
their  turn,  the  varying  phases  of  the  industrial  cycle  recruit 
the  surplus  population,  and  become  one  of  the  most  energetic 
agents  of  its  reproduction.  This  peculiar  course  of  modern 
industry,  which  occurs  in  no  earlier  period  of  human  history, 
was  also  impossible  in  the  childhood  of  capitalist  production. 
The  composition  of  capital  changed  but  very  slowly.  With 
its  accumulation,  therefore,  there  kept  pace,  on  the  whole,  a 
corresponding  growth  in  the  demand  for  labour.  Slow  as 
was  the  advance  of  accumulation  compared  with  that  of  more 
modem  times,  it  found  a  check  in  the  natural  limits  of  the 
exploitable  labouring  population,  limits  which  could  only  be 
got  rid  of  by  forcible  means  to  be  mentioned  later.  The  ex- 
pansion by  fits  and  starts  of  the  scale  of  production  is  the 
preliminary  to  its  equally  sudden  contraction ;  the  latter  again 
evokes  the  former,  but  the  former  is  impossible  without  dis- 
posable human  material,  without  an  increase  in  the  number 
of  labourers  independently  of  the  absolute  growth  of  the 
population.  This  increase  is  effected  by  the  simple  process 
that  constantly  "sets  free"  a  part  of  the  labourers ;  by  methods 
which  lessen  the  number  of  labourers  employed  in  proportion 
to  the  increased  production.  The  whole  form  of  the  move- 
ment of  modem  industry  depends,  therefore,  upon  the  constant 


The  General  Lazv  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      695 

transfonnation  of  a  part  of  tlie  labouring  population  into  un- 
employed or  half-eniplojed  hands.  The  superficiality  of  Po- 
litical Economy  shows  itself  in  the  fact  that  it  looks  upon 
the  expansion  and  contraction  of  credit,  which  is  a  mere  symp- 
tom of  the  periodic  changes  of  the  industrial  cycle,  as  their 
cause.  As  tlie  heavenly  bodies,  once  thrown  into  a  certain 
definite  motion,  always  repeat  this,  so  is  it  with  social  pro- 
duction as  soon  as  it  is  once  thrown  into  this  movement  of 
alternate  expansion  and  contraction.  Effects,  in  their  turn, 
become  causes,  and  the  varying  accidents  of  the  whole  process, 
which  always  reproduces  its  own  conditions,  take  on  the  form 
of  periodicity.  When  this  periodicity  is  once  consolidated, 
even  Political  Economy  then  sees  that  the  production  of  a 
relative  surplus  population — i.e.,  surplus  with  regard  to  the 
average  needs  of  the  self-expansion  of  capital — is  a  necessary 
condition  of  modem  industry. 

"Suppose,"  says  H.  Marivale,  formerly  Professor  of  Po- 
litical Economy  at  Oxford,  subsequently  employed  in  the  Eng- 
lish Colonial  Office,  "suppose  that,  on  the  occasion  of  some 
of  these  crises,  the  nation  were  to  rouse  itself  to  the  effort  of 
getting  rid  by  emigration  of  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
superfluous  arms,  what  would  be  the  consequence  ?  That,  at 
the  first  returning  demand  for  labour,  there  would  be  a  de- 
ficiency. However  rapid  reproduction  may  be,  it  takes,  at  all 
events,  the  space  of  a  generation  to  replace  the  loss  of  adult 
labour.  ISTow,  the  profits  of  our  manufacturers  depend  mainly 
on  the  power  of  making  use  of  the  prosperous  moment  when 
demand  is  brisk,  and  thus  compensating  themselves  for  the 
interval  during  which  it  is  slack.  This  power  is  secured  to 
them  only  by  the  command  of  machinery  and  of  manual  la- 
bour. They  must  have  hands  ready  by  them,  they  must  be 
able  to  increase  the  activity  of  their  operations  when  required, 
and  to  slacken  it  again,  according  to  the  state  of  the  market, 
or  they  cannot  possibly  maintain  the  pre-eminence  in  the  race 
of  competition  on  which  the  wealth  of  the  country  is  found- 
ed."^ Even  Malthus  recognises  over-population  as  a  neces- 
sity of  modem  industry,  though,  after  his  narrow  fashion,  he 

*  H,   Merivale:     Lectures   on   Colonization   and  Colonies,   1841."     Vol.   I.,   p.   146. 


696  Capitalist  Production. 

explains  it  by  the  absolute  over-growth  of  the  labouring  pop- 
ulation, not  bj  their  becoming  relatively  supernumerary.  He 
says:  "Prudential  habits  with  regard  to  marriage,  carried  to 
a  considerable  extent  among  the  labouring  class  of  a  country 
mainly  depending  upon  manufactures  and  commerce,  might 
injure  it,  .  .  .  From  the  nature  of  a  population,  an  in- 
crease of  labourers  cannot  be  brought  into  market  in  conse- 
quence of  a  particular  demand  till  after  the  lapse  of  16  or  18 
years,  and  the  conversion  of  revenue  into  capital,  by  saving, 
may  take  place  much  more  rapidly ;  a  country  is  always  liable 
to  an  increase  in  the  quantity  of  the  funds  for  the  maintenance 
of  labour  faster  than  the  increase  of  population."  ^  After  Po- 
litical Economy  has  thus  demonstrated  the  constant  produc- 
tion of  a  relative  surplus-population  of  labourers  to  be  a 
necessity  of  capitalistic  accumulation,  she  very  aptly,  in  the 
guise  of  an  old  maid,  puts  in  the  mouth  of  her  "beau  ideal"  of 
a  capitalist  the  following  words  addressed  to  those  supernu- 
meraries thrown  on  the  streets  by  their  own  creation  of  ad- 
ditional capital: — "We  manufacturers  do  what  Ave  can  for 
you,  whilst  we  are  increasing  that  capital  on  which  you  must 
subsist,  and  you  must  do  the  rest  by  accommodating  your 
numbers  to  the  means  of  subsistence."  ^ 

Capitalist  production  can  by  no  means  content  itself  with 
the  quantity  of  disposable  labour-power  which  the  natural 
increase  of  population  yields.  It  requires  for  its  free  play  an 
industrial  reserve  army  independent  of  these  natural  limits. 

Up  to  this  point  it  has  been  assumed  that  the  increase  or 
diminution  of  the  variable  capital  corresponds  rigidly  with 
the  increase  or  diminution  of  the  number  of  labourers  em- 
ployed. 

The  number  of  labourers  commanded  by  capital  may  remain 
the  same,  or  even  fall,  while  the  variable  capital  increases. 
This  is  the  case  if  the  individual  labourer  yields  more  labour, 

'  Malthus.  "Principles  of  Political  Economy,"  pp.  254,  319,  320.  In  this  work, 
Malthus  finally  discovers,  with  the  help  of  Sismondi,  the  beautiful  Trinity  of  capital- 
istic production:  over-production,  over-population,  over-consumption — three  very  deli- 
cate monsters,  indeed.  Cf.  F.  Engels.  "Umrisse  zu  einer  Kritik  der  National- 
Oekonomie,"  1.  c,  p.  107,  et  seq. 

*  Harriet  Martineau.     "The  Manchester  Strike,"  1842,  p.   101. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation,     697 

and  therefore  his  wages  increase  and  this  although  the  price  of 
labour  remains  the  same  or  even  falls,  only  more  slowly  than 
the  mass  of  labour  rises.  Increase  of  variable  capital,  in 
this  case,  becomes  an  index  of  more  labour,  but  not  of  more 
labourers  employed.  It  is  the  absolute  interest  of  every 
capitalist  to  press  a  given  quantity  of  labour  out  of  a  smaller, 
rather  than  a  greater  number  of  labourers,  if  the  cost  is  about 
the  same.  In  the  latter  case,  the  outlay  of  constant  capital 
increases  in  proportion  to  the  mass  of  labour  set  in  action ;  in 
the  former  tliat  increase  is  much  smaller.  The  more  ex- 
tended the  scale  of  production,  the  stronger  this  motive.  Its 
force  increases  with  the  accumulation  of  capital. 

^Ye  have  seen  that  the  development  of  the  capitalist  mode 
of  production  and  of  the  productive  power  of  labour — at  once 
the  cause  and  effect  of  accumulation — enables  the  capitalist, 
with  the  same  outlay  of  variable  capital,  to  set  in  action  more 
labour  by  greater  exploitation  (extensive  or  intensive)  of  each 
individual  labour-power.  We  have  further  seen  that  the 
capitalist  buys  with  the  same  capital  a  greater  mass  of  labour- 
power,  as  he  progressively  replaces  skilled  labourers  by  less 
skilled,  mature  labour-power  by  immature,  male  by  female, 
that  of  adults  by  that  of  young  persons  or  children. 

On  the  one  hand,  therefore,  with  the  progress  of  accumula- 
tion, a  larger  variable  capital  sets  more  labour  in  action  with- 
out enlisting  more  labourers ;  on  the  other,  a  variable  capital 
of  the  same  magnitude  sets  in  action  more  labour  with  the 
same  mass  of  labour-power ;  and,  finally,  a  greater  number  of 
inferior  labour-power  by  displacement  of  higher. 

The  production  of  a  relative  surplus-population,  or  the  set- 
ting free  of  labourers,  goes  on  therefore  yet  more  rapidly  than 
the  technical  revolution  of  the  process  of  production  that  ac- 
companies, and  is  accelerated  by,  the  advances  of  accumula- 
tion ;  and  more  rapidly  than  the  corresponding  diminution  of 
the  variable  part  of  capital  as  compared  with  the  constant. 
If  the  means  of  production,  as  they  increase  in  extent  and 
effective  power,  become  to  a  less  extent  means  of  employment 
of  labourers,  this  state  of  things  is  again  modified  by  the  fact 
that  in  proportion  as  the  productiveness  of  labour  increases, 


698  Capitalist  Production. 

capital  increases  its  supply  of  labour  more  quickly  than  its  de- 
mand for  labourers.  The  over-work  of  the  employed  part  of 
the  working  class  swells  the  ranks  of  the  reserve,  whilst  con- 
versely the  greater  pressure  that  the  latter  by  its  competition 
exerts  on  the  former,  forces  these  to  submit  to  over-work  and 
to  subjugation  under  the  dictates  of  capital.  The  condemna- 
tion of  one  part  of  the  working-class  to  enforced  idleness  by 
the  over-work  of  the  other  part,  and  the  converse,^  becomes  a 
means  of  enriching  the  individual  capitalists,^  and  accelerates 
at  the  same  time  the  production  of  the  industrial  reserve  army 
on  a  scale  corresponding  with  the  advance  of  social  accumu- 
lation. How  important  is  this  element  in  the  formation  of 
the  relative  surplus-population,  is  shown  by  the  example  of 
England.  Her  technical  means  for  saving  labour  are  colossal. 
Nevertheless,  if  to-morrow  morning  labour  generally  were  re- 
duced to  a  rational  amount,  and  proportioned  to  the  different 
sections  of  the  working-class  according  to  age  and  sex,  the 
working  population  to  hand  would  be  absolutely  insufficient 
for  the  carrying  on  of  national  production  on  its  present  scale. 
The  great  majority  of  the  labourers  now  "unproductive" 
would  have  to  be  turned  into  "productive"  ones. 

*  Even  in  the  cotton  famine  of  1863  we  find,  in  a  pamphlet  of  the  operative  cot- 
ton-spinners of  Blackburn,  fierce  denunciations  of  overwork,  which,  in  consequence 
of  the  Factory  Acts,  of  course  only  affected  adult  male  labourers.  "The  adult  op- 
eratives at  this  mill  have  been  asked  to  work  from  12  to  13  hours  per  day,  while 
there  are  hundreds  who  are  compelled  to  be  idle  who  would  willingly  work  partial 
time,  in  order  to  maintain  their  families  and  save  their  brethren  from  a  premature 
grave  through  being  overworked  .  .  .  We,"  it  goes  on  to  say,  "would  ask  if 
the  practice  of  working  overtime  by  a  number  of  hands,  is  likely  to  create  a  good 
feeling  between  masters  and  servants.  Those  who  are  worked  overtime  feel  the 
injustice  equally  with  those  who  are  condemned  to  forced  idleness.  There  is  in 
the  district  almost  sufficient  work  to  give  to  all  partial  employment  if  fairly  dis- 
tributed. We  are  only  asking  what  is  right  in  requesting  the  masters  generally  to 
pursue  a  system  of  short  hours,  particularly  until  a  better  state  of  things  begins 
to  dawn  upon  us,  rather  than  to  work  a  portion  of  the  hands  overtime,  while  others, 
for  want  of  work,  are  compelled  to  exist  upon  charity."  (Reports  of  Insp.  of 
Fact.,  Oct.  31,  1863,  p.  8.)  The  author  of  the  "Essay  on  Trade  and  Commerce"  grasps 
the  effect  of  a  relative  surplus-population  on  the  employed  labourers  with  his  usual 
unerring  bourgeois  instinct.  "Another  cause  of  idleness  in  this  kingdom  is  the  want 
of  a  sufficient  number  of  labouring  hands  ....  Whenever  from  an  extraor- 
dinary demand  for  manufacturers,  labour  grows  scarce,  the  labourers  feel  their  own 
consequence,  and  will  make  their  masters  feel  it  likewise — it  is  amazing;  but  so  de- 
praved are  the  dispositions  of  these  people,  that  in  such  cases  a  set  of  workmen  have 
combined  to  distress  the  employer,  by  idling  a  whole  day  together."  (Essay,  &c., 
pp.  27,  28.)     The  fellows  in  fact  were  hankering  after  a  rise  in  wages. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.     699 

Taking  them  as  a  whole,  the  general  movements  of  wages 
are  exclusively  regulated  by  the  expansion  and  contraction  of 
the  industrial  reserve  army,  and  these  again  correspond  to  the 
periodic  changes  of  the  industrial  cycle.  They  are,  therefore, 
not  determined  by  the  variations  of  the  absolute  number  of 
the  working  population,  but  by  the  varying  proportions  in 
which  the  working  class  is  divided  into  active  and  reserve 
army,  by  the  increase  of  diminution  in  the  relative  amount  of 
the  surplus-population,  by  the  extent  to  which  it  is.  now  ab- 
sorbed, now  set  free.  For  Modern  Industry  with  its  decen- 
nial cycles  and  periodic  phases,  which,  moreover,  as  accumu- 
lation advances,  are  complicated  by  irregular  oscillations  fol- 
lowing each  other  more  and  more  quickly,  that  would  indeed 
be  a  beautiful  law,  which  pretends  to  make  the  action  of 
capital  dependent  on  the  absolute  variation  of  the  population, 
instead  of  regulating  the  demand  and  supply  of  labour  by  the 
alternate  expansion  and  contraction  of  capital,  the  labour- 
market  now  appearing  relatively  under-full,  because  capital  is 
expanding,  now  again  over-full,  because  it  is  contracting.  Yet 
this  is  the  dogma  of  the  economists.  According  to  them, 
wages  rise  in  consequence  of  accumulation  of  capital.  The 
higher  wages  stimulate  the  working  population  to  more  rapid 
multiplication,  and  this  goes  on  until  the  labour-market  be- 
comes too  full,  and  therefore  capital,  relatively  to  the  supply 
of  labour,  becomes  insufficient.  Wages  fall,  and  now  we  have 
the  reverse  of  the  medal.  The  working  population  is  little  by 
little  decimated  as  the  result  of  the  fall  in  wages,  so  that 
capital  is  again  in  excess  relatively  to  them,  or,  as  others  ex- 
plain it,  falling  wages  and  the  corresponding  increase  in  the 
exploitation  of  the  labourer  again  accelerates  accumulation, 
whilst,  at  the  same  time,  the  lower  wages  hold  the  increase  of 
the  working-class  in  check.  Then  comes  again  the  time,  when 
the  supply  of  labour  is  less  than  the  demand,  wages  rise,  and 
so  on.  A  beautiful  mode  of  motion  this  for  developed  capital- 
ist production !  Before,  in  consequence  of  the  rise  of  wages, 
any  positive  increase  of  the  population  really  fit  for  work 
could  occur,  the  time  would  have  been  passed  again  and  again, 


700  Capitalist  Production. 

during  which  the  industrial  campaign  must  have  been  carried 
through,  the  battle  fought  and  won. 

Between  1849  and  1859,  a  rise  of  wages  practically  in- 
significant, though  accompanied  by  falling  prices  of  corn,  took 
place  in  the  English  agricultural  districts.  In  Wiltshire,  e.g., 
the  weekly  wages  rose  from  7s.  to  8s. ;  in  Dorsetshire  from  7s. 
or  8s.,  to  9s.,  &c.  This  was  the  result  of  an  unusual  exodus 
of  the  agricultural  surplus-population  caused  by  the  demands 
of  war,  the  vast  extension  of  railroads,  factories,  mines,  &c. 
The  lower  the  wages,  the  higher  is  the  proportion  in  which  ever 
so  insignificant  a  rise  of  them  expresses  itself.  If  the  weekly 
wage,  e.g.,  is  20s.  and  it  rises  to  22s.,  that  is  a  rise  of  10  per 
cent. ;  but  if  it  is  only  7s.  and  it  rises  to  9s.,  that  is  a  rise  of 
28  j-  per  cent.,  which  sounds  very  fine.  Everywhere  the  farm- 
ers were  howling,  and  the  "London  Economist,"  with  refer- 
ence to  these  starvation-wages,  prattled  quite  seriously  of  "a 
general  and  substantial  advance."^  What  did  the  farmers  do 
now  ?  Did  they  wait  until,  in  consequence  of  this  brilliant  re- 
muneration, the  agricultural  labourers,  had  so  increased  and 
multiplied  that  their  wages  must  fall  again,  as  prescribed  by 
the  dogmatic  economic  brain  ?  They  introduced  more  ma- 
chinery, and  in  a  moment  the  labourers  were  redundant  again 
in  a  proportion  satisfactory  even  to  the  farmers.  There  was 
now  "more  capital"  laid  out  in  agriculture  than  before,  and 
in  a  more  productive  form.  With  this  the  demand  for  labour 
fell,  not  only  relatively,  but  absolutely. 

The  above  economic  fiction  confuses  the  laws  that  regulate 
the  general  movement  of  wages,  or  the  ratio  between  the 
working-class — i.e.,  the  total  labour-power — and  the  total  so- 
cial capital,  with  the  laws  that  distribute  the  working  popu- 
lation over  the  different  spheres  of  production.  If,  e.g.,  in 
consequence  of  favourable  circumstances,  accumulation  in  a 
particular  sphere  of  production  becomes  especially  active,  and 
profits  in  it,  being  greater  than  the  average  profits,  attract 
additional  capital,  of  course  the  demand  for  labour  rises  and 
wages  also  rise.  The  higher  wages  draw  a  larger  part  of  the 
working  population  into  the  more  favoured  sphere,  until  it  is 

I  Economist    Jan.    21.    1860. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      701 

glutted  with  labour-power,  and  wages  at  length  fall  again  to 
their  average  level  or  below  it,  if  the  pressure  is  too  great. 
Then,  not  only  does  the  immigration  of  labourers  into  the 
branch  of  industry  in  question  cease ;  it  gives  place  to  their 
emigration.  Here  the  political  economist  thinks  he  sees  the 
why  and  wherefore  of  an  absolute  increase  of  workers  accom- 
panying an  increase  of  wages,  and  of  a  diminution  of  wages 
accompanying  an  absolute  increase  of  labourers.  But  he  sees 
really  only  the  local  oscillation  of  the  labour-market  in  a  par- 
ticular sphere  of  production — he  sees  only  the  phenomena  ac- 
companying the  distribution  of  the  working  population  into 
the  different  spheres  of  outlay  of  capital,  according  to  its  vary- 
ing needs. 

The  industrial  reserve  army,  during  the  periods  of  stagna- 
tion and  average  prosperity,  weighs  down  the  active  labour- 
army  ;  during  the  periods  of  over-production  and  paroxysm,  it 
holds  its  pretensions  in  check.  Kelative  surplus-population 
is  therefore  the  pivot  upon  which  the  law  of  demand  and 
supply  of  labour  works.  It  confines  the  field  of  action  of  this 
law  within  the  limits  absolutely  convenient  to  the  activity  of 
exploitation  and  to  the  domination  of  capital. 

This  is  the  place  to  return  to  one  of  the  grand  exploits  of 
economic  apologetics.  It  will  be  remembered  that  if  through 
the  introduction  of  new,  or  the  extension  of  old,  machinery,  a- 
portion  of  variable  capital  is  transformed  into  constant,  the 
economic  apologist  interprets  this  operation  which  "fixes" 
capital  and  by  that  very  act  set  labourers  "free,"  in  exactly 
the  opposite  way,  pretending  that  it  sets  free  capital  for  the 
labourers.  Only  now  can  one  fully  understand  the  effrontery 
of  these  apologists.  Wliat  are  set  free  are  not  only  the  la- 
bourers immediately  turned  out  by  the  machines,  but  also 
their  future  substitutes  in  the  rising  generation,  and  the  addi- 
tional contingent,  that  with  the  usual  extension  of  trade  on 
the  old  basis  would  be  regularly  absorbed.  They  are  now 
all  "set  free,"  and  every  new  bit  of  capital  looking  out  for 
employment  can  dispose  of  them.  Whether  it  attracts  them 
or  others,  the  effect  on  the  general  labour  demand  will  be  nil, 
if  this  capital  is  just  sufficient  to  take  out  of  the  market  as 


702  Capitalist  Production. 

many  labourers  as  the  machines  threw  npon  it.     If  it  employs 
a  smaller  number,  that  of  the  supernumeraries  increases ;  if  it 
employs  a  greater,  the  general  demand  for  labour  only  in- 
creases to  the  extent  of  the  excess  of  the  employed  over  those 
"set  free."     The  impulse  that  additional  capital,  seeking  an 
outlet,  would  otherwise  have  given  to  the  general  demand  for 
labour,  is  therefore  in  every  case  neutralised  to  the  extent  of 
the  labourers   thrown   out  of  employment  by  the   machine. 
That  is  to  say,  the  mechanism  of  capitalistic  production  so 
manages  matters  that  the  absolute  increase  of  capital  is  ac- 
companied by  no  corresponding  ■  rise  in  the  general  demand 
for  labour.     And  this  the  apologist  calls  a  compensation  for 
the  misery,  the  sufferings,  the  possible  death  of  the  displaced 
labourers  during  the  transition  period  that  banishes  them  into 
the  industrial  reserve  army!     The  demand  for  labour  is  not 
identical  with  increase  of  capital,  nor  supply  of  labour  with 
increase  of  the  working  class.     It  is  not  a  case  of  two  inde- 
pendent forces  working  on  one  another.     Les  des  sont  pipes. 
Capital  works  on  hoth  sides  at  the  same  time.     If  its  accumu- 
lation, on  the  one  hand,  increases  the  demand  for  labour,  it  in- 
creases on  the  other  the  supply  of  labourers  by  the  "setting 
free  of  them,  whilst  at  the  same  time  the  pressure  of  the  un- 
employed compels  those  that  are  employed  to  furnish  more 
labour,  and  therefore  makes  the  supply  of  labour,  to  a  certain 
extent,  independent  of  the  supply  of  labourers.     The  action  of 
the  law  of  supply  and  demand  of  labour  on  this  basis  com- 
pletes the  despotism  of  capital.     As  soon,  therefore,  as  the 
labourers  learn  the  secret,  how  it  comes  to  pass  that  in  the 
same  measure  as  they  work  more,  as  they  produce  more  wealth 
for  others,  and  as  the  productive  power  of  their  labour  in- 
creases, so  in  the  same  measure  even  their  function  as  a  means 
of  the  self-expansion  of  capital  becomes  more  and  more  pre- 
carious for  them ;  as  soon  as  they  discover  that  the  degree  of  in- 
tensity of  the  competition  among  themselves  depends  wholly 
on  the  pressure  of  the  relative  surplus-population ;  as  soon 
as,  by  Trades'  Unions,  &c.,  they  try  to  organise  a  regular  co- 
operation   between    employed    and   unemployed    in   order   to 
destroy  or  to  weaken  the  ruinous  effects  of  this  natural  law 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumtdation.      703 

of  capitalistic  production  on  their  class,  so  soon  capital  and  its 
sycophant,  political  economy,  cry  out  at  the  infringement  of 
the  "eternal"  and  so  to  say  "sacred"  law  of  supply  and  de- 
mand. Every  combination  of  employed  and  unemployed  dis- 
turbs the  "harmonious"  action  of  this  law.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  soon  as  (in  the  colonies,  e.g.,)  adverse  circumstances 
prevent  the  creation  of  an  industrial  reserve  army  and,  with 
it,  the  absolute  dependence  of  the  working  class  upon  the 
capitalist  class,  capital,  along  with  its  commonplace  Sancho 
Panza,  rebels  against  the  "sacred"  law  of  supply  and  demand, 
and  tries  to  check  its  inconvenient  action  by  forcible  means 
and  State  interference. 

SECTION    4. DIFFEKENT    FORMS    OP    THE    EEI.ATIVE    STJRPLUS- 

POPULATION.       THE    GENEEAL    LAW    OF    CAPITALISTIC    AC- 
CUMULATION. 

The  relative  surplus  population  exists  in  every  possible 
form.  Every  labourer  belongs  to  it  during  the  time  when  he 
is  only  partially  employed  or  wholly  unemployed,  l^ot  tak- 
ing into  account  the  great  periodically  recurring  forms  that 
the  changing  phases  of  the  industrial  cycle  impress  on  it,  now 
an  acute  form  during  the  crisis,  then  again  a  chronic  form 
during  dull  times — it  has  always  three  forms,  the  floating, 
the  latent,  the  stagnant 

In  the  centres  of  modern  industry — factories,  manufactur- 
ers, ironworks,  mines,  &c. — the  labourers  are  sometimes  re- 
pelled, sometimes  attracted  again  in  greater  masses,  the  num- 
ber of  those  employed  increasing  on  the  whole,  although  in  a 
constantly  decreasing  proportion  to  the  scale  of  production. 
Here  the  surplus  population  exists  in  the  floating  form. 

In  the  automatic  factories,  as  in  all  the  great  workshops, 
where  machinery  enters  as  a  factor,  or  where  only  the  modem 
divisions  of  labour  is  carried  out,  large  numbers  of  boys  are 
employed  up  to  the  ag©  of  maturity.  When  this  term  is 
once  reached,  only  a  very  small  number  continue  to  find  em- 
ployment in  the  same  branches  of  industry,  whilst  the  ma- 
jority are  regularly  discharged.     This  majority  forms  an  ele- 


704  Capitalist  Production. 

inent  of  the  floating  surplus-population,  growing  with  the 
extension  of  those  branches  of  industry.  Part  of  them  emi- 
grates, following  in  fact  capital  that  has  emigrated.  One 
consequence  is  that  the  female  population  grows  more  rapidly 
than  tlie  male,  teste  England.  That  the  natural  increase  of 
the  number  of  labourers  does  not  satisfy  the  requirements  of 
the  accumulation  of  capital,  and  yet  all  the  time  is  in  excess 
of  them,  is  a  contradiction  inherent  to  the  movement  of  capital 
itself.  It  wants  larger  numbers<  of  youthful  labourers,  a 
smaller  number  of  adults.  The  contradiction  is  not  more 
glaring  than  that  other  one  that  there  is  a  complaint  of  the 
want  of  hands,  while  at  the  same  time  many  thousands  are 
out  of  work,  because  the  division  of  labour  chains  them  to  a 
particular  branch  of  industry.^ 

The  consumption  of  labour-power  by  capital  is,  besides,  so 
rapid  that  the  labourer,  half-way  through  his  life,  has  already 
more  or  less  completely  lived  himself  out.  He  falls  into  the 
ranks  of  the  supernumeraries,  or  is  thrust  down  from  a  higher 
to  a  lower  step  in  the  scale.  It  is  precisely  among  the  work- 
people of  modem  industry  that  we  meet  with  the  shortest 
duration  of  life.  Dr.  Lee,  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Man- 
chester, stated  "that  the  average  age  at  death  of  the  Man- 
chester .  .  .  upper  middle  class  was  38  years,  while  the 
average  age  at  death  of  the  labouring  class  was  17 ;  while  at 
Liverpool  those  figures  were  represented  as  35  against  15.  It 
thus  appeared  that  the  well-to-do  classes  had  a  lease  of  life 
which  was  more  than  double  the  value  of  that  which  fell  to 
the  lot  of  the  less  favoured  citizens."  ^  In  order  to  conform 
to  these  circumstances,  the  absolute  increase  of  this  section 
of  the  proletariat  must  take  places  under  conditions  that  shall 
swell   their  numbers,   although   the   individual  elements  are 

*  Whilst  during  the  last  six  months  of  1866,  80-90,000  working  people  in  London 
■were  thrown  out  of  work,  the  Factory  Report  for  that  same  half  year  says:  "It 
does  not  appear  absolutely  true  to  say  that  demand  will  always  produce  supply  just 
at  the  moment  when  it  is  needed.  It  has  not  done  so  with  labour,  for  much  ma- 
chinery has  been  idle  last  year  for  want  of  hands."  (Rep.  of  Insp.  of  Fact.,  31st 
Oct.,  1866,  p.  81.) 

*  Opening  address  to  the  Sanitary  Conference,  Birmingham,  January  15th,  1875, 
by  J.  Chamberlain,  Mayor  of  the  town,  now  (1883)  President  of  the  Board  of 
Trade. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      705 

used  up  rapidly.  Hence,  rapid  renewal  of  the  generations  of 
labourers  (this  law  does  not  hold  for  the  other  classes  of  tLc 
population).  This  social  need  is  met  by  early  marriages,  a 
necessary  consequence  of  the  conditions  in  which  the  labourers 
of  modern  industry  live,  and  by  the  premium  that  the  ex- 
ploitation of  children  sets  on  their  production. 

As  soon  as  capitalist  production  takes  possession  of  agri- 
culture, and  in  proportion  to  the  extent  to  which  it  does  so, 
the  demand  for  an  agricultural  labouring  population  falls 
absolutely,  while  the  accumulation  of  the  capital  employed  in 
agriculture  advances,  without  tliis  repulsion  being,  as  in  non- 
agricultural  industries,  compensated  by  a  greater  attraction. 
Part  of  the  agi'icultural  population  is  therefore  constantly  on 
the  point  of  passing  over  into  an  urban  or  manufacturing 
proletariat,  and  on  the  look-out  for  circumstances  favourable 
to  this  transfomiation.  (Manufacture  is  used  here  in  the 
sense  of  all  non-agricultural  industries).^  This  source  of 
relative  surplus-population  is  thus  constantly  flowing.  But 
the  constant  flow  towards  the  towns  presupposes,  in  the  coun- 
try itself,  a  constant  latent  surplus-population,  the  extent  of 
which  becomes  evident  only  when  its  channels  of  outlet  open 
to  exceptional  width.  The  agricultural  labourer  is  therefore 
reduced  to  the  minimum  of  wages,  and  always  stands  with 
one  foot  already  in  the  swamp  of  pauperism. 

The  third  category  of  the  relative  surplus-population,  the 
stagnant,  forais  a  part  of  the  active  labour  army,  but  with 
extremely  irregular  employment.  Hence  it  furnishes  to 
capital  an  inexhaustible  reservoir  of  disposable  labour-power. 
Its  conditions  of  life  sink  below  the  average  normal  level  of 
the  working  class ;  this  makes  it  at  once  the  broad  basis  of 
special  branches  of  capitalist  exploitation.     It  is  character- 

^781  Towns  given  in  the  census  for  1861  for  England  and  Wales  "contained 
10,960,998  inhabitants,  while  the  villages  and  country  parishes  contained  9,105,226. 
In  1851,  580  towns  were  distinguished,  and  the  population  in  them  and  in  the  sur- 
rounding country  was  nearly  equal.  But  while  in  the  subsequent  ten  years  the 
population  in  the  villages  and  the  country  increased  half  a  million,  the  population 
in  the  580  towns  increased  by  a  million  and  a  half  (1,554,067).  The  increase  of 
the  population  of  the  country  parishes  is  6.5  per  cent.,  and  of  the  towns  17.3  per 
cent.  The  difference  in  the  rates  of  increase  is  due  to  the  migration  from  country 
to  town.  Three-fourths  of  the  total  increase  of  population  has  taken  place  in  the 
towns.     (Census,    &c.,   pp.    11    and   12.) 

2S 


7o6  Capitalist  Production. 

ized  by  maximum  of  working  time,  and  minimum  of  wages. 
We  have  learnt  to  know  its  chief  form  under  the  rubric  of 
"domestic  industry."  It  recruits  itself  constantly  from  the 
supernumerary  forces  of  modern  industry  and  agriculture, 
and  specially  from  those  decaying  branches  of  industry  where 
handicraft  is  yielding  to  manufacture,  manufacture  to  ma- 
chinery. Its  extent  grows,  as  with  the  extent  and  energy  of 
accumulation,  the  creation  of  a  surplus  population  advances. 
But  it  forms  at  the  same  time  a  self-reproducing  and  self-per- 
petuating element  of  the  working  class,  taking  a  proportionally 
greater  part  in  the  general  increase  of  that  class  than  the 
other  elements.  In  fact,  not  only  the  number  of  births  and 
deaths,  but  the  absolute  size  of  the  families  stand  in  inverse 
proportion  to  the  height  of  wages,  and  therefore  to  the  amount 
of  means  of  subsistence  of  which  the  different  categories  of 
labourers  dispose.  This  law  of  capitalistic  society  would 
sound  absurd  to  savages,  or  even  civilized  colonists.  It  calls 
to  mind  the  boundless  reproduction  of  animals  individually 
weak  and  constantly  hunted  down.^ 

The  lowest  sediment  of  the  relative  surplus-population 
finally  dwells  in  the  sphere  of  pauperism.  Exclusive  of  vaga- 
bonds, criminals,  prostitutes,  in  a  word,  the  "dangerous" 
classes,  this  layer  of  society  consists  of  three  categories. 
First,  those  able  to  work  One  need  only  glance  superficially 
at  the  statistics  of  English  pauperism  to  find  that  the  quantity 
of  paupers  increases  with  every  crisis,  and  diminishes 
with  every  revival  of  trade.  Second,  orphans  and  pauper 
children.  These  are  candidates  for  the  industrial  reserve- 
army,  and  are,  in  times  of  great  prosperity,  as  1860,  e.g., 
speedily  and  in  large  numbers  enrolled  in  the  active  army  of 
labourers.  Third,  the  demoralized  and  ragged,  and  those  un- 
able to  work,  chiefly  people  who  succumb  to  their  incapacity 

*  Poverty  seems  favourable  to  generation."  (A.  Smith.)  This  is  even  a  spe- 
cially wise  arrangement  of  God,  according  to  the  gallant  and  witty  Abbe  Galiani. 
"Iddio  af  che  gli  uomini  che  esercitano  mestieri  di  prima  utilita  nascono  abbondante- 
mente."  (Galiani,  1.  c,  p.  78.)  "Misery  up  to  the  extreme  point  of  famine  and 
pestilence,  instead  of  checking,  tends  to  increase  population."  (S.  Laing: 
National  Distress,  1844,  p.  69.)  After  Laing  has  illustrated  this  by  statistics,  he 
continues:  "If  the  people  were  all  in  easy  circumstances,  the  world  would  soon  be 
depopulated." 


The  General  Lazu  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      707 

for  adaptation,  due  to  the  division  of  labour ;  people  who  have 
passed  the  normal  age  of  the  labourer ;  the  victims  of  industry, 
whose  number  increases  with  the  increase  of  dangerous  ma- 
chinery, of  mines,  chemical  works,  &c.,  the  mutilated,  the 
sickly,  the  widows,  &c.  Pauperism  is  the  hospital  of  the 
active  labour-army  and  the  dead  weight  of  the  industrial  re- 
serve-army. Its  production  is  included  in  that  of  the  relative 
surplus-population,  its  necessity  in  theirs ;  along  with  the  sur- 
plus-population, pauperism  forms  a  condition  of  capitalist 
production,  and  of  the  capitalist  development  of  wealth.  It 
enters  into  the  faux  frai0  of  capitalist  production ;  but  capital 
knows  how  to  throw  these,  for  -the  most  part,  from  its  own 
shoulders  on  to  those  of  the  working-class  and  the  lower  mid- 
dle class. 

The  greater  the  social  wealth,  the  functioning  capital,  the 
extent  and  energy  of  its  growth,  and,  therefore,  also  the  ab- 
solute mass  of  the  proletariat  and  the  productiveness  of  its 
labour,  the  greater  is  the  industrial  reserve-army.  The  same 
causes  which  develop  the  expansive  power  of  capital,  developea 
also  the  labour-power  at  its  disposal.  The  relative  mass  of 
the  industrial  reserve-army  increases  therefore  with  the  po- 
tential energy  of  wealth.  But  the  greater  this  reserve-army 
in  proportion  to  the  active  labour-army,  the  greater  is  the 
mass  of  a  consolidated  surplus-population,  whose  misery  is  in 
inverse  ratio  to  its  torment  of  labour.  The  more  extensive, 
finally,  the  lazurus-layers  of  the  working-class,  and  the  in- 
dustrial reserve-army,  the  greater  is  official  pauperism.  This 
is  the  absolvie  general ,  law  of  capitalist  accumidation.  Like 
all  other  laws  it  is  modified  in  its  working  by  many  circum- 
stances, the  analysis  of  which  does  not  concern  us  here. 

The  folly  is  now  patent  of  the  economic  wisdom  that 
preaches  to  the  labourers  the  accommodation  of  their  num- 
ber to  the  requirements  of  capital.  The  mechanism  of  capital- 
ist production  and  accumulation  constantly  effects  this  adjust- 
ment. The  first  word  of  this  adaptation  is  the  creation  of  a 
relative  surplus-population,  or  industrial  reserve-army.  Its 
last  word  is  the  misery  of  constantly  extending  strata  of  the 
active  army  of  labour,  and  the  dead  weight  of  pauperism. 


7o8  Capitalist  Production. 

The  law  by  which  a  constantly  increasing  quantity  of  means 
of  production,  thanks  to  the  advance  in  the  productiveness  of 
social  labour,  may  be  set  in  movement  by  a  progressively 
diminishing  expenditure  of  human  power,  this  law,  in  a 
capitalist  society — where  the  labourer  does  not  employ  the 
means  of  production,  but  the  means  of  production  employ  the 
labourer — undergoes  a  complete  inversion  and  is  expressed 
thus:  the  higher  the  productiveness  of  labour,  the  greater  is 
the  pressure  of  the  labourers  on  the  means  of  employment,  the 
more  precarious,  therefore,  becomes  their  condition  of  ex- 
istence, viz.,  the  sale  of  their  own  labour-power  for  the  in- 
creasing of  another's  wealth,  or  for  the  self-expansion  of 
capital.  The  fact  that  the  means  of  production,  and  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  labour,  increase  more  rapidly  than  the  pro- 
ductive population,  expresses  itself,  therefore,  capitalistically 
in  the  inverse  form  that  the  labouring  population  always  in- 
creases more  rapidly  than  the  conditions  under  which  capital 
can  employ  this  increase  for  its  own  self-expansion. 

We  saw  in  Part  IV.,  when  analysing  the  production  of  rela- 
tive surplus-value:  within  the  capitalist  system  all  methods 
for  raising  the  social  productiveness  of  labour  are  brought 
about  at  the  cost  of  the  individual  labourer;  all  means  for 
the  development  of  production  transform  themselves  into 
means  of  domination  over,  and  exploitation  of,  the  producers ; 
they  mutilate  the  labourer  into  a  fragment  of  a  man,  degrade 
him  to  the  level  of  an  appendage  of  a  machine,  destroy  every 
remnant  of  charm  in  his  work  and  turn  it  into  a  hated  toil; 
they  estrange  from  him  the  intellectual  potentialities  of  the 
labour-process  in  the  same  proportion  as  science  is  incorpor- 
ated in  it  as  an  independant  power;  they  distort  the  condi- 
tions under  which  he  works,  subject  him  during  the  labour- 
process  to  a  despotism  the  more  hateful  for  its  meanness ;  they 
transform  his  life-time  into  working-time,  and  drag  his  wife 
and  child  beneath  the  wheels  of  the  Juggernaut  of  capital, 
But  all  methods  for  the  production  of  surplus  value  are  at  the 
same  time  methods  of  accumulation ;  and  every  extension  of 
accumulation  becomes  again  a  means  for  the  development  of 
those  methods.     It  follows   therefore  that  in   proportion   as 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      709 

capital  accumulates,  the  lot  of  the  labourer,  be  his  payment 
high  or  low,  must  grow  worse.  The  law,  finally,  that  always 
equilibrates  the  relative  surplus-population,  or  industrial  re- 
serve army,  to  the  extent  and  energy  of  accumulation,  this  law 
rivets  the  labourer  to  capital  more  firmly  than  the  wedges  of 
Vulcan  did  Prometheus  to  the  rock.  It  establishes  an  ac- 
cumulation of  misery,  corresponding  with  accumulation  of 
capital.  Accum.ulation  of  wealth  at  one  pole  is,  therefore,  at 
the  same  time  accumulation  of  misery,  agony  of  toil,  slavery, 
ignorance,  brutality,  mental  degradation,  at  the  opposite  pole, 
i.e.,  on  the  side  of  the  class  that  produces  its  own  product  in 
the  form  of  capital. 

This  antagonistic  character  of  capitalistic  accumulation*  is 
enunciated  in  various  forms  by  political  economists,  although 
by  them  it  is  confounded  with  phenomena,  certainly  to  some 
extent  analogous,  but  nevertheless  essentially  distinct,  and  be- 
longing to  precapitalistic  modes  of  production. 

The  Venetian  monk  Ortes,  one  of  the  great  economic  writers 
of  the  18th  century,  regards  the  antagonism  of  capitalist  pro- 
duction as  a  general  natural  law  of  social  wealth.  "In  the 
economy  of  a  nation,  advantages  and  evils  always  balance  one 
another  (il  bene  ed  il  male  economico  in  una  nazione  sempre 
all,  istessa  misura)  :  the  abundance  of  wealth  with  some  peo- 
ple, is  always  equal  to  the  want  of  it  with  others  (la  copia  dei 
bcni  in  alcuni  sempre  eguale  alia  mancanza  di  essi  in  altri)  : 
the  great  riches  of  a  small  number  are  always  accompanied  by 
the  absolute  privation  of  the  first  necessaries  of  life  for  many 
others.  The  wealth  of  a  nation  corresponds  with  its  popu- 
lation, and  its  misery  corresponds  with  its  wealth.  Diligence 
in  some  compels  idleness  in  others.  The  poor  and  idle  are  a 
necessary  consequence  of  the  rich  and   active,"  &c.^     In  a 

*  "De  jour  en  jour  il  devient  done  plus  clair  que  les  rapports  de  production  dans 
lesquels  se  meut  la  bourgeoisie  n'ont  pas  un  caractere  un,  uncaractere  simple,  mais 
«n  caractere  de  duplicite;  que  dans  les  memes  rapports  dans  lesquels  se  produit  la 
richesse,  la  misere  se  produit  aussi;  que  dans  les  memes  rapports  dans  lesquels  il  y  a 
dcveloppement  des  forces  productives,  il  y  a  una  force  productive  de  repression ;  que 
ces  rapports  ne  produisent  la  richesse  bourgeoise,  c'est-a-dire  la  richesse  de  la  classe 
bourgeoise,  qu'en  aneantissant  continuellement  la  richesse  des  membres  integrants  de 
cette  classe  et  en  produisant  un  proletariat  toujours  croissant."  (Karl  Marx: 
Misere  de  la  Philosophie,  p.   116.) 

*G.  Ortes:     Delia  Economia  Nazionale  libri  sei,  1777,  in  Custodi,  Parte  Moderna, 


710  Capitalist  Production. 

thoroughly  brutal  way  about  10  years  after  Ortes,  the  Church 
of  England  parson,  Townsend,  glorified  misery  as  a  neces- 
sary condition  of  wealth.  "Legal  constraint  (to  labour)  is 
attended  with  too  much  trouble,  violence,  and  noise,  .  .  . 
whereas  hunger  is  not  only  a  peaceable,  silent,  unremitted 
pressure,  but  at  the  most  natural  motive  to  industry  and 
labour,  it  calls  forth  the  most  powerful  exertions."  Every- 
thing therefore  depends  upon  making  hunger  permanent 
among  the  working  class,  and  for  this,  according  to  Town- 
send,  the  principle  of  population,  especially  active  among  the 
poor,  provides.  "It  seems  to  be  a  law  of  nature  that  the  poor 
should  be  to  a  certain  degree  improvident."  [i.e.,  so  improvi- 
dent as  to  be  born  without  a  silver  spoon  in  the  mouth],  "that 
there  may  always  be  some  to  fulfil  the  most  servile,  the  most 
sordid,  and  the  most  ignoble  offices  in  the  community.  The 
stock  of  human  happiness  is  thereby  much  increased,  whilst 
the  more  delicate  are  not  only  relieved  from  drudgery  .  .  . 
but  are  left  at  liberty  without  interruption  to  pursue  those 
callings  which  are  suited  to  their  various  dispositions  .  .  . 
it  [the  Poor  Law]  tends  to  destroy  the  harmony  and  beauty, 
the  symmetry  and  order  of  that  system  which  God  and  Nature 
have  established  in  the  world." ^  If  the  Venetian  monk  found 
in  the  fatal  destiny  that  makes  misery  eternal,  the  raison 
d'etre  of  Christian  charity,  celibacy,  monasteries  and  holy 
houses,  the  Protestant  prebendary  finds  in  it  a  pretext  for 
condemning  the  laws  in  virtue  of  which  the  poor  possessed  a 
right  to  a  miserable  relief. 

t  xxi.  pp.  6,  0,  22,  25,  etc.  Ortes  says,  1.  c,  p.  32:  "In  luoco  di  progettar  sistemi 
inutili  per  la  felicita  de'popoli,  mi  limitero  a  investigare  la  ragione  della  loro  in- 
felicita." 

•  A  Dissertation  on  the  Poor  Laws.  By  a  Well-wisher  of  Mankind.  (The  Rev.  J. 
Townsend)  1786,  republished  Lond.  1817,  pp.  15,  39,  41.  This  "delicate"  parson, 
from  whose  work  just  quoted,  as  well  as  from  his  "Journey  through  Spain," 
Malthus  often  copies  whole  pages  himself  borrowed  the  greater  part  of  his  doctrine 
from  Sir  James  Steuart,  whom  he  however  alters  in  the  borrowing.  E.g.,  when 
Steuart  says:  "Here,  in  slavery,  was  a  forcible  method  of  making  mankind  diligent," 
[for  the  non-workers]  .  .  .  "Men  were  then  forced  to  work"  [i.e.  to  work 
gratis  for  others],  "because  they  were  slaves  of  others;  men  are  now  forced  to 
work"  [i.e.,  to  work  gratis  for  non-workers]  because  they  are  the  slaves  of  their 
necessities,"  he  docs  not  thence  conclude,  like  the  fat  holder  of  benefices,  that  the 
wage-labourer  must  always  go  fasting.  •  He  wishes,  on  the  contrary,  to  increase 
their  wants  and  to  make  the  increasing  number  of  their  wants  a  stimulous  to  their 
labour  for  the  "more  delicate." 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      711 

"The  progress  of  social  wealth,"  says  Storch,  "begets  this 
useful  class  of  society  .  .  .  which  performs  the  most  weari- 
some, the  vilest,  the  most  disgusting  functions,  which  takes,  in 
a  word,  on  its  shoulders  all  that  is  disagreeable  and  servile  in 
life,  and  procures  thus  for  other  classes  leisure,  serenity  of 
mind  and  conventional  [c'est  bon!]  dignity  of  character."* 
Storch  asks  himself  in  what  then  really  consist  the  progress 
of  this  capitalistic  civilization  with  its  misery  and  its  degrada- 
tion of  the  masses,  as  compared  with  barbarism.  He  finds 
but  one  answer :  security ! 

"Thanks  to  the  advance  of  industry  and  science,"  says 
Sismondi,  "every  labourer  can  produce  every  day  much  m^ore 
than  his  consumption  requires.  But  at  the  same  time,  whilst 
his  labour  produces  wealth,  that  wealth  would,  were  he  called 
on  to  consume  it  himself,  make  him  less  fit  for  labour."  Ac- 
cording to  him,  "men,"  [i.e.,  non-workers]  "would  probably 
prefer  to  do  without  all  artistic  perfection,  and  all  the  enjoy- 
ments that  manufacturers  procure  for  us,  if  it  were  necessary 
that  all  should  buy  them  by  constant  toil  like  that  of  the 
labourer.  .  .  .  Exertion  to-day  is  separated  from  its  re- 
compense ;  it  is  not  the  same  man  that  first  works,  and  then 
reposes;  but  it  is  because  the  one  works  that  the  other  rests. 
.  .  .  The  indefinite  multiplication  of  the  productive  pow- 
ers of  labour  can  then  only  have  for  result  the  increase  of  lux- 
ury and  enjoyment  of  the  idle  rich."  ^ 

Finally  Destutt  de  Tracy,  the  fish-blooded  bourgeois 
doctrinaire,  blurts  out  brutally :  "In  poor  nations  the  people 
are  comfortable,  in  rich  nations  they  are  generally  poor."  ^ 

SECTION    5. ILLUSTRATIONS    OF    THE    GEiNERAL    LAW    OF    CAP- 
ITALIST ACCUMULATION. 

(a.)  England  from  1846-1866. 

No  period  of  modem  society  is  so  favourable  for  the  study 
of  capitalist  accumulation  as  the  period  of  the  last  20  years. 

1  Storch,   1.   c.   t.   iii.,   p.   223. 
-  Sismondi  1.  c.  pp.  79,  80,  85. 

*  Destutt  de  Tracy,  1.  c.  p.  231 :  "Les  nations  pauvres,  c'est  la  oil  le  peuple  est  i 
son  aise;  et  les  nations  riches,  c'est  la  ou  il  est  ordinairement  pauvre." 


712  Capitalist  Production. 

It  is  as  if  this  period  had  found  Fortunatus'  purse.  But  of  all 
countries  England  again  furnishes  the  classical  example,  be 
cause  it  holds  the  foremost  place  in  the  world-market,  because 
capitalist  production  is  here  alone  completely  developed,  and 
lastly,  because  the  introduction  of  the  Free  Trade  millennium 
since  1846  has  cut  off  the  last  retreat  of  vulgar  economy. 
The  titanic  advance  of  production — the  latter  half  of  the  20 
years  period  again  far  surpassing  the  former — has  been  al- 
ready pointed  out  sufficiently  in  Part  IV. 

Although  the  absolute  increase  of  the  English  population  in 
the  last  half  century  was  very  great,  the  relative  increase  or 
rate  of  growth  fell  constantly,  as  the  following  table  borrowed 
from  the  census  shows. 

Annual  increase  per  cent  of  the  population  of  England  and 
Wales  in  decimal  numbers: 

1811-1821  1.533  per  cent 

1821-1831  1.446         „ 

1831-1841  1.326         „ 

1841-1851  1.216         „ 

1851-1861  1.141         „ 

Let  us  now,  on  the  other  hand,  consider  the  increase  of 
wealth.  Here  the  movement  of  profit,  rent  of  land,  &c.,  that 
come  under  the  income  tax,  furnishes  the  surest  basis.  The 
increase  of  profits  liable  to  income  tax  (farmers  and^some  other 
categories  not  included)  in  Great  Britain  from  1853  to  1864 
amounted  to  50.47%  or  4.58%  as  the  annual  average,^  that  of 
the  population  during  the  same  period  to  about  12%.  The 
augmentation  of  the  rent  of  land  subject  to  taxation  (including 
houses,  railways,  mines,  fisheries,  &c.),  amounted  for  1853  to 
1864  to  38%  or  3i^%  annually.  Under  this  head  the  follow- 
ing categories  show  the  greatest  increase : 

Houses,  38.60%  3.50% 

Quarries,  84.Y6%  7.70% 

Mines,  68.85%  .  6.26% 

*  Tenth  Report  of  the  Commissioners  of  H.M.  Inland  Revenue.  Lond.  1866, 
p.  88. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      713 

Iron-works,  39.92%  3.63% 

Fisheries,  57.37%  5.21% 

Gasworks,  126.02%  11.45% 
Railways,  83.29%  7.57% ^ 

If  we  compare  the  years  from  1853  to  1864  in  three  sets  of 
four  consecutive  years  each,  the  rate  of  augmentation  of  the 
income  increases  constantly.  It  is,  e.g.,  for  that  arising  from 
profits  between  1853  to  1857,  1.73%  yearly;  1857-1861, 
2.74%,  and  for  1861-64,  9.30%  yearly.  The  sum  of  the  in- 
comes of  the  United  Kingdom  that  come  under  the  income 
tax  was  in  1856  £307,068,898;  in  1859,  £328,127,416;  in 
1862,  £351,745,241;  in  1863,  £359,142,897;  in  1864,  £362,- 
462,279;  in  1865,  £385,530,020.^ 

The  accumulaton  of  capital  was  attended  at  the  same  time 
by  its  concentration  and  centralisation.  Although  no  official 
statistics  of  agriculture  existed  for  England  (they  did  for  Ire- 
land), they  were  voluntarily  given  in  10  counties.  These  sta- 
tistics gave  the  result  that  from  1851  to  1861  the  number  of 
farms  of  less  than  100  acres  had  fallen  from  31,583  to  26,597, 
so  that  5016  had  been  thrown  together  into  larger  farms.^ 
From  1815  to  1825  no  personal  estate  of  more  than  £1,000,- 
000  came  under  the  succession  duty;  from  1825  to  1855,  how- 
ever, 8  did;  and  4  from  1856  to  June,  1859,  i.e.,  in  4^  years.* 
The  centralisation  will,  however,  be  best  seen  from  a  short 
analysis  of  the  Income  Tax  Schedule  D  (profits,  exclusive  of 
farms,  &;c.),  in  the  years  1864  and  1865.  I  note  beforehand 
that  incomes  from  this  source  pay  income  tax  on  everything 
over   £60.     These   incoines    liable    to   taxation    in   England, 

^  Ibidem. 

-  These  figures  are  sufficient  for  comparison,  but,  taken  absolutely,  are  false,  since, 
perhaps,  £100,000,000  of  income  are  annually  not  declared.  The  complaints  of  the 
Inland  Revenue  Commissioners  of  systematic  fraud,  especially  on  the  part  of  the 
commercial  and  industrial  classes,  are  repeated  in  each  of  their  reports.  So  e.g.,  "A 
Joint-stock  company  returns  £6000  as  assessable  profits,  the  surveyor  raises  the 
amount  to  £88,000,  and  upon  that  sum  duty  is  ultimately  paid.  Another  company 
which  returns  £190,000  is  finally  compelled  to  admit  that  the  true  return  should 
be    £250,000."      (Ibid.,    p.    42.) 

^  Census,  &c.,  1.  c,  p.  29.  John  Bright's  assertion  that  150  landlords  own  half  of 
England,  and  12  half  the  Scotch  soil,  has  never  been  refuted. 

*  Fourth  Report,  &c.,  of  Inland  Revenue.     Lond.,  1860,  p.  17. 


714 


Capitalist  Production. 


Wales,  and  Scotland,  amounted  in  1864  to  £95,844,222,  in 
1865  to  £105,435,579.^  The  number  of  persons  taxed  were 
in  1864,  308,416,  out  of  a  population  of  23,891,009 ;  in  1865, 
332,431  out  of  a  population  of  24,127,003.  The  following 
table  shows  the  distribution  of  these  incomes  in  the  two  years : 

Yeab  ending  Apbil  5th,  1864.  Yeab  ending  Apeil  5th,  1865. 


Income  feom  profits. 

Persons. 

Income  from  Profits. 

Persons. 

Total  Income  £95,844,222 

308,416 

Total  Income  £105,435,738 

332,431 

of  these          57,028,289 

23,334 

of  these             64,554,297 

24,265 

36,415,225 

3,619 

„                   42,535,576 

4,021 

„                22,809,781 
8,744,762 

832 
91 

„                    27,555,313 
„                   11,077,238 

973 
107 

In  1855  there  were  produced  in  the  United  Kingdom  61,- 
453,079  tons  of  coal,  of  value  £16,113,167;  in  1864,  92,787,- 
873  tons,  of  value  £23,197,968;  in  1855,  3,218,154  tons  of 
pig-iron,  of  value  £8,045,385 ;  1864,  4,767,951  tons,  of  value 
£11,919,877.  In  1854  the  length  of  the  railroads  worked  in 
the  United  Kingdom  was  8054  miles,  with  a  paid-up  capital 
of  £286,068,794;  in  1864  the  length  was  12,789  miles,  with 
capital  paid  up  of  £425,719,613.  In  1854  the  total  sum  of 
the  exports  and  imports  of  the  United  Kingdom  was  £268,- 
210,145 ;  in  1865,  £489,923,285.  The  following  table  shows 
the  movement  of  the  exports : 


1846 
1849 
1856 
1860 
1865 
1866 


£58,842,377 
63,596,052 
115,826,948 
135,842,817 
165,862,402 
188,917,5632 


*Th^se  are  the  net  incomes  after  certain  legally  authorized  abatements. 
•At   this   moment,    March,   1867,   the    Indian   and   Chinese    market   is   again    over- 
stocked by  the  consignments  of   the   British   cotton   manufacturers.     In   1866   a  re- 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.     715 

After  these  few  examples  one  understands  the  cry  of  tri- 
umph of  the  Kegistrar-General  of  the  British  people:  "Rap- 
idly as  the  population  has  increased,  it  has  not  kept  pace  with 
the  progress  of  industry  and  wealth."  ^ 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  direct  agents  of  this  industry,  or  the 
producers  of  this  wealth,  to  the  working  cass.  "It  is  one  of 
the  most  melancholy  features  in  the  social  state  of  this  coun- 
try," says  Gladstone,  "that  while  there  was  a  decrease  in  the 
consuming  powers  of  the  people,  and  while  there  was  an  in- 
crease in  the  privations  and  distress  of  the  labouring  class  and 
operatives,  there  was  at  the  same  time  a  constant  accumula- 
tion of  wealth  in  the  upper  classes,  and  a  constant  increase  of 
capital."^  Thus  spake  this  unctuous  minister  in  the  House  of 
Commons  on  February  13th,  1843.  On  April  16th,  1863,  20 
years  later,  in  the  speech  in  which  he  introduced  his  Budget : 
"From  1842  to  1852  the  taxable  income  of  the  country  in- 
creased by  6  per  cent In  the  8  years  from  1853 

to  1861  it  had  increased  from  the  basis  taken  in  1853  by  20 
per  cent !  The  fact  is  so  astonishing  as  to  be  almost  incredible 
....  this  intoxicating  augmentation  of  wealth  and  power 
....  entirely  confined  to  classes  of  property  ....  must  be 
of  indirect  benefit  to  the  labouring  population,  because  it 
cheapens  the  commodities  of  general  consumption.  While  the 
rich  have  been  growing  richer,  the  poor  have  been  growing  less 
poor.  At  any-rate,  whether  the  extremes  of  poverty  are  less, 
I  do  not  presume  to  say."  ^  How  lame  an  anti-climax !  If  the 
working-class  has  remained  "poor,"  only  "less  poor"  in  propor- 
tion as  it  produces  for  the  wealthy  class  "an  intoxicating  aug- 

duction  in  wages  of  5  per  cent,  took  place  amongst  the  cotton  operatives.  In  1867, 
as  consequence  of  a  similar  operation,  there  was  a  strike  of  20,000  men  at  Preston. 
Note  to  the  4th  German  edition. — This  was  a  prelude  to  the  crisis,  which  broke  out 
soon  afterwards. — F.  E. 

*  Census,  &c.,  1.  c,  p.  11. 

'  Gladstone  in  the  House  of  Commons,  Feb.  13th,  1843.  "Times,"  Feb.  14th,  1843. 
— "It  is  one  of  the  most  melancholy  features  in  the  social. state  of  this  country  that 
we  see,  beyond  the  possibility  of  denial,  that  while  there  is  at  this  moment  a  de- 
crease in  the  consuming  powers  of  the  people,  an  increase  of  the  pressure  of  priva- 
tions and  distress;  there  is  at  the  same  time  a  constant  accumulation  of  wealth  in  the 
upper  classes,  an  increase  of  the  luxuriousness  of  their  habits,  and  of  their  means 
of  enjoyment."     (Hansard,  13th  Feb.) 

*  Gladstone  in  the  House  of  Commons,  April  16th,  1863.  "Morning  Star," 
April  17th. 


yi6  Capitalist  Production. 

mentation  of  wealth  and  power,"  then  it  has  remained  rela- 
tively just  as  poor.  If  the  extremes  of  poverty  have  not  les- 
sened, they  have  increased,  because  the  extremes  of  wealth 
have.  As  to  the  cheapening  of  the  means  of  subsistence,  the 
official  statistics,  e.g.,  the  accounts  of  the  London  Orphan  Asy- 
lum, show  an  increase  in  price  of  20%  for  the  average  of  the 
three  years  1860-1862,  compared  with  1851-1853.  In  the 
following  three  years,  1863-1865,  there  was  a  progressive  rise 
in  the  price  of  meat,  butter,  milk,  sugar,  salt,  coals,  and  a 
number  of  other  necessary  means  of  subsistence.^  Gladstone's 
next  Budget  speech  of  April  7th,  1864,  is  a  Pindaric  dithy- 
rambus  on  the  advance  of  surplus-value-making  and  the  hap- 
piness of  the  people  tempered  by  "poverty."  He  speaks  of 
masses  "on  the  border"  of  pauperism,  of  branches  of  trade  in 
which  "wages  have  not  increased,"  and  finally  sums  up  the 
happiness  of  the  working  class  in  the  words :  "human  life  is 
but,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  a  struggle  for  existence."  ^  Pro- 
fessor Fawcett,  not  bound  like  Gladstone  by  official  considera- 
tions, declares  roundly :  "I  do  not,  of  course,  deny  that  money 
wages  have  been  augmented  by  this  increase  of  capital  (in  the 
last  ten  years),  but  this  apparent  advantage  is  to  a  great  ex- 
tent lost,  because  many  of  the  necessaries  of  life  are  becoming 
dearer"  (he  believes  because  of  the  fall  in  value  of  the  precious 
metals)  ....  "the  rich  grow  rapidly  richer,  whilst  there  is 
no  perceptible  advance  in  the  comfort  enjoyed  by  the  indus- 

*  See  the  official  accounts  in  the  Blue  Book:  "Miscellaneous  statistics  of  the  United 
Kingdom,"  Part  vi.,  London,  1866,  pp.  260-273,  passim.  Instead  of  the  statistics 
of  orphan  asylums,  &c.,  the  declamations  of  the  ministerial  journals  in  recommend- 
ing dowries  for  the  Royal  children  might  also  serve.  The  greater  dearness  of  the 
means  of  subsistence  is  never  forgotten  there. 

'  Gladstone,  House  of  Commons,  7th  April,  1864. — "The  Hansard  version  runs: 
"Again,  and  yet  more  at  large — what  is  human  life,  but,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  a 
struggle  for  existence."  The  continual  crying  contradictions  in  Gladstone's  Budget 
speeches  of  1863  and  1864  were  characterised  by  an  English  writer  by  the  following 
quotation   from   Moliere: 

"Voila  rhomme   en   effet.     II   va   du   blanc   au   noir, 
II  condamne  au   matin   ses  sentiments   du  soir. 
Importun   a   tout   autre,   a   soi-meme   incommode, 
II   change    a    tout   moment    d'esprit   comme   de    mode." 

(The  Theory  of  Exchanges,  &c.,   London,   1864,  p.   135.) 


The  General  Lazv  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      717 

trial  classes     ....     They  (the  labourers)  become  almost 
the  slaves  of  the  tradesman,  to  whom  they  owe  money."  ^ 

In  the  chapters  on  the  "working  day"  and  "machinery,"  the 
reader  has  seen  under  what  circnmstances  the  British  working-  - 
class  created  an  "intoxicating  augmentation  of  wealth  and 
power"  for  the  propertied  classes.  There  we  were  chiefly 
concerned  with  the  social  functioning  of  the  labourer.  But 
for  a  full  elucidation  of  the  law  of  accumulation,  his  condition 
outside  the  workshop  must  also  be  looked  at,  his  condition  as 
to  food  and  dwelling.  The  limits  of  this  book  compel  us  to 
concern  ourselves  chiefly  with  tlie  worst  paid  part  of  the 
industrial  proletariat,  and  with  the  agricultural  labourers, 
who  together  form  the  majority  of  the  working-class. 

But  first,  one  word  on  official  pauperism,  or  on  that  part  of 
the  working-class  which  has  forfeited  its  condition  of  existence 
(the  sale  of  labour-power),  and  vegetates  upon  public  alms. 
The  official  list  of  paupers  numbered  in  England^  851,369  per- 
sons; in  1856,  977,767;  in  1865,  971,433.  In  consequence 
of  the  cotton  famine,  it  grew  in  the  years  1863  and  1864  to 
1,079,382  and  1,014,978.  The  crisis  of  1866,  which  fell  most 
heavily  on  London,  created  in  this  centre  of  the  world-market, 
more  populous  than  the  kingdom  of  Scotland,  an  increase  of 
pauperism  for  the  year  1866  of  19.5%  compared  with  1865, 
and  of  24.4%  compared  with  1864,  and  a  still  greater  increase 
for  the  first  months  of  1867  as  compared  with  1866.  From 
the  analysis  of  the  statistics  of  pauperism,  two  points  are  to  be 
taken.  On  the  one  hand,  the  fluctuation  up  and  down  of  the 
number  of  paupers,  reflects  the  periodic  changes  of  the  indus- 
trial cycle.  On  the  other,  the  official  statistics  become  more 
and  more  misleading  as  to  the  actual  extent  of  pauperism  in 
proportion  as,  Avith  the  accumulation  of  capital,  the  class- 
struggle,  and,  therefore,  the  class-consciousness  of  the  work- 
ing-men, develope.  E.g.,  the  barbarity  in  the  treatment  of 
the  paupers,  at  which  the  English  Press  (The  Times,  Pall 
Mall  Gazette,  etc.)  have  cried  out  so  loudly  during  the  last 

*  H.  Fawcett,  1.  c,  pp.  67-82.  As  to  the  increasing  dependence  of  labourers  on 
the  retail  shopkeepers,  this  is  the  consequence  of  the  frequent  oscillations  and  in- 
terruptions of  their   employment. 

^  Wales  here  is  always  included  in  England. 


7i8  Capitalist  Production. 

two  years,  is  of  ancient  date.  F.  Engels  showed  in  1844  ex- 
actly, the  same  horrors,  exactly  the  same  transient  canting  out- 
cries of  "sensational  literature."  But  frightful  increase  of 
"deaths  by  starvation"  in  London  during  the  last  ten  years 
proves  beyond  doubt  the  growing  horror  in  which  the  work- 
ing-people hold  the  slavery  of  the  workhouse,  tliat  place  of 
punishment  for  misery.* 

(&).  The  badly  paid  Strata  of  the  British  Industrial  Class. 

During  the  Cotton  famine  of  1862,  Dr.  Smith  was  charged 
by  the  Privy  Council  with  an  inquiry  into  the  conditions  of 
nourishment  of  the  distressed  operatives  in  Lancashire  and 
Cheshire.  His  observations  during  many  preceding  years  had 
led  him  to  the  conclusion  that  "to  avert  starvation  diseases," 
the  daily  food  of  an  average  woman  ought  to  contain  at  least 
3,900  grains  of  carbon  with  180  grains  of  nitrogen;  the  daily 
food  of  an  average  man,  at  least  4,300  grains  of  carbon  with 
200  grains  of  nitrogen  ;  for  women,  about  the  same  quantity  of 
nutritive  elements  as  are  contained  in  2  lbs  of  good  wheaten 
bread,  for  men  1-9  more ;  for  the  weekly  average  of  adult  men 
and  women,  at  least  28,600  grains  of  carbon  and  1,330  grains 
of  nitrogen.  His  calculation  was  practically  confirmed  in  a 
surprising  manner  by  its  agreement  with  the  miserable  quan- 
tity of  nourishment  to  which  want  had  forced  down  the  con- 
sumption of  the  cotton  operatives.  This  was,  in  December, 
1862,  29,211  grains  of  carbon,  and  1,295  grains  of  nitrogen 
■weekly. 

In  the  year  1863,  the  Privy  Council  ordered  an  inquiry  into 
the  state  of  distress  of  the  worst-nourished  part  of  the  English 
working-class.  Dr.  Simon,  medical  officer  to  the  Privy  Coun- 
cil, chose  for  this  work  the  above-mentioned  Dr.  Smith.  His. 
inquiry  ranges  on  the  one  hand  over  the  agricultural  labourers, 
on   the   other,    over   silk-weavers,    needle-women,   kid-glovers, 

*  A  peculiar  light  is  thrown  on  the  advance  made  since  the  time  of  Adam  Smith, 
by  the  fact  that  by  him  the  word  "workhouse"  is  still  occasionally  used  as  synony- 
mous with  "manufactory;"  e.g.,  the  opening  of  his  chapter  on  the  division  of 
labour;  "those  employed  in  every  different  branch  of  the  work  can  often  be  col- 
lected into  the  same  workhouse." 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation,      719 

stocking-weavers,  glove-weavers,  and  shoe-makers.  The  latter 
categories  are,  with  the  exception  of  the  stocking-weavers, 
exclusively  town-dwellers.  It  was  made  a  rule  in  the  inquiry 
to  select  in  each  category  the  most  healthy  families,  and  those 
comparatively  in  the  hest  circumstances. 

As  a  general  result  it  was  found  that  "in  only  one  of  the 
examined  classes  of  in-door  operatives  did  the  average  nitrogen- 
supply  just  exceed,  while  in  another  it  nearly  reached,  the 
estimated  standard  of  bare  sufficiency  [i.e.,  suflScient  to  avert 
starvation  diseases],  and  that  in  two  classes  there  was  defect — 
in  one  a  very  large  defect — of  both  nitrogen  and  carbon. 
Moreover,  as  regards  the  examined  families  of  the  agricultural 
population,  it  appeared  that  more  than  a  fifth  were  with  less 
than  the  estimated  sufficiency  of  carbonaceous  food,  that  more 
than  one  third  were  with  less  than  the  estimated  sufficiency  of 
nitrogeneous  food,  and  that  in  three  counties  (Berkshire,  Ox- 
fordshire, and  Somersetshire),  insufficiency  of  nitrogenous 
food  was  the  average  local  diet."^  Among  the  Agricultural 
labourers,  those  of  England,  the  wealthiest  part  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  were  the  worst  fed.^  The  insufficiency  of  food 
among  the  agricultural  labourers,  fell,  as  a  rule,  chiefly  on  the 
women  and  children,  for  "the  man  must  eat  to  do  his  work." 
Still  greater  penury  ravaged  the  tovm-workers  examined. 
"They  are  so  ill  fed  that  assuredly  among  them  there  must  be 
many  cases  of  severe  and  injurious  privation."  ^  ("Privation" 
of  the  capitalist  all  this !  i.e.,  "abstinence"  from  paying  for  the 
means  of  subsistence  absolutely  necessary  for  the  mere  vegeta- 
tion of  his  hands.") 

The  following  table  shows  the  conditions  of  nourishment 
of  the  above-named  categories  of  purely  town-dwelling  work- 
people, as  compared  with  the  minimum  assumed  by  Dr.  Smith, 
and  with  the  food-allowance  of  the  cotton  operatives  during 
the  time  of  their  greatest  distress: 

» Public   Health.     Sixth   Report,   1864,  p.   18. 
»1.  c.  p.  17. 
•1.  c  p.  13. 


720 


Capitalist  Production. 


Both  Sexes. 

4 

Average 
Weekly 
Carbon. 

Average 

Weekly 

Nitrogen. 

Five  in-door  occupations 

Unemployed  Lancashire  Operatives 

Minimum  quantity  to  be  allowed 
to    the    Lancashire    Operatives, 
equal     number     of     males     and 
females, 

28,876  grains 
28,211      „ 

28,600      „ 

1,192  grains 
1,295      „ 

1,330      „  1 

One  half,  or  ^Aj^  of  the  industrial  labour  categories  investi- 
gated, had  absolutely  no  beer,  28%  no  milk.  The  weekly  aver- 
age of  the  liquid  means  of  nourishment  in  the  families  varied 
from  seven  ounces  in  the  needle-women  to  24f  ounces  in  the 
stocking-makers.  The  majority  of  those  who  did  not  obtain 
milk  were  needle-women  in  London.  The  quantity  of  bread- 
stuffs  consumed  weekly  varied  from  7f  lbs  for  the  needle-women 
to  11^  lbs  for  the  shoemakers,  and  gave  a  total  average  of  99 
lbs.  per  adult  weekly.  Sugar  (treacle,  etc.)  varied  from  4 
ounces  weekly  for  the  kid-glovers  to  11  ounces  for  the  stocking- 
makers  ;  and  the  total  average  per  week  for  all  categories  was 
8  ounces  per  adult  weekly.  Total  weekly  average  of  butter 
(fat,  etc.)  5  ounces  per  adult.  The  weekly  average  of  meat 
(bacon,  etc.)  varied  from  7^^  ounces  for  the  silk-weavers,  to 
18^  ounces  for  the  Jjid-glovers ;  total  average  for  .the  differ- 
ent categories  13.6  ounces.  The  weekly  cost  of  food  per  adult, 
gave  the  following  average  figures;  silk-weavers  2s  2|d., 
needle-women  2s.  7d.,  kid-glovers  2s.  9^d.,  shoemakers  2s  7f  d., 
stocking  weavers  2s.  6^d.  For  the  silk-weavers  of  Maccles- 
field the  average  was  only  Is.  8^d.  The  worst  categories  were 
the  needle-women,  silk-weavers  and  kid-glovers.^  Of  these 
facts.  Dr.  Simon  in  his  General  Health  Report  says:  "That 
cases  are  innumerable  in  which  defective  diet  is  the  cause  or 
the  aggravator  of  disease,  can  be  affirmed  by  any  one  who  is 
conversant  with  poor  law  medical  practice,  or  with  the  wards 


*1.  c„  Appendix  p.   232. 
«1.  c.  pp.  232,  233. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accimmlation.      y2X 

and  out-patient  rooms  of  hospitals.  .  .  .  Yet  in  this  point 
of  view,  there  is,  in  ray  opinion,  a  very  important  sanitary 
context  to  be  added.  It  must  he  remembered  that  privation 
of  food  is  very  reluctantly  borne,  and  that  as  a  rule  great  poor- 
ness of  diet  will  only  come  when  other  privations  have  pre- 
ceded it.  Long  before  insufficiency  cf  diet  is  a  matter  of 
hygienic  concern,  long  before  the  physiologist  would  think  of 
counting  the  grains  of  nitrogen  and  carbon  which  intervene 
between  life  and  starvation,  the  household  will  have  been 
utterly  destitute  of  material  comfort ;  clothing  and  fuel  will 
have  been  even  scantier  than  food — against  inclemencies  of 
weather  there  will  have  been  no  adequate  protection — dwelling 
space  will  have  been  stinted  to  the  degree  in  which  over- 
crowding produces  or  increases  disease ;  of  household  utensils 
and  furniture  there  will  have  been  scarcely  any — even  cleanli- 
ness will  have  been  found  costly  or  difficult,  and  if  there  still 
be  self-respectful  endeavours  to  maintain  it,  every  such  en- 
deavour will  represent  additional  pangs  of  hunger.  The  home, 
too,  will  be  where  shelter  can  be  cheapest  bought;  in  quarters 
where  commonly  there  is  least  fruit  of  sanitary  supervision, 
least  drainage,  least  scavenging,  least  suppression  of  public 
nuisances,  least  or  worst  water  supply,  and,  if  in  town,  least 
light  and  air.  Such  are  the  sanitary  dangers  to  which  poverty 
is  almost  certainly  exposed,  when  it  is  poverty  enough  to  im- 
ply scantiness  of  food.  And  while  the  sum  of  them  is  of 
terrible  magnitude  against  life,  the  mere  scantiness  of  food  is 

in  itself  of  very  serious  moment These  are 

painful  reflections,  especially  when  it  is  remembered  that  the 
poverty  to  which  they  advert  is  not  the  deserved  poverty  of 
idleness.  In  all  cases  it  is  the  poverty  of  working  popula- 
tions. Indeed,  as  regards  the  indoor  operatives,  the  work 
which  obtains  the  scanty  pittance  of  food,  is  for  the  most  part 
excessively  prolonged.     Yet  evidently  it  is  only  in  a  qualified 

sense  that  the  work  can  be  deemed  self-supporting 

And  on  a  very  large  scale  the  nominal  self-support  can  be  only 
a  circuit,  longer  or  shorter,  to  pauperism."^ 

The  intimate  connexion  botvncn  the  pangs  of  hunger  of  the 

»1.  c.  pp.  14,  16. 


722  Capitalist  Production. 

niost  industrious  layers  of  the  working  class,  and  the  extrava- 
gant consumption,  coarse  or  refined,  of  the  rich,  for  which 
capitalist  accumulation  is  the  basis,  reveals  itself  only  when  the 
economic  laws  are  known.  It  is  otherr;ise  with  the  "housing 
of  the  poor."  Every  unprejudiced  observer  sees  that  the 
greater  the  centralisation  of  the  means  of  production,  the 
greater  is  the  corresponding  heaping  together  of  the  labourers, 
within  a  given  space;  that  therefore  the  swifter  capitalistic 
accumulation,  the  more  miserable  are  the  dwellings  of  the 
working-people.  "Improvements"  of  towns,  accompanying 
the  increase  of  wealth,  by  the  demolition  of  badly  built  quar- 
ters, the  erection  of  palaces  for  banks,  warehouses,  &c.,  the 
widening  of  streets  for  business  traffic,  for  the  carriages  of  lux- 
ury, and  for  the  introduction  of  tramways,  &c.,  drive  away  the 
poor  into  even  worse  and  more  crowded  hiding  places.  On 
the  other  hand,  every  one  knows  that  the  deamess  of  dwellings 
is  in  inverse  ratio  to  their  excellence,  and  that  the  mines  of 
misery  are  exploited  by  house  speculators  with  more  profit  or 
less  cost  than  ever  were  the  mines  of  Potosi.  The  antagonistic 
character  of  capitalist  accumulation,  and  therefore  of  the  cap- 
italistic relations  of  property  generally,^  is  here  so  evident, 
that  even  the  official  English  reports  on  this  subject  teem  with 
heterodox  onslaughts  on  "property  and  its  rights."  With  the 
development  of  industry,  with  the  accumulation  of  capital, 
with  the  growth  and  "improvement  of  towns,  the  evil  makes 
such  progress  that  the  mere  fear  of  contagious  diseases  which 
do  not  spare  even  "respectability,"  brought  into  existence  from 
1847  to  1864  no  less  than  10  Acts  of  Parliament  on  sanitation, 
and  that  the  frightened  bourgeois  in  some  tovsms,  as  Liverpool, 
Glasgow,  &c.,  took  strenuous  measures  through  their  munici- 
palities. Nevertheless  Dr.  Simon,  in  his  report  of  1865,  says : 
"Speaking  generally  it  may  be  said  that  the  evils  are  uncon- 
trolled in  England."  By  order  of  the  Privy  Council  in  1864, 
an  inquiry  was  made  into  the  conditions  of  the  housing  of  the 

^  "In  no  particular  have  the  rights  of  persons  been  so  avowedly  and  shamefully 
sacrificed  to  the  rights  of  property  as  in  regard  to  the  lodging  of  the  labouring  class. 
Every  large  i.own  may  be  looked  upon  as  a  place  of  human  sacrifice,  a  shrine  where 
thousands  p'jss  yearly  through  the  fire  as  offerings  to  the  moloch  of  avarice."  S. 
I.aing,  1.  c.  p.  150. 


The  General  Laiv  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      723 

agricultural  labourers,  in  1865  of  tlie  poorer  classes  in  the 
towns.  The  results  of  the  admirable  work  of  Dr.  Julian 
Hunter  are  to  be  found  in  the  seventh  (1865)  and  eighth 
(1866)  reports  on  "Public  Health."  To  the  agricultural  la- 
bourers, I  shall  come  later.  On  the  condition  of  town  dwell- 
ings, I  quote,  as  preliminary,  a  general  remark  of  Dr.  Simon. 
"Although  mj  official  point  of  view,"  he  says,  "is  one  ex- 
clusively physical,  common  humanity  requires  that  the  other 
aspect  of  this  evil  should  not  be  ignored.  ...  In  its 
higher  degrees  it  [i.e.,  overcrowding]  almost  necessarily  in- 
volves such  negation  of  all  delicacy,  such  unclean  confusion  of 
bodies  and  bodily  functions,  such  exposure  of  animal  and 
sexual  nakedness,  as  is  rather  bestial  than  human..  To  be  sub- 
ject to  these  influences  is  a  degradation  which  must  become 
deeper  and  deeper  for  those  on  whom  it  continues  to  work. 
To  children  who  are  bom  under  its  curse,  it  must  often  be  a 
very  baptism  into  infamy.  And  beyond  all  measure  hopeless  is 
the  wish  that  persons  thus  circumstanced  should  ever  in  other 
respects  aspire  to  that  atmosphere  of  civilization  which  has  its 
essence  in  physical  and  moral  cleanliness."^ 

London  takes  the  first  place  in  overcrowded  habitations, 
absolutely  unfit  for  human  beings.  "He  feels  clear,"  says  Dr. 
Hunter,  "on  two  points;  first,  that  there  are  about  20  large 
colonies  in  London,  of  about  10,000  persons  each,  whose  miser- 
able condition  exceeds  almost  anything  he  has  seen  elsewhere 
in  England,  and  is  almost  entirely  the  result  of  their  bad  house 
accommodation ;  and  second,  that  the  crowded  and  delapidated 
condition  of  the  houses  of  these  colonies  is  much  worse  than 
was  the  case  20  years  ago."^  "It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
life  in  parts  of  London  and  Newcastle  is  infernal."^ 

Further,  the  better-off  part  of  the  working  class,  together 

1  Public  Health,  eighth  report,  1865,  p.  14,  note. 

'1.  c.  p.  89.  With  reference  to  the  children  in  these  colonies,  Dr.  Hunter  says: 
"People  are  not  now  alive  to  tell  us  how  children  were  brought  up  before  this  age  of 
dense  agglomerations  of  poor  began,  and  he  would  be  a  rash  prophet  who  should  tell 
us  what  future  behaviour  is  to  be  expected  from  the  present  growth  of  children,  who, 
under  circumstances  probably  never  before  paralleled  in  this  country,  are  now  com- 
pleting their  education  for  future  practice,  as  "dangerous  classes"  by  sitting  jip 
half  the  night  with  persons  of  every  age,  half  naked,  drunken,  obscene,  and  quar- 
relsome."    (1.    c.   p.    56.). 

M.  c.  p.  62. 


724  Capitalist  Production. 

with  the  small  shopkeepers  and  other  elements  of  the  lower 
middle  class,  falls  in  London  more  and  more  under  the  curse 
of  these  vile  conditions  of  dwelling,  in  proportion  as  "improve- 
ments," and  with  them  the  demolition  of  old  streets  and  houses, 
advance,  as  factories  and  the  afflux  of  human  beings  grow  in 
the  metropolis,  and  finally  as  house  rents  rise  with  the  ground 
rents.  "Rents  have  become  so  heavy  that  few  labouring  men 
can  afford  more  than  one  room."^  There  is  almost  no  house- 
property  in  London  that  is  not  overburdened  with  a  number  of 
middlemen.  For  the  price  of  land  in  London  is  always  very 
high  in  comparison  with  its  yearly  revenue,  and  therefore 
every  buyer  speculates  on  getting  rid  of  it  again  at  a  jury 
price  (the  expropriation  valuation  fixed  by  jurymen),  or  on 
pocketing  an  extraordinary  increase  of  value  arising  from  the 
neighbourhood  of  some  large  establishment.  As  a  consequence 
of  this  there  is  a  regular  trade  in  the  purchase  of  "fag-ends  of 
leases."  Gentlemen  in  this  business  may  be  fairly  expected 
to  do  as  they  do — ^get  all  they  can  from  the  tenants  while  they 
have  them,  and  leave  as  little  as  they  can  for  their  successors."^ 
The  rents  are  weekly,  and  these  gentlemen  run  no  risk.  In 
consequence  of  the  making  of  railroads  in  the  City,  "the 
spectacle  has  lately  been  seen  in  the  East  of  London  of  a 
number  of  families  wandering  about  some  Saturday  night  with 
their  scanty  worldly  goods  on  their  backs,  without  any  resting 
place  but  the  workhouse."^  The  workhouses  are  already  over- 
crowded, and  the  "improvements"  already  sanctioned  by  Par- 
liament are  only  just  begun.  If  labourers  are  driven  away  by 
the  demolition  of  their  old  houses,  they  do  not  leave  their  old 
parish,  or  at  most  they  settle  down  on  its  borders,  as  near  as 
they  can  get  to  it.  "They  try,  of  course,  to  remain  as  near  as 
possible  to  their  workshops.  The  inhabitants  do  not  go  beyond 
the  same  or  the  next  parish,  parting  their  two-room  tenements 
into  single  rooms,  and  crowding  even  those.  .  .  .  Even  at 
an  advanced  rent,  the  people  who  are  displaced  will  hardly  be 
able  to  get  an  accommodation  so  good  as  the  meagre  one  they 

1  Report  of  the  Officer  of  Health  of  St.  Martins-in-the- Fields,  1865. 
»  Public  Health,  eighth  report,  1865,  p.  91. 
»1.  c.  p.  88. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      725 

have  left.  .  .  .  Half  the  workmen  ...  of  the 
Strand  .  .  .  walked  two  miles  to  their  work."^  This 
same  Strand,  a  main  thoroughfare  which  gives  strangers  an 
imposing  idea  of  the  wealth  of  London,  may  serve  as  an  exam- 
ple of  tlie  packing  together  of  human  beings  in  that  town.  In 
one  of  its  parishes,  the  Officer  of  Health  reckoned  581  persons 
per  acre,  although  half  the  width  of  the  Thames  was  reckoned 
in.  It  will  be  self-understood  that  every  sanitary  measure, 
which,  as  has  been  the  case  hitherto  in  London,  hunts  the  la- 
bourers from  one  quarter,  by  demolishing  uninhabitable 
houses,  serves  only  to  crowd  them  together  yet  more  closely  in 
another.  "Either,"  says  Dr.  Hunter,  "the  whole  proceeding 
will  of  necessity  stop  as  an  absurdity,  or  the  public  compas- 
sion (!)  be  effectually  aroused  to  the  obligation  which  may 
now  be  without  exaggeration  called  national,  of  supplying 
cover  to  those  who  by  reason  of  their  naving  no  capital,  can- 
not provide  it  for  themselves,  though  they  can  by  periodical 
payments  reward  those  who  will  provide  it  for  them."^  Ad- 
mire this  capitalistic  justice !  The  owner  of  land,  of  houses, 
the  business  man,  when  expropriated  by  "improvements"  such 
as  railroads,  the  building  of  new  streets,  &c.,  not  only  receives 
full  indemnity.  He  must,  according  to  law,  human  and  di- 
vine, be  comforted  for  his  enforced  "abstinence"  over  and 
above  this  by  a  thumping  profit.  The  labourer,  with  his  wife 
and  child  and  chattels,  is  thrown  out  into  the  street,  and — 
if  he  crowds  in  too  large  numbers  towards  quarters  of  the 
town  where  the  vestries  insist  on  decency,  he  is  prosecuted  in 
the  name  of  sanitation ! 

Except  London,  there  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  19th 
century  no  single  town  in  England  of  100,000  inhabitants. 
Only  five  had  more  than  50,000.  l^ow  there  are  28  towns 
with  more  than  50,000  inhabitants.  "The  result  of  this 
change  is  not  only  that  the  class  of  town  people  is  enormously 
increased,  but  the  old  close-packed  little  towns  are  now  centres, 
built  round  on  every  side,  open  nowhere  to  air,  and  being  no 
longer  agreeable  to  the  rich  are  abandoned  by  them  for  the 
pleasanter  outskirts.     The  successors  of  these  rich  are  occupy- 

»1.    c.    p.    88.  «L    c.    p.   89. 


726  Capitalist  Production. 

ing  the  larger  houses  at  the  rate  of  a  family  to  each  room 
[.  .  .  and  find  accommodation  for  two  or  three  lodgers 
.  .  .]  and  a  population,  for  which  the  houses  were  not 
intended,  and  quite  unfit,  has  been  created,  whose  surround- 
ings are  truly  degrading  to  the  adults  and  ruinous  to  tlie  chil- 
dren."^ The  more  rapidly  capital  accumulates  in  an  indus- 
trial or  commercial  town,  the  more  rapidly  flows  the  stream 
of  exploitable  human  material,  the  more  miserable  are  the  im- 
provised dwellings  of  the  labourers. 

Newcastle-on-Tyne,  as  the  centre  of  a  coal  and  iron  district 
of  growing  productiveness,  takes  the  next  place  after  London 
in  the  housing  inferno.  INot  less  than  34,000  persons  live 
there  in  single  rooms.  Because  of  their  absolute  danger  to 
the  community,  houses  in  great  numbers  have  lately  been  de- 
stroyed by  the  authorities  in  Newcastle  and  Gateshead.  The 
building  of  new  houses  progresses  very  slowly,  busin€;ss  very 
quickly.  The  town  was,  therefore,  in  1865,  more  full  than 
ever.  Scarcely  a  room  was  to  let.  Dr.  Embleton,  of  the  N^ew- 
castle  Fever  Hospital,  says:  "There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
the  great  cause  of  the  continuance  and  spread  of  the  typhus  has 
been  the  overcrowding  of  human  beings,  and  the  uncleanliness 
of  their  dwellings.  The  rooms,  in  which  labourers  in  many 
cases  live,  are  situated  in  confined  and  unwholesome  yards  or 
courts,  and  for  space,  light,  air,  and  cleanliness,  are  models  of 
insufficiency  and  insalubrity,  and  a  disgrace  to  any  civilised 
community;  in  them  men,  women,  and  children  lie  at  night 
huddled  together;  and  as  regards  the  men,  the  night-shift  suc- 
ceed the  day-shift,  and  the  day-shift  the  night-shift  in  un- 
broken series  for  some  time  together,  the  beds  having  scarcely 
time  to  cool ;  the  whole  house  badly  supplied  with  water,  and 
worse  with  privies;  dirty,  unventilated,  and  pestiferous."^ 
The  price  per  week  of  such  lodgings  ranges  from  8d.  to  3s. 
"The  town  of  Newcastle-on-Tyne,"  says  Dr.  Hunter,  "contains 
a  sample  of  the  finest  tribe  of  our  countrymen,  often  sunk  by 
external  circumstances  of  house  and  street  into  an  almost  sav- 
age degradation."^ 

*66  and  56.  ^^L  c  p.  149.  » 1.  c.  p.  60. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      727 

As  result  of  the  ebbing  and  flowing  of  capital  and  labour, 
the  state  of  the  dwellings  of  an  industrial  town  may  to-day  be 
bearable,  to-morrow  hideous.  Or  the  aedileship  of  the  town 
may  have  pulled  itself  together  for  the  removal  of  the  most 
shocking  abuses.  To-morrow,  like  a  swarm  of  locusts,  come 
crowding  in  masses  of  ragged  Irishmen  or  decayed  English 
agricultural  labourers.  They  are  stowed  away  in  cellars  and 
lofts,  or  the  hitherto  respectable  labourer's  dwelling  is  trans- 
formed into  a  lodging-house,  whose  'personnel  changes  as 
quickly  as  the  billets  in  the  30  years'  war.  Example:  Brad- 
ford (Yorkshire).  There  the  municipal  philistine  was  just 
busied  with  urban  improvements.  Besides,  there  were  still  in 
Bradford,  in  1861,  1751  uninhabited  houses.  But  now  comes 
that  revival  of  trade  which  the  mildly  liberal  Mr.  Forster,  the 
negro's  friend,  recently  crowed  over  with  so  much  grace. 
With  the  revival  of  trade  came  of  course  an  overflow  from  the 
waves  of  the  ever  fluctuating  "reserve-army"  or  "relative  sur- 
plus population."  The  frightful  cellar  habitations  and  rooms 
registered  in  the  list,^  which  Dr.  Hunter  obtained  from  the 
agent  of  an  Insurance  Company,  were  for  the  most  part  in- 
habited by  well-paid  labourers.  They  declared  that  they 
would  willingly  pay  for  better  dwellings  if  they  were  to  be 
h&d.     Meanwhile,  they  become  degraded,  they  fall  ill,  one  and 

*  Collecting  Agents'  List  (Bradford). 
Houses. 
Vulcan   Street,   No.   122 
Lumley    Street,    No.    13 
Bower    Street,    No.    41 
Portland    Street,    No.    112 
Hardy    Street,    No.    17 
North    Street,    No.    18 
North    Street,    No.    17 
tVymei    Street,   No.   191 
Jowett   Street,    No.    56 
George    Street.    No.    150 
Rifle  Court  Marygate,  No.  11 
Marshall   Street,    No.   28 
Marshall   Street,    No.   28 
George    Street,    No.    128 
George    Street,    No.    130 
Edward   Street,    No.    4 
George   Street,   No.    49 
Vork   Street,    No.    34 
(Salt    Pie    Street    (bottom) 


1  room 

16 
11 
11 
10 
10 
16 
13 

persons 

1     " 

8 

adults 

12 

persons 

1     " 

3 

families 

1  room 

11 
10 

persons 

3     " 

3 

families 

18 

persons 

16 

" 

17 

" 

2 

families 

1     " 

2 

" 

2    " 

26 

persons 

728  Capitalist  Production. 

all,  whilst  the  mildly  liberal  Forster,  M.P.,  sheds  tears  over 
the  blessings  of  free-trade,  and  the  profits  of  the  eminent  men 
of  Bradford  who  deal  in  worsted.  In  the  Eeport  of  Septem- 
ber, 1865,  Dr.  Bell,  one  of  the  poor  law  doctors  of  Bradford, 
ascribes  the  frightful  mortality  of  fever-patients  in  his  district 
to  the  nature  of  their  dwellings.  "In  one  small  cellar  meas- 
uring 1500  cubic  feet  .  .  .  there  are  ten  persons.  .  .  . 
Vincent  Street,  Green  Aire  Place,  and  the  Leys  include  223 
houses  having  1.450  inhabitants,  435  beds,  and  36  privies. 
.  .  .  The  beds — and  in  that  terra  I  include  any  roll  of 
dirty  old  rags,  or  an  armful  of  shavings — have  an  average  of 
3.3  person  to  each,  many  have  5  and  6  persons  to  each,  and 
some  people,  I  am  told,  are  absolutely  without  beds ;  they  sleep 
in  their  ordinary  clothes,  on  the  bare  boards — young  men  and 
women,  married  and  unmarried,  all  together.  I  need  scarcely 
add  that  many  of  these  dwellings  are  dark,  damp,  dirty,  stink- 
ing holes,  utterly  unfit  for  human  habitations ;  they  are  the 
centres  from  which  disease  and  death  are  distributed  amongst 
those  in  better  circumstances,  who  have  allowed  them  to  fester 
in  our  midst." ^ 

Bristol  takes  the  third  place  after  London  in  the  misery  of 
its  dwellings.  "Bristol,  where  the  blankest  poverty  and 
domestic  misery  abound  in  the  wealthiest  toAvn  of  Europe."^ 

c.  The  Nomad  PopuJaiion. 

We  turn  now  to  a  class  of  people  whose  origin  is  agricul- 
tural, but  whose  occupation  is  in  great  part  industrial.  They 
are  the  light  infantry  of  capital,  thrown  by  it,  according  to  its 
needs,  now  to  this  point,  now  to  that.  When  they  are  not  on 
the  march,  they  "camp."     Nomad  labour  is  used  for  various 

Cellars. 

Regent   Square  1  cellar  8  persons 

Acre    Street  1  "  7  " 

33   Roberts  Court  1  "  7  " 
Back  Pratt  Street,  used  as  a 

brazier's    shop.  1  "  7  " 

27  Ebenezer  Street  1     "  6  "            Lop.  iii. 

M.  c.  p.  114. 
*1.  c.  p.  50. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      729 

operation  of  building  and  draining,  brick-making,  lime-burn- 
ing, railway-making,  &c.  A  flying  column  of  pestilence,  it 
carries  into  the  places  in  whose  neighbourhood  it  pitches  its 
camp,  small-pox,  typhus,  cholera,  scarlet  fever,  &c.^  In  under- 
takings that  involve  much  capital  outlay,  such  as  railways,  &c., 
the  contractor  himself  generally  provides  his  army  with 
wooden  huts  and  the  like,  thus  improvising  villages  without 
any  sanitary  jirovisicns,  outside  the  control  of  the  local  boards, 
very  profitable  to  the  contractor,  who  exploits  the  labourers  in 
two-fold  fashion — as  soldiers  of  industry  and  as  tenants.  Ac- 
cording as  the  wooden  hut  contains  1,  2,  or  3  holes,  its  inhab- 
itant, navvy,  or  whatever  he  may  be,  has  to  pay  1,  3,  or  4 
shillings  weekly.^  One  example  will  suffice.  In  September, 
1864,  Dr.  Simon  reports  that  the  Chairman  of  the  ]N"uisances 
Removal  Committee  of  the  parish  of  Sevenoaks  sent  the  fol- 
lowing denunciation  to  Sir  George  Grey,  Home  Secretary: — 
"Small-pox  cases  were  rarely  heard  of  in  this  parish  until 
about  twelve  months  ago.  Shortly  before  that  time,  the  works 
for  a  railway  from  Lewisham  to  Tunbridge  were  commenced 
here,  and,  in  addition  to  the  principal  works  being  in  the  im- 
mediate neighbourhood  of  this  town,  here  was  also  established 
tlie  depot  for  the  whole  of  the  works,  so  that  a  large  number 
of  persons  was  of  necessity  employed  here.  As  cottage  ac- 
commodation could  not  be  obtained  for  them  all,  huts  were 
built  in  several  places  along  the  line  of  the  works  by  the  con- 
tractor, Islx.  Jay,  for  their  especial  occupation.  These  huts 
possessed  no  ventilation  nor  drainage,  and,  besides,  were  n^es- 
sarily  overcrowded,  because  each  occupant  had  to  accommodate 
lodgers,  whatever  the  number  in  his  own  family  might  be, 
although  there  were  only  two  rooms  to  each  tenement.  The 
consequences  were,  according  to  the  medical  report  we  re- 
ceived, that  in  the  night-time  these  poor  people  were  com- 
pelled to  endure  all  the  horror  of  suffocation  to  avoid  the 
pestiferous  smells  arising  from  the  filthy,  stagnant  water,  and 
the  privies  close  under  the  windows.  Complaints  were  at 
length  made  to  the  Nuisances  Removal  Committee  by  a  medi- 
cal gentleman  who  had  occasion  to  visit  these  huts,  and  he  spoke 

1  Public    Health.     Seventh    Report.     1864,    p.    18.  *  L  jc.    p.    166. 


730  Capitalist  Production. 

of  their  condition  as  dwellings  in  the  most  severe  terms,  and  he 
expressed  his  fears  that  some  very  serious  consequences  might 
ensue,  unless  some  sanitary  measures  were  adopted.  About 
a  year  ago,  Mr.  Jay  promised  to  appropriate  a  hut,  to  which, 
persons  in  his  employ,  who  were  suffering  from  contagious 
diseases,  might  at  once  be  removed.  He  repeated  that  prom- 
ise on  the  23rd  July  last,  but  although  since  the  date  of  the 
last  promise  there  have  been  several  cases  of  small-pox  in 
his  huts,  and  two  deaths  from  the  same  disease,  yet  he  has 
taken  no  steps  whatever  to  carry  out  his  promise.  On  the  9th 
September  instant,  Mr.  Kelson,  surgeon,  reported  to  me  further 
cases  of  small;j)Ox  in.  the  same  huts,  and  he  described  their 
condition  as  most  disgraceful.  I  should  add,  for  your  (the 
Home  Secretary's  information  that)  an  isolated  house,  called 
the  Pest-house,  which  is  set  apart  for  parishioners  who  might 
be  suffering  from  infectious  diseases,  has  been  continually 
occupied  by  such  patients  for  many  months  past,  and  is  also 
now  occupied ;  that  in  one  family  five  children  died  from  small- 
pox and  fever;  that  from  the  1st  April  to  the  1st  September 
this  year,  a  period  of  five  months,  there  have  been  no  fewer 
than  ten  deaths  from  small-pox  in  the  parish,  four  of  them 
being  in  the  huts  already  referred  to ;  that  it  is  impossible  to 
ascertain  the  exact  number  of  persons  who  have  suffered  from 
that  disease,  although  they  are  known  to  be  many,  from  the 
fact  of  the  families  keeping  it  as  private  as  possible."^ 

The  labourers  in  coal  and  other  mines  belong  to  the  best  paid 
categories  of  the  British  proletariat.  The  price  at  which  they 
buy  their  wages  was  shovvTi  on  an  earlier  page.^  Here  I 
merely  cast  a  hurried  glance  over  the  conditions  of  their  dwell- 

*  1.  c,  p.  18,  Note. — The  Relieving  Officer  of  the  Chapel-en-lc- Frith  Union 
reported  to  the  Registrar-General  as  follows: — "At  Doveholcs,  a  number  of  small 
excavations  have  been  made  into  a  large  hillock  of  lime  ashes  (the  refuse  of  lime- 
kilns), and  which  are  used  as  dwellings,  and  occupied  by  labourers  and  others  em- 
ployed in  the  construction  of  a  railway  now  in  course  of  construction  through  that 
neighbourhood.  The  excavations  are  small  and  damp,  and  have  no  drains  or  privies 
about  them,  and  not  the  slightest  means  of  ventilation  except  up  a  hole  pulled 
through  the  top,  and  used  for  a  chimney.  In  consequence  of  this  defect,  small-pox 
has  been  raging  for  some  time,  and  some  deaths  [amongst  the  troglodytes]  have  been 
caused  by  them."     (1.  c,  note  2.) 

*  The  details  given  at  the  end  of  Part  IV.  refer  especially  to  the  labourers  in 
coal  mines.  On  the  still  worse  condition  in  metal  mines,  see  the  very  conscientious 
Report  of  the  |(oyal  Commission  of  1864. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      731 

ings.  As  a  rule,  the  exploiter  of  a  mine,  whether  its  owner  or 
his  tenant,  builds  a  number  of  cottages  for  his  hands.  They 
receive  cottages  and  coal  for  firing  ''for  nothing" — i.e.,  these 
form  part  of  their  wages,  paid  in  kind.  Those  who  are  not 
lodged  in  this  way  receive  in  compensation  £4  per  annum. 
The  mining  districts  attract  with  rapidity  a  large  population, 
made  up  of  the  miners  themselves,  and  the  artisans,  shop- 
keepers, &c.,  that  group  themselves  around  them.  The  ground- 
rents  are  high,  as  they  are  generally  where  population  is  dense. 
The  master  tries,  therefore,  to  run  up,  within  the  smallest 
space  possible  at  the  mouth  of  the  pit,  just  so  many  cottages  as 
are  necessary  to  pack  together  his  hands  and  their  families. 
If  new  mines  are  opened  in  the  neighbourhood,  or  old  ones  are 
again  set  working,  the  pressure  increase^  In  the  construction 
of  the  cottages,  only  one  point  of  view  is  of  moment,  the 
"abstinence"  of  the  capitalist  from  all  expenditure  that  is  not 
absolutely  unavoidable.  ''The  lodging  which  is  obtained  by 
the  pitmen  and  other  labourers  connected  with  the  collieries  of 
iN^orthumberland  and  Durham,"  says  Dr.  Julian  Hunter,  "is 
perhaps,  on  the  whole,  the  worst  and  the  dearest  of  which  any 
large  specimens  can  be  found  in  England,  the  similar  parishes 
of  Monmouthshire  excepted.  .  .  .  The  extreme  badness  is 
in  the  high  number  of  men  found  in  one  room,  in  the  smallnesa 
of  the  ground-plot  on  which  a  great  number  of  houses  are 
thrust,  the  want  of  water,  the  absence  of  privies,  and  the  fre- 
quent placing  of  one  house  on  the  top  of  another,  or  distribu- 
tion into  flats,  .  .  .  the  lessee  acts  as  if  the  whole  colony 
were  encamped,  not  resident."^ 

"In  pursuance  of  my  instructions,"  says  Dr.  Stevens,  "I 
visited  most  of  the  large  colliery  villages  in  the  Durham 
Union.  .  .  .■  With  very  few  exceptions,  the  general  state- 
ment that  no  means  are  taken  to  secure  the  health  of  the  in- 
habitants would  be  true  of  all  of  them.  .  .  .  All  colliers 
are  bound  ['bound,'  an  expression  which,  like  bondage,  dates 
from  the  age  of  serfdom]  to  the  colliery  lessee  or  owner  for 
twelve  months.  ...  If  the  colliers  express  discontent,  or 
in  any  way  annoy  the  'viewer,'  a  mark  or  memorandum  is 

»  1.  c,  pp.  180,  182. 


732  Capitalist  Production. 

made  against  their  names,  and,  at  the  annual  'binding,'  such 
men  are  turned  off.  ...  It  appears  to  me  that  no  part 
of  the  'truck  system'  could  be  worse  than  what  obtains  in  these 
densely-populated  districts.  The  collier  is  bound  to  take  as 
part  of  his  hiring  a  house  surrounded  with  pestiferous  influ- 
ences ;  he  cannot  help  himself,  and  it  appears  doubtful  whether 
anyone  else  can  help  him  except  his  proprietor  (he  is,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  a  serf),  and  his  proprietor  first  consults 
his  balance-sheet,  and  the  result  is  tolerably  certain.  The  col- 
lier is  also  often  supplied  with  water  by  the  proprietor,  which, 
whether  it  be  good  or  bad,  he  has  to  pay  for,  or  rather  he 
suffers  a  deduction  for  from  his  wages."^ 

In  conflict  with  "public  opinion,"  or  even  with  the  Officers 
of  Health,  capital  makes  no  difficulty  about  "justifying"  the 
conditions  partly  dangerous,  partly  degrading,  to  which  it  con- 
fines the  working  and  domestic  life  of  the  labourer,  on  the 
ground  that  they  are  necessary  for  profit.     It  is  the  same  thing 
when    capital    "abstains"    from   protective   measures    against 
dangerous  machinery  in  the  factory,  from  appliances  for  ven- 
tilation and  for  safety  in  mines,  &:c.     It  is  the  same  here  with 
the  housing  of  the  miners.     Dr.  Simon,  medical  officer  of  the 
Privy  Council,  in  his  official  Report  says:     "In  apology  for 
the  wretched  household  accommodation     .     ,     .     it  is  alleged 
that  mines  are  commonly  worked  on  lease;  that  the  duration 
of  the  lessee's  interest  (which  in  collieries  is  commonly  for  21 
years),  is  not  so  long  that  he  should  deem  it  worth  his  while 
to  create  good  accommodation  for  his  labourers,  and  for  the 
tradespeople  and  others  whom  the  work  attracts;  that  even 
if  he  were  disposed  to  act  liberally  in  the  matter,  this  disposi- 
tion would  commonly  be  defeated  by  his  landlord's  tendency 
to  fix  on  him,  as  ground  rent,  an  exorbitant  additional  charge 
for  the  privilege  of  having  on  the  surface  of  the  ground  the 
decent  and  comfortable  village  which  the  labourers  of  the  sub- 
terranean  property   ought   to   inhabit,    and   that   prohibitory- 
price  (if  not  actual  prohibition)  equally  excludes  others  who 
might  desire  to  build.     It  would  be  foreign  to  the  purpose  of 
this  report  to  enter  upon  any  discussion  of  the  merits  of  the 

^L  c  pp.  615,  517. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation       733 

above  apology.  Xor  here  is  it  even  needful  to  consider  where 
it  would  be  that,  if  decent  accommodation  were  provided,  the 
cost  .  .  .  would  eventually  fall — whether  on  landlord,  or 
lessee,  or  labourer,  or  public.  But  in  presence  of  such  shame- 
ful facts  as  are  vouched  for  in  the  annexed  reports  [those 
of  Dr.  Hunter,  Dr.  Stevens,  &c.]  a  remedy  may  well  be 
claimed.  .  .  .  Claims  of  landlordship  are  being  so  used 
as  to  do  great  public  wrong.  The  landlord  in  his  capacity  of 
mine-owner  invites  an  industrial  colony  to  labour  on  his  estate, 
and  then  in  his  capacity  of  surface-owner  makes  it  impossible 
that  the  labourers  whom  he  collects,  should  find  proper  lodging 
where  they  must  live.  The  lessee  [the  capitalist  exploiter] 
meanwhile  has  no  pecuniary  motive  for  resisting  that  division 
of  the  bargain ;  well  knowing  that  if  its  latter  conditions  be 
exorbitant,  the  consequences  fall,  not  on  him,  that  his  labourers 
on  whom  they  fall  have  not  education  enough  to  know  the 
value  of  their  sanitary  rights,  that  neither  obscenest  lodging 
nor  foulest  drinking  water  will  be  appreciable  inducements 
towards  a  'strike.'  "^ 

{d).  Effect  of  Crises  on  the  best  paid  'part  of  the  Worhing 

Class. 

Before  I  turn  to  the  regular  agricultural  labourers,  I  may  be 
allowed  to  show,  by  one  example,  how  industrial  revulsions 
affect  even  the  best-paid,  the  aristocracy,  of  the  working-class. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  the  year  1857  brought  one  of  the 
great  crises  with  which  the  industrial  cycle  periodically  ends. 
The  next  termination  of  the  cycle  was  due  in  1866.  Already 
discounted  in  the  regular  factory  districts  by  the  cotton  famine, 
which  threw  much  capital  from  its  wonted  sphere  into  the 
great  centres  of  the  money-market,  the  crisis  assumed,  at  this 
time,  an  especially  financial  character.  Its  outbreak  in  1866 
was  signalised  by  the  failure  of  a  gigantic  London  Bank,  im- 
mediately followed  by  the  collapse  of  countless  swindling  com- 
panies. One  of  the  great  London  branches  of  industry  in- 
volved in  the  catastrophe  was  iron  shipbuilding.     The  raag- 

*1.  c,  p.  16. 


734  Capitalist  Production. 

nates  of  this  trade  had  not  only  over-produced  beyond  all 
measure  during  the  overtrading  time,  but  they  had,  besides, 
engaged  in  enormous  contracts  on  the  speculation  that  credit 
would  be  forthcoming  to  an  equivalent  extent.  Now,  a  ter- 
rible reaction  set  in,  that  even  at  this  hour  (the  end  of  March, 
1867)  continues  in  this  and  other  London  industries.^  To 
show  the  condition  of  the  labourers,  I  quote  the  following  from 
the  circumstantial  report  of  a  correspondent  of  the  "Morning 
Star,"  who,  at  the  end  of  1866,  and  beginning  of  1867,  visited 
the  chief  centres  of  distress:  "In  the  East  End  districts  of 
Poplar,  Millwall,  Greenwich,  Deptford,  Limehouse  and  Can- 
ning Town,  at  least  15,000  workmen  and  their  families  were 
in  a  state  of  utter  destitution,  and  3000  skilled  mechanics  were 
breaking  stones  in  the  workhouse  yard  (after  distress  of  over 
half  a  year's  duration).  ...  I  had  great  difficulty  in 
reaching  the  workhouse  door,  for  a  hungry  crowd  besieged  it. 
.  .  .  They  were  waiting  for  their  tickets,  but  the  time  had 
not  yet  arrived  for  the  distribution.  The  yard  was  a  great 
square  place  with  an  open  shed  running  all  round  it,  and  sev- 
eral large  heaps  of  snow  covered  the  paving-stones  in  the  mid- 
dle. In  the  middle,  also,  were  little  wicker-fenced  spaces,  like 
sheep  pens,  where  in  finer  weather  the  men  worked ;  but  on 
the  day  of  my  visit  the  pens  were  so  snowed  up  that  nobody 
could  sit  in  them.  Men  were  busy,  however,  in  the  open 
shed  breaking  paving-stones  into  macadam.  Each  man  had 
a  big  paving-stone  for  a  seat,  and  he  chipped  away  at  the 
rime-covered  granite  with  a  big  hammer  until  he  had  broken 
up,  and  think!  five  bushels  of  it,  and  then  he  had  done  his 
day's  work,  and  got  his  day's  pay — threepence  and  an  allow- 

*  "Wholesale  starvation  of  the  London  Poor.  .  .  .  Within  the  last  few  days 
the  walls  of  London  have  been  placarded  with  large  posters,  bearing  the  following 
remarkable  announcement: — 'Fat  oxenl  Starving  men!  The  fat  oxen  from  their 
palace  of  glass  have  gone  to  feed  the  rich  in  their  luxurious  abode,  while  the  starving 
men  are  left  to  rot  and  die  in  their  wrecked  dens.'  The  placards  bearing  these 
ominous  words  are  put  up  at  certain  intervals.  No  sooner  has  one  set  been  defaced 
or  covered  over,  than  a  fresh  set  is  placarded  in  the  former,  or  some  equally  public 

place This     .     .     .     reminds  one  of  the  secret  revolutionary  associations 

which  prepared  the  French  people  for  the  events  of  1789 At  this  mo- 
ment, while  English  workmen  with  their  wives  and  children  are  dying  of  cold  and 
hunger,  there  are  millions  of  English  gold — the  produce  of  English  labour — being 
invested  in  Russian,  Spanish,  Italian,  and  other  foreign  enterprises." — "Reynolds' 
Newspaper,"  January  20th,  1867. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      735 

ance  of  food.  In  another  part  of  the  yard  was  a  rickety  little 
"wooden  house,  and  when  we  opened  the  door  of  it,  we  found 
it  filled  with  men  who  were  huddled  together  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  for  the  warmth  of  one  another's  bodies  and  breath. 
They  were  picking  oakum  and  disputing  the  while  as  to  which 
could  work  the  longest  on  a  given  quantity  of  food — ^for  en- 
durance was  the  point  of  honour.  Seven  thousand  . 
in  this  one  workhouse  .  .  .  were  recipients  of  relief 
.  .  .  many  hundreds  of  them  ...  it  appeared,  were, 
six  or  eight  months  ago,  earning  the  highest  wages  paid  to 
artisans.  .  .  .  Their  number  would  be  more  than  doubled 
by  the  count  of  those  who,  having  exhausted  all  their  savings, 
still  refuse  to  apply  to  the  parish,  because  they  have  a  little 
left  to  pawn.  Leaving  the  workhouse,  I  took  a  walk  through 
the  streets,  mostly  of  little  one-storey  houses,  that  abound  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Poplar.  My  guide  was  a  member  of  the 
Committee  of  the  Unemployed.  .  .  .  My  first  call  was  on 
an  ironworker  who  had  been  seven  and  twenty  weeks  out  of 
employment.  I  found  the  man  with  his  family  sitting  in  a 
little  back  room.  The  room  was  not  bare  of  furniture,  and 
there  was  a  fire  in  it.  This  was  necessary  to  keep  the  naked 
feet  of  the  young  children  from  getting  frost  bitten,  for  it  was 
a  bitterly  cold  day.  On  a  tray  in  front  of  the  fire  lay  a  quan- 
tity of  oakum,  which  the  wife  and  children  were  picking  in 
return  for  their  allowance  from  the  parish.  The  man  worked 
in  the  stone  yard  of  the  workhouse  for  a  certain  ratio  of  food, 
and  three  pence  per  day.  He  had  now  come  home  to  dinner 
quite  hungry,  as  he  told  us  with  a  melancholy  smile,  and  his 
dinner  consisted  of  a  couple  of  slices  of  bread  and  dripping, 
and  a  cup  of  railkless  tea.  .  .  .  The  next  door  at  which 
we  knocked  was  opened  by  a  middle-aged  woman,  who,  with- 
out saying  a  word,  led  us  into  a  little  back  parlour,  in  which 
sat  all  her  family,  silent  and  fixedly  staring  at  a  rapidly  dying 
fire.  Such  desolation,  such  hopelessness  was  about  these  peo- 
ple and  their  little  room,  as  I  should  not  care  to  witness  again. 
'Nothing  have  they  done,  sir,'  said  the  woman,  pointing  to 
her  boys,  'for  six  and  twenty  weeks ;  and  all  our  money  gone — 
all  the  twenty  pounds  that  me  and  father  saved  when  times 


736  Capitalist  Production. 

were  better,  tliinking  it  would  yield  a  little  to  keep  us  when 
we  got  past  work.  Look  at  it,'  she  said,  almost  fiercely,  bring- 
ing out  a  bank  book  with  all  its  well-kept  entries  of  money 
paid  in,  and  money  taken  out,  so  that  we  could  see  how  the 
little  fortune  had  begun  with  the  first  five  shilling  deposit, 
and  had  grown  by  little  and  little  to  be  twenty  pounds,  and 
how  it  had  melted  down  again  till  the  sum  in  hand  got  from 
pounds  to  shillings,  and  the  last  entry  made  the  book  as  worth- 
less as  a  blank  sheet.  This  family  received  relief  from  the 
workhouse,  and  it  furnished  them  with  just  one  scanty  meal 
per  day.  .  .  .  Our  next  visit  was  to  an  iron  labourer's 
wife,  whose  husband  had  worked  in  the  yards.  We  found  her 
ill  from  want  of  food,  lying  on^  mattress  in  her  clothes,  and 
just  covered  with  a  strip  of  carpet,  for  all  the  bedding  had  been 
pawned.  Two  wretched  children  were  tending  her,  themselves 
looking  as  much  in  need  of  nursing  as  their  mother.  Nineteen 
weeks  of  enforced  idleness  had  brought  them  to  this  pass,  and 
while  the  mother  told  the  history  of  that  bitter  past,  she 
moaned  as  if  all  her  faith  in  a  future  that  should  atone  for  it 
were  dead.  .  .  .  On  getting  outside  a  young  fellow  came 
running  after  us,  and  asked  us  to  step  inside  his  house  and  see 
if  anything  could  be  done  for  him.  A  young  wife,  two  pretty 
children,  a  cluster  of  pawn-tickets,  and  a  bare  room  were  all 
he  had  to  show." 

On  the  after  pains  of  the  crisis  of  1866,  the  following  extract 
from  a  Tory  newspaper.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the 
East-end  of  London,  which  is  here  dealt  with,  is  not  only  the 
seat  of  the  iron  shipbuilding  mentioned  above,  but  also  of 
a  so-called  "home-industry"  always  underpaid.  "A  frightful 
spectacle  was  to  be  seen  yesterday  in  one  part  of  the  metro- 
polis. Although  the  unemployed  thousands  of  the  East  End 
did  not  parade  with  their  black  flags  en  masse,  the  human 
torrent  was  imposing  enough.  Let  us  remember  what  these 
people  suffer.  They  are  dying  of  hunger.  That  is  the  simple 
and  terrible  fact.  There  are  40,000  of  them.  ...  In 
our  presence,  in  one  quarter  of  this  wonderful  metropolis,  are 
packed — next  door  to  the  most  enormous  accumulation  of 
wealth  the  world  ever  saw — cheek  by  jowel  with  this  are 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      737 

40,000  helpless,  starving  people.  These  thousands  are  now 
breaking  in  upon  the  other  quarters,  always  half-starving,  they 
cry  their  misery  in  our  ears,  they  cry  to  Heaven,  they  tell 
us  from  their  miserable  dwellings,  that  it  is  impossible  for 
them  to  find  work,  and  useless  for  them  to  beg.  The  local 
ratepayers  themselves  are  driven  by  the  parochial  charges  to 
the  verge  of  pauperism." — ("Standard,"  5th  April^  186G.) 

As  it  is  the  fashion  amongst  English  capitalists  to  quote 
Belgium  as  the  Paradise  of  the  labourer  becauses  ''freedom  of 
labour,"  or  what  is  the  same  thing,  "freedom  of  capital,"  is 
there  limited  neither  by  the  despotism  of  Trade's  Unions,  nor 
by  Factory  Acts,  a  word  or  two  on  the  "happiness"  of  the 
Belgian  labourer.  Assuredly  no  one  was  more  thoroughly 
initiated  in  the  mysteries  of  this  happiness  than  the  late  M. 
Ducpetiaux,  inspector-general  of  Belgian  prisons  and  chari- 
table institutions,  and  member  of  the  central  commission  of 
Belgian  statistics.  Let  us  take  his  work:  "Btidgets  econo- 
miques  des  classes  ouvrieres  de  la  Belgique,  Bruxelles,  1855." 
Here  we  find  among  other  matters,  a  normal  Belgian  labourer's 
family,  whose  yearly  income  and  expenditure  he  calculates 
on  very  exact  data,  and  whose  conditions  of  nourishment  are 
then  compared  with  those  of  the  soldier,  sailor,  and  prisoner. 
The  family  "consists  of  father,  mother,  and  four  children." 
Of  these  6  persons  "four  may  be  usefully  employed  the  whole 
year  through."  It  is  assumed  that  "there  is  no  sick  person 
nor  one  incapable  of  work,  among  them,"  nor  are  there  "ex- 
penses for  religious,  moral,  and  intellectual  purposes,  except 
a  very  small  sum  for  church  sittings,"  nor  "contributions  to 
savings  banks  or  benefit  societies,"  nor  "expenses  due  to  luxury 
or  the  result  of  improvidence."  The  father  and  eldest  son, 
however,  allow  themselves  "the  use  of  tobacco,"  and  on  Sun- 
days "go  to  the  cabaret,"  for  which  a  whole  86  centimes  a 
week  are  reckoned.  "From  a  general  compilation  of  wages 
allowed  to  the  labourers  in  different  trades,  it  follows  that 
the  highest  average  of  daily  wage  is  1  franc  56c.,  for  men, 
89  centimes  for  women,  56  centimes  for  boys,  and  55  centimes 
for  girls.  Calculated  at  this  rate,  the  resource-  of  the  family 
would    amount,    at   the   maximum,    to    1068    francs    a-year. 

2U 


738  Capitalist  Production. 

.  .  .  In  the  family  .  .  .  taken  as  typical  we  have 
calculated  all  possible  resources.  But  in  ascribing  wages  to 
the  mother  of  the  family  we  raise  the  question  of  the  direc- 
tion of  the  household.  How  will  its  internal  economy  be 
cared  for  ?  Who  will  look  after  the  young  children  ?  Who 
will  get  ready  the  meals,  do  the  washing  and  mending  ?  This 
is  the  dilemma  incessantly  presented  to  the  labourers." 
According  to  this  the  budget  of  the  family  is: 

The  father  300  working  days  at  fr.  1*56 
„     mother  „  „  „        „  89 

V     W        »  »  »        })  S6 

«      gi'l         Jf  }}  w         «  ^^ 


The  annual  expenditure  of  the  family  would  cause  a  deficit 
upon  the  hypothesis  that  the  labourer  has  the  food  of : 


...     fr.  468 

...       „  267 

...       „  168 

...       „  165 

Total  fr.  1,068 

The  man  of  war's  man  fr.  1828     . . 

. .    Deficit  fr.  760 

„    soldier                        „  1473 

„         „  405 

„    prisoner                     »  1112 

»         „     44 

"We  see  that  few  labouring  families  can  reach,  we  will  not 
say  the  average  of  the  sailor  or  soldier,  but  even  that  of  the 
prisoner.  The  general  average  (of  the  cost  of  each  prisoner 
in  the  different  prisons  during  the  period  1847-1849),  has 
been  63  centimes  for  all  prisons.  This  figure,  compared  with 
that  of  tlie  daily  maintenance  of  the  labourer,  shows  a  dif- 
ference of  13  centimes.  It  must  be  remarked  further,  that 
if  in  the  prisons  it  is  necessary  to  set  down  in  the  account  the 
expenses  of  administration  and  surveillance  on  the  other  hand, 
the  prisoners  have  not  to  pay  for  their  lodging;  that  the  pur- 
chases they  make  at  the  canteens  are  not  included  in  the  ex- 
penses of  maintenance,  and  that  these  expenses  are  greatly 
lowered  in  consequence  of  tlie  large  number  of  persons  that 
make  up  the  establishments,  and  of  contracting  for  or  buying 
wholesale,  the  food  and  other  things  that  enter  into  their  con- 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      739 

sumption.     .     .     .     How   comes   it,   however,    tliat    a   great 
number,  we  might  say,  a  great  majority,  of  labourers,  live  in 
a  more   economical  way  ?      It  is     .     .     .     by   adopting  ex- 
pedients, the  secret  of  which  only  the  labourer  knows ;  by  re- 
ducing his  daily  rations ;  by  substituting  rye-bread  for  wheat ; 
by  eating  less  meat,  or  even  none  at  all,  and  the  same  with 
butter  and  condiments;  by  contenting  themselves  with  one  or 
two  rooms  where  the  family  is  crammed  together,  where  boys 
and  girls  sleep  side  by  side,  often  on  the  same  pallet;  by 
economy   of  clothing,   washing,    decency;   by   giving  up   the 
Sunday  diversions;  by,  in  short,  resigning  themselves  to  the 
most  painful  privations.     Once  arrived  at  this  extreme  limit, 
the  least  rise  in  the  price  of  food,  stoppage  of  work,  illness, 
increases  the  labourer's  distress  and  determines  his  complete 
ruin ;  debts  accumulate,  credit  fails,  the  most  necessary  clothes 
and  furniture  are  pawned,  and  finally,  the  family  asks  to  be 
enrolled  on  the  list  of  paupers."     (Ducpetiaux,  1.  c,  pp.  151, 
154,  155.)      In  fact,  in  this  "Paradise  of  capitalists"  there 
follows,  on  the  smallest  change  in  the  price  of  the  most  es- 
sential  means   of   subsistence,    a    change   in    the   number   of 
deaths   and  crimes!      (See   Manifesto  of  the   Maatschappij : 
De  Vlamingen  Vooruit!  Brussels,  1860,  pp.  15,  16.)     In  all 
Belgium   are   930,000   families,   of  whom,    according  to  the 
official  statistics,  90,000  are  wealthy  and  on  the  list  of  voters 
=450,000   persons;    190,000   families  of  the  lower  middle- 
class   in  towns  and  villages,  the  greater  part  of  them  con- 
stantly   sinking    into    the    proletariat,  =  l,950,000     persons. 
Finally,   450,000  working-class  families=2,250,000   persons 
of  whom  the   model  ones  enjoy   the  happiness   depicted  by 
Ducpetiaux.      Of  the   450,000   working-class  families,   over 
200,000  are  on  the  pauper  list. 

(e.)  The  British  Agricultural  Proletariai. 

Nowhere  does  the  antagonistic  character  of  capitalistic  pro- 
duction and  accumulatiop  assert  itself  more  brutally  than  in 
the  progress  of  English  agriculture  (including  cattle-breeding) 
and  the  retrogression  of  the  English  agricultural  labourer. 
Before  I  turn   to  his  precent  situation,   a  rapid  retrospect, 


740  Capitalist  Production. 

?vIodem  agriculture  dates  in  England  from  the  middle  of  the 
18th  century,  .although  the  revolution  in  landed  property,  from 
which  the  changed  mode  of  production  starts  as  a  basis,  has 
a  much  earlier  date. 

If  we  take  the  statements  of  Arthur  Young,  a  careful  ob- 
server, though  a  superficial  thinker,  as  to  the  agricultural 
labourer  of  1771,  the  latter  plays  a  very  pitiable  pa!rt  com- 
pared with  his  predecessor  of  the  end  of  the  14th  century, 
"when  the  labourer  .  .  .  could  live  in  plenty,  and  ac- 
cumulate wealth,"*  not  to  speak  of  the  15th  century,  "the 
golden  age  of  the  English  labourer  in  town  and  country." 
We  need  not,  however,  go  back  so  far.  In  a  very  instructive 
work  of  the  year  1777  we  read :  "The  great  farmer  is  nearly 
mounted  to  a  level  with  him  [the  genttleman]  ;  while  the 
poor  labourer  is  depressed  almost  to  the  earth.  His  un- 
fortunate situation  will  fully  appear,  by  taking  a  comparative 
view  of  it,  only  forty  years  ago,  and  at  present.  .  .  . 
Landlord  and  tenant  .  .  .  have  both  gone  hand  in  hand 
in  keeping  the  labourer  down."^  It  is  then  proved  in  de- 
tail that  the  real  agricultural  wages  between  1737  and  1777 
fell  nearly  ^  or  25  per  cent.  "Modem  policy,"  says  Dr. 
Richard  Price  also,  "is,  indeed,  more  favourable  to  the  higher 
classes  of  people;  and  the  consequences  may  in  time  prove 
that  the  whole  kingdom  will  consist  of  only  gentry  and  beg- 
gars, or  of  grandees  and  slaves."^ 

Nevertheless,  the  position  of  the  English  agricultural  la- 
bourer from  1770  to  1780,  with  regard  to  his  food  and  dwell- 

1  James  E.  Thorold  Rogers.  (Prof,  of  PoHt.  Econ.  in  the  University  of  Oxford.) 
A  History  of  Agriculture  and  Prices  in  England.  Oxford,  1866,  v.  I.,  p.  690.  This 
work,  the  fruit  of  patient  and  diligent  labour,  contains  in  the  two  volumes  that  have 
so  far  appeared,  only  the  period  1259  to  1400.  The  second  volume  contains 
simply  statistics.  It  is  the  first  authentic  "History  of  Prices"  of  the  time  that  we 
possess. 

*  Reasons  for  the  late  increase  of  the  Poor-Rates,  or  a  comparative  view  of  the 
price  of  labour  and  provisions.     Lond.,  1777,  pp.  5,  11. 

» Dr.  Richard  Price:  Observations  on  Reversionary  Payments,  6th  Ed.  By  W. 
Morgan,  I-ond.,  1803,  v.  II.,  pp.  158,  159.  Price  remarks  on  p.  159:  "The  nominal 
price  of  day-labour  is  at  present  no  more  than  about  four  times,  or,  at  most,  five 
times  higher  than  it  was  in  the  year  1514.  But  the  price  of  corn  is  seven  times,  and 
of  flesh-meat  and  raiment  about  fifteen  times  higher.  So  far,  therefore,  has  the 
price  of  labour  been  even  from  advancing  in  proportion  to  the  increase  in  the  ex- 
penses of  living,  that  it  does  not  appear  that  it  bears  now  half  the  proportion  to  those 
expenses  that  it  did  bear." 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      741 

ing,  as  well  as  to  liis  self-respect,  amusements,  &c.,  is  an  ideal 
never  attained  again  since  that  time.  His  average  wage  ex- 
pressed in  pints  of  what  was  from  1770  to  1771,  90  pints,  in 
Eden's  time  (1797)  only  65,  in  1808  but  60.^ 

The  state  of  the  agricultural  labourer  at  the  end  of  the 
Anti-Jacobin  war,  during  which  landed  proprietors,  farmers, 
manufacturers,  merchants,  bankers,  stockbrokers,  army-con- 
tractors, &c,,  enriched  themselves  so  extraordinarily,  has  been 
already  indicated  above.  The  nominal  wages  rose  in  con- 
sequence partly  of  the  bank-note  depreciation,  partly  of  a 
rise  in  the  price  of  the  primary  means  of  subsistence  inde- 
pendent of  this  depreciation.  But  the  actual  wage-variation 
can  be  evidenced  in  a  very  simple  way,  without  entering  into 
details  that  are  here  unnecessary.  The  Poor  Law  and  its  ad- 
ministration were  in  1795  and  1814  the  same.  It  will  be 
remembered  how  this  law  was  carried  out  in  the  country  dis- 
tricts: in  tlie  form  of  alms  the  parish  made  up  the  nominal 
wage  to  the  nominal  sum  required  for  the  simple  vegetation 
of  the  labourer.  The  ratio  between  the  wages  paid  by  the 
farmer,  and  the  wage-deficit  made  good  by  the  parish,  shows 
us  two  things.  First,  the  falling  of  wages  below  their  mini- 
mum ;  second,  the  degree  in  which  the  agricultural  labourer 
was  a  compound  of  wage-labourer  and  pauper,  or  the  degree 
in  which  he  had  been  turned  into  a  serf  of  his  parish.  Let 
us  take  one  county  that  represents  the  average  condition  of 
things  in  all  counties.  In  Northamptonshire,  in  1795,  the 
average  weekly  wage  was  7s.  6d. ;  the  total  yearly  expenditure 
of  a  family  of  6  persons,  £36  12s.  5d. ;  their  total  income, 
£29  18s. ;  deficit  made  good  by  the  parish,  £6  14s.  5d.  In 
1814,  in  the  same  county,  the  weekly  wage  was  12s.  2d. ;  the 
total  yearly  expenditure  of  a  family  of  5  persons,  £54  18s. 
4d. ;  their  total  income,  £36  2s. ;  deficit  made  good  by  the 
parish,  £18  6s.  4d.^  In  1795  the  deficit  was  less  than  |  the 
wage,  in  1814,  more  than  half.  It  is  self-evident  that,  under 
these  circumstances,  the  meagre  comforts  that  Eden  still 
found  in  the  cottage  of  the  agricultural  labourer,  had  van- 

*  Barton,  1.  c,  p.  26.     For  the  end  of  the  18th  century  c£.     Eden,  1.  c. 
-  Parry,  1.  c,  p.  86. 


742  Capitalist  Production. 

ished  by  1814.^  Of  all  the  animals  kept  by  the  farmer,  the 
labourer,  the  instrument um  vocale,  was,  thenceforth,  the  most 
oppressed,  the  worst  nourished,  the  most  brutally  treated. 

The  same  state  of  things  went  on  quietly  until  "the  Swing 
riots,  in  1830,  revealed  to  us  [i.e.,  the  ruling  classes]  by  the 
light  of  blazing  corn-stacks,  that  misery  and  black  mutinous 
discontent  smouldered  quite  as  fiercely  under  the  surface  of 
agricultural  as  of  manufacturing  England."^  At  this  time, 
Sadler,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  christened  the  agricultural 
labourers  "white  slaves,"  and  a  Bishop  echoed  the  epithet  in 
the  Upper  House.  The  most  notable  political  economist  of 
that  period — E.  G.  Wakefield — says:  "The  peasant  of  the 
South  of  England  ...  is  not  a  freeman,  nor  is  he  a 
slave;  he  is  a  pauper."^ 

The  time  just  before  the  repeal  of  the  Com  Laws  threw  new 
light  on  the  condition  of  the  agricultural  labourers.  On  the 
one  hand,  it  was  to  the  interest  of  the  middle-class  agitators  to 
prove  how  little  the  Com  Laws  protected  the  actual  producers 
of  the  com.  On  the  other  hand,  the  industrial  bourgeoisie 
foamed  with  sullen  rage  at  the  denunciations  of  the  factory 
system  by  the  landed  aristocracy,  at  the  pretended  sympathy 
with  the  woes  of  the  factory  operatives,  of  those  utterly 
corrupt,  heartless,  and  genteel  loafers,  and  at  their  "diplomatic 
zeal"  for  factory  legislation.  It  is  an  old  English  proverb 
that  "when  thieves  fall  out,  honest  men  come  by  their  own," 
and,  in  fact,  the  noisy,  passionate  quarrel  between  the  two 
fractions  of  the  ruling  class  about  the  question,  which  of  the 
two  exploited  the  labourers  the  more  shamefully,  was  on  each 
hand  the  midwife  of  the  truth.  Earl  Shaftesbury,  then 
Lord  Ashley,  was  commander-in-chief  in  the  aristocratic,  phil- 
anthropic, anti-factory  campaign.  He  was,  therefore,  in 
1845,  a  favourite  subject  in  the  revelations  of  the  "Morning 
Chronicle"  on  the  condition  of  the  agricultural  labourers. 
This  journal,  then  the  most  important  Liberal  organ,  sent 
special  commissioners  into  the  agricultural  districts,  wno  did 
not  content  themselves  with  mere  general   descriptions   and 

^id.,  p.  213.  »S.   Laing.     1.  c,  p.  62. 

*  England  and  America.    Lond.,  1883.     Vol.  I.,  p.  47. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      743 

statistics,  but  published  the  names  both  of  the  labouring  fam- 
ilies examined  and  of  their  landlords.  The  following  list 
gives  the  wages  paid  in  three  villages  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Blanford,  Wimbonrne;,  and  Poole.  The  villages  are  the  prop- 
erty of  ^Ir.  G.  Bankes  and  of  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury.  It 
will  be  noted  that,  just  like  Bankes,  this  "low  church  pope," 
this  head  of  English  pietists,  pockets  a  great  part  of  the 
miserable  wages  of  the  labourers  under  the  pretext  of  houses 
rent : — 


FIRST   VILI.AGE. 


d 

^  a 

^^ 

^^A 

-^'S  ■"  . 

>» 

u 
5 

in 

w  0  g 

«  5.2  ■" 

-^  a, 

^  i  5 

s.  d. 

s.  d. 

s.  d. 

s.  d. 

S.   d. 

2 

4 

8   0 

— 

8   0 

2  0 

6   0 

1   6 

3 

5 

8   0 

— 

8   0 

1  6 

6   6 

1   3i 

2 

i 

8   0 

— 

8   0 

1  0 

7   0 

1   9 

2 

4 

8   0 

— 

8   0 

1  0 

7   0 

1   9 

6 

8 

7   0 

1  -,  1  6, 

10   6 

2  0 

8   6 

1   Oi 

3 

5 

7   0 

1-,  2- 

7   0 

1  4 

5   8 

1  \\ 

SECOND   VILLAGE. 


6 

8 

s.  d. 
7   0 

1-.16. 

s.  d. 
10   0 

s,  d. 
1  6 

s. 

8 

d. 
6 

s.  d. 
1   Of 

6 

8 

7   0 

1  ..  1  6, 

7   0 

1  3^ 

5 

8J 

0   8J 

8 

10 

7   0 

— 

7   0 

1  3J 

5 

8J 

0   7 

4 

6 

7   0 

— 

7   0 

1  6J 

5 

5J 

0   11 

3 

5 

7   0 

— 

7   0 

1  6J 

5 

5J 

1   1 

744 


Capitalist  Production, 


THIED  VILLAGE. 


{d)  Number  of 

Members  in 

Family. 

3  °  o  ^ 

0^)  Total 
weekly  wage 
after  deduc- 
tion of  Rent. 

2 
•u 
5 

(c)  Wee 

Wage  ol 

Men 

(a)  Wee 

Wage  ol 

Childre 

(^)  Wee 

Income 

the  Wh 

Famil 

<u  a 

{/t)  Wee 

Income 

head 

s.    d. 

s.    d. 

s.  d. 

s.     d. 

s.    d. 

4 

6 

7      0 

— 

7      0 

1    0 

6      0 

1      0 

3 

5 

7      0 

1  -.  2  -. 

11      6 

0  10 

10      8 

2     VA 

0 

2 

5      0 

1  -,  2  6, 

5      0 

1    0 

4      0 

2      0  1 

The  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  gave  a  marvellous  impulse  to 
English  agriculture.^  Drainage  on  the  most  extensive  scale, 
new  methods  of  stall-feeding,  and  of  the  artificial  cultivation 
of  green  crops,  introduction  of  mechanical  manuring  appa- 
ratus, new  treatment  of  clay  soils,  increased  use  of  mineral 
manures,  employment  of  the  steam-engine,  and  of  all  kinds 
of  new  machinery,  more  intensive  cultivation  generally, 
characterised  this  epoch.  Mr.  Pusey,  Chairman  of  the  Royal 
Agricultural  Society,  declares  that  the  (relative)  expenses  of 
farming  have  been  reduced  nearly  one-half  by  the  introduction 
of  new  machinery.  On  the  other  hand,  the  actual  return  of 
the  soil  rose  rapidly.  Greater  outlay  of  capital  per  acre, 
and,  as  a  consequence,  more  rapid  concentration  of  farms, 
were  essential  conditions  of  the  new  method.*     At  the  same 

^  London    Economist,    March   29th,    1845,   p.   200. 

'  The  landed  aristocracy  advanced  themselves  to  this  end,  of  course  per  Parliament, 
funds  from  the  State  Treasury,  at  a  very  low  rate  of  interest,  which  the  farmers 
have  to  make  good  at  a  much  higher  rate. 

'  The  decrease  of  the  middle-class  farmers  can  be  seen  especially  in  the  census 
category:  "Farmer's  son,  grandson,  brother,  nephew,  daughter,  grand-daughter,  sister, 
niece";  in  a  word,  the  members  of  his  own  family,  employed  by  the  farmer.  This 
category  numbered,  in  1851,  216,851  persons;  in  1861,  only  176,161.  From  1851  to 
1871,  the  farms  under  20  acres  fell  by  more  than  900  in  number;  those  between  50 
and  75  acres  fell  from  8,253  to  6,370;  the  same  thing  occurred  with  all  other  farms 
under  100  acres.  On  the  other  hand,  during  the  same  twenty  years,  the  number  of 
large  farms  increased;  those  of  300-500  acres  rose  from  7,771  to  8,410,  those  of  more 
than  500  acres  from  2.755  to  3,914,  those  of  more  than  1,000  acres  from  492  to 
582. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      745 

time,  the  area  under  cultivation  increased,  from  1846  to 
1856,  by  464,119  acres,  without  reckoning  the  great  area  in 
the  Eastern  Counties  which  was  transformed  from  rabbit  war- 
rens and  poor  pastures  into  magnificent  cornfields.  It  has 
already  been  seen  that,  at  the  same  time,  the  total  numbe- 
of  persons  employed  in  agriculture  fell.  As  far  as  the  actual 
agricultural  labourers  of  both  sexes  and  of  all  ages  are  con- 
cerned, their  number  fell  from  1,241,396,  in  1851,  to  1,163,- 
217  in  1861.^  If  the  English  Registrar-General,  therefore, 
rightly  remarks :  "The  increase  of  farmers  and  farm-labourers, 
since  1801,  bears  no  kind  of  proportion  ...  to  the  in- 
crease of  agricultural  produce,"^  this  disproportion  obtains 
much  more  for  the  last  period,  when  a  positive  decrease  of  the 
agricultural  population  went  hand  in  hand  with  increase  of  the 
area  under  cultivation,  with  more  intensive  cultivation,  un- 
heard-of accumulation  of  the  capital  incorporated  with  the 
soil,  and  devoted  to  its  working,  an  augmentation  in  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  soil  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  English 
agriculture,  plethoric  rent-rolls  of  landlords,  and  growing 
wealth  of  the  capitalist  farmers.  If  we  take  this,  together 
with  the  swift,  unbroken  extension  of  the  markets,  viz.,  the 
towns,  and  the  reign  of  Free  Trade,  then  the  agricultural  la- 
borer was  at  last,  post  tot  discrimina  rerum,  placed  in  circum- 
stances that  ought,  secundum  artem,  to  have  made  him  drunk 
with  happiness. 

But  Professor  Rogers  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the  lot  of 
the  English  agricultural  labourer  of  to-day,  not  to  speak  of  his 
predecessor  in  the  last  half  on  the  14th  and  in  the  15th  cen- 
tury, but  only  compared  with  his  predecessor  from  1770  to 
1780,  has  changed  for  the  worse  to  an  extraordinary  extent, 
that  "the  peasant  has  again  become  a  serf,"  and  a  serf  worse 
fed  and  worse  clothed.^  Dr.  Julian  Hunter,  in  his  epoch- 
making  report  on  the  dwellings  of  the  agricultural  labourers, 
says:  "The  cost  of  the  hind"  (a  name  for  the  agricultural 
labourer,   inherited  from  time  of  serfdom)    "is  fixed  at  the 

1  The  number  of  shepherds  increased  from  12,517  to  25,559. 
'  Census.     1.  c,  p.   36. 

'  Rogers.  1.  c.  p.  693,  p.  10.     Mr.  Rogers  belongs  to  the  Liberal  School,  is  a  per- 
sonal friend  of  Cobden  and  Bright,  and  therefore  no  laudator  temporis  acti. 


746  Capitalist  Production. 

lowest  possible  amount  on  which  he  can  live  .  .  .  the 
supplies  of  wages  and  shelter  are  not  calculated  on  the  profit 
to  be  derived  from  him.  He  is  a  zero  in  farming  calcula- 
tions.^ .  .  .  The  means  [of  subsistence]  being  always 
supposed  to  be  a  fixed  quantity.^  As  to  any  further  reduction 
f  of  his  income,  he  may  say,  nihil  habeo  nihil  euro.  He  has 
no  fears  for  the  future,  because  he  has  now  only  the  spare 
supply  necessary  to  keep  him.  He  has  reached  the  zero  from 
which  are  dated  the  calculations  of  the  farmer.  Come  what 
will,  he  has  no  share  either  in  prosperity  or  adversity."^ 

In  the  year  1863,  an  official  inquiry  took  place  into  the  con- 
ditions of  nourishment  and  labour  of  the  criminals  condemned 
to  transportation  and  penal  servitude.  The  results  are  re- 
corded in  two  voluminous  blue  books.  Among  other  things  it 
is  said:  "From  an  elaborate  comparison  between  the  diet  of 
convicts  in  the  convict  prisons  in  England,  and  that  of  paupers 
in  workhouses  and  of  free  labourers  in  the  same  country 
.  .  .  it  certainly  appears  that  the  former  are  much  better 
fed  than  either  of  the  two  other  classes,""*  whilst  "the  amount 
of  labour  required  from  an  ordinary  convict  under  penal 
servitude  is  about  one  half  of  what  would  be  done  by  an 
ordinary  day  labourer."^  A  few  characteristic  depositions  of 
witnesses :  John  Smith,  governor  of  the  Edinburgh  prison,  de- 
poses: No.  5056.  "The  diet  of  tlie  English  prisons  [is] 
superior  to  that  of  ordinary  labourers  in  England."  No.  50. 
"It  is  the  fact  .  .  .  that  the  ordinary  agricultural  la- 
bourers in  Scotland  very  seldom  get  any  meat  at  all."  An- 
swer No.  3047.  "Is  there  anything  that  you  are  aware  of  to 
account  for  the  necessity  of  feeding  them  very  much  better 
than  ordinary  labourers  ? — Certainly  not."  No.  3048.  "Do 
you  think  that  further  experiments  ought  to  be  made  in  order 

*  Public  Health.  Seventh  Report,  1864,  p.  242.  It  is  therefore  nothing  unusual 
either  for  the  landlord  to  raise  a  labourer's  rent  as  soon  as  he  hears  that  he  is 
earning  a  little  more,  or  for  the  farmer  to  lower  the  wage  of  the  labourer,  "because 
his  wife  has  found  a  tade,"  1.  c. 

»1.  c.   p.  135.  »1.   c.   p.   134. 

*  Report  of  the  Commissioners  ....  relating  to  transportation  and  penal 
servitude,  Lond.  1863,  pp.   42,  50. 

*  1.  c.   p.   77.     Memorandum  by  the   Lord   Chief  Justice. 


The  General  Lazv  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      747 

to  ascertain  whether  a  dietary  might  not  bo  hit  upon  for 
prisoners  employed  on  public  works  nearly  approaching  to  the 
dietary  of  free  labourers  ?^  .  .  .  "He  [the  agricultural 
labourer]  might  say:  'I  work  hard,  and  have  not  enough  to 
eat,  and  when  in  prison  I  did  not  work  harder  where  I  had 
plenty  to  eat,  and  therefore  it  is  better  for  me  to  be  in  prison 
again  than  here.'  "^  From  the  tables  appended  to  the  first 
volume  of  the  Report  I  have  compiled  the  annexed  comparative 
summary. 

WEEKLY  AMOUNT  OF   NUTRIMENT. 


Quantity 

of  Nitro*- 

genous  J^n- 

gredients. 

Quantity  of 
Non-Nitro- 
genous In- 
gredients. 

Quantity  of 
Mineral 
Matter. 

Total. 

Ounces 

Ounces 

Ounces 

Ounces 

Portland    ( convict 

28-95 

150:06 

4-68 

103:69 

Sailor  in  the  Navy 

29-63 

152-91 

4:52 

187-06 

Soldier 

25-55 

114-49 

3-94 

14-98 

Working  Coachmaker 

24-53 

162-06 

4-23 

190:82 

Compositor 

21-24 

100-83 

3-12 

125:19 

Agricultural   labourer 

17^73 

118-06 

3-29 

139-083 

The  general  result  of  the  inquiry  by  the  medical  commission 
of  1863,  on  the  food  of  the  lowest  fed  classes,  is  already  known 
to  the  reader.  He  will  remember  that  the  diet  of  a  great  part 
of  the  agricultural  labourer's  families  is  below  the  minimum 
necessary  "to  arrest  starvation  diseases."  This  is  especially 
the  case  in  all  the  purely  rural  districts  of  Cornwall,  Devon, 
Somerset,  Wilts,  Stafford,  Oxford,  Berks,  and  Herts.  "The 
nourishment  obtained  by  the  labourer  himself,"  says  Dr.  E. 
Smith,  "is  larger  than  the  average  quantity  indicates,  since  he 
eats  a  larger  share     .     .     .     necessary  to  enable  him  to  per- 

^  1.  c.  Vol.   II.   Minutes  of  Evidence. 
*1.   c.   Vol.   I.  Appendix  p.   280. 
»1.   c.   pp.   274,   275. 


748  Capitalist  Production. 

form  his  labour  ...  of  food  than  the  other  members  of 
the  family,  including  in  the  poorer  districts  nearly  all  the  meat 
and  bacon.  .  .  .  The  quantity  of  food  obtained  by  the 
wife  and  also  by  the  children  at  the  period  of  rapid  growth,  is 
in  many  cases,  in  almost  every  county,  deficient,  and  particu- 
larly in  nitrogen."^  The  male  and  female  servants  living  with 
the  farmers  themselves  are  sufficiently  nourished.  Their  num- 
ber fell  from  288,277  in  1851,  to  204,962  in  1861.  "The  la- 
hour  of  women  in  the  fields,"  says  Dr.  Smith,  "whatever  may 
be  its  disadvantages,  ...  is  under  present  circumstances 
of  great  advantage  to  the  family,  since  it  adds  that  amount  of 
income  which  .  .  .  provides  shoes  and  clothing  and  pays 
the  rent,  and  thus  enables  the  family  to  be  better  fed."^  One 
of  the  most  remarkable  results  of  the  inquiry  was  that  the 
agricultural  labourer  of  England,  as  compared  with  other  parts 
of  the  United  Kingdom,  "is  considerably  the  worst  fed,"  as  the 
appended  table  shows: 

Quantities  of  Carbon  and  Nitrogen  weekly  consumed  by  an 
average  agricultural  adult. 

.Carbon,  grains.  Nitrogen,  grains. 
England                46  -673  1  -594 

Wales  48  -354  2  -031 

Scotland  48  -980  2  -.348 

Ireland  43  -366  2  •434.« 

1  Public  Health,  Sixth  Report,  1863,  pp.  238,  249,  261,  262, 

*1.  c.  p.  262. 

'  1.  c.  p.  17.  The  English  agricultural  labourer  receives  only  %  as  much  mtlW 
and  54  as  much  bread  as  the  Irish.  Arthur  Young  in  his  "Tour  through  Ireland," 
at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  already  noticed  the  better  nourishment  of  the  jatter. 
The  reason  is  simply  this,  that  poor  Irish  farmer  is  incomparably  more  humane 
than  the  rich  English.  As  regards  Wales,  that  which  is  said  in  the  text  holds  only 
for  tlve  south-west.  All  the  doctors  there  agree  that  the  increase  of  the  deathrate 
through  tuberculosis,  scrofula,  etc.,  increases  in  intensity  with  the  deterioration  of 
the  physical  condition  of  the  population,  and  all  ascribe  this  deterioration  to  pov- 
erty. "His  (the  farm  labourer's)  keep  is  reckoned  at  about  five  pence  a  day,  but  in 
many  districts  it  was  said  to  be  of  much  less  cost  to  the  farmer,"  [himself  very 
poor].     .     .     .     "A  morsel   of  the  salt   meat  or  bacon,     .     .  salted  and  dried  to 

the  texture  of  mahogany,  and  hardly  worth  the  difficult  process  of  assimilation 
•  .  .  .  is  used  to  flavour  a  large  quantity  of  broth  or  gruel,  of  meal  and  leeks, 
and  day  after  day  this  is  the  labourer's  dinner."  The  advance  of  industry  resulted 
for  him,  in  this  harsh  and  damp  climate,  in  "the  abandonment  of  the  solid  home- 
spun clothing  in  favour  of  the  cheap  and  so-called  cotton  goods,"  and  of  stronger 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.     749 

"To  the  insufficient  quantity  and  miserable  quality  of  the 
house  accommodation  generally  had,"  says  Dr.  Simon,  in  his 
official  Health  Report,  "by  our  agricultural  labourers,  almost 
every  page  of  Dr.  Hunter's  report  bears  testimony.  And 
gradually,  for  many  years  past,  the  state  of  the  labourer  in 
these  respects  has  been  deteriorating,  house-room  being  now 
greatly  more  difficult  for  him  to  find,  and,  when  found,  greatly 
less  suitable  to  his  needs  than,  perhaps,  for  centuries  had  been 
the  case.  Especially  within  the  last  twenty  or  thirty  years, 
the  evil  has  been  in  very  rapid  increase,  and  the  household  cir- 
cumstances of  the  labourer  are  now  in  the  highest  degree  de- 
plorable. Except  in  so  far  as  they  whom  his  labour  enriches, 
see  fit  to  treat  him  with  a  kind"  of  pitiful  indulgence,  he  is 
quite  peculiarly  helpless  in  the  matter.  Whether  he  shall  find 
house-room  on  the  land  which  he  contributes  to  till,  whether 
the  house-room  which  he  gets  shall  be  human  or  swineish, 

drinks  for  so-called  tea.  "The  agriculturist,  after  several  hours'  exposure  to  wind 
and  rain,  gains  his  cottage  to  sit  by  a  fire  of  peat  or  of  balls  of  clay  and  small 
coal  kneaded  together,  from  which  volumes  of  carbonic  and  sulphurous  acids  are 
poured  forth.  His  walls  are  of  mud  and  stones,  his  floor  the  bare  earth  which  was 
there  before  the  hut  was  built,  his  roof  a  mass  of  loose  and  sodden  thatch.  Every 
crevice  is  stopped  to  maintain  warmth,  and  in  an  atmosphere  of  diabolic  odour,  with 
a  mud  floor,  with  his  only  clothes  drying  on  his  back,  he  often  sups  and  sleeps  with 
his  wife  and  children.  Obstetricians  who  have  passed  parts  of  the  night  in  such 
cabins  have  described  how  they  found  their  feet  sinking  in  the  mud  of  the  floor,  and 
they  were  forced  (easy  task)  to  drill  a  hole  through  the  wall  to  effect  a  little  private 
respiration.  It  was  attested  by  numerous  witnesses  in  various  grades  of  life,  that  to 
these  insanitary  influences,  and  many  more,  the  underfed  peasant  was  nightly  ex- 
posed, and  of  the  result,  a  debilitated  and  scrofulous  people,  there  was  no  want  of 

evidence The  statements  of  the  relieving  officers  of  Carmarthenshire  and 

Cardiganshire  show  in  a  striking  way  the  same  state  of  things.  There  is  besides 
"a  plague  more  horrible  still,  the  great  number  of  idiots."  Now  a  word  on  the 
climatic  conditions.  "A  strong  south-west  wind  blows  over  the  whole  country  for 
8  or  9  months  in  the  year,  bringing  with  it  torrents  of  rain,  which  discharge  prin- 
cipally upon  the  western  slopes  of  the  hills.  Trees  are  rare,  except  in  sheltered 
places,  and  where  not  protected,  are  blown  out  of  all  shape.  The  cottages  generally 
crouch  under  some  bank,  or  often  in  a  ravine  or  quarry,  and  none  but  the  smallest 
sheep  and  native  cattle  can  live  on  the  pastures The  young  people  mi- 
grate to  the  eastern  mining  districts  of  Glamorgan  and  Monmouth.  Carmarthenshire 
is  the  breeding  ground  of  the  mining  population  and  their  hospital.  The  population 
can  therefore  barely  maintain  its  numbers."     Thus  in  Cardiganshire: 

1851.  1861, 

Males  45,155  44.448 

Females  62,459  62,065 


97,614  97,401 

Dr.  Hunter's  Report  in  Public  Health,  Seventh  Report.     1864.  pp.  498-502  passim. 


750  Capitalist  Production. 

whether  he  shall  have  the  little  space  of  garden  that  so  vastly 
lessens  the  pressure  of  his  poverty— all  this  does  not  depend 
on  his  willingness  and  ability  to  pay  reasonable  rent  for  the 
decent  accommodation  he  requires,  but  depends  on  the  use 
which  others  may  see  fit  to  make  of  their  'right  to  do  as  they 
will  with  their  own.'  However  large  may  be  a  farm,  thei*e 
is  no  law  that  a  certain  proportion  of  labourers'  dwellings 
(much  less  of  decent  dwellings)  shall  be  upon  it;  nor  does  any 
law  reserve  for  the  labourer  ever  so  little  right  in  that  soil  to 
which  his  industry  is  as  needful  as  sun  and  rain.  .  .  .  An 
extraneous  element  weighs  the  balance  heavily  against  him 
the  influence  of  the  Poor  Law  in  its  provisions  con- 
cerning settlement  and  chargeability.^  Under  this  influence, 
each  parish  has  a  pecuniary  interest  in  reducing  to  a  minimum 
the  number  of  its  resident  labourers : — for,  unhappily,  agricul- 
tural labour  instead  of  implying  a  safe  and  permanent  in- 
dependence for  the  hard-working  labourer  and  his  family,  im- 
plies for  the  most  part  only  a  longer  or  shorter  circuit  to 
eventual  pauperism — a  pauperism  which,  during  the  whole  cir- 
cuit, is  so  near,  that  any  illness  or  temporary  failure  of  occu- 
pation necessitates  immediate  recourse  to  parochial  relief — 
and  thus  all  residence  of  agricultural  population  in  a  parish  is 
glaringly  an  addition  to  its  poor  rates.  .  .  .  Large  pro- 
prietors^ .  .  .  have  but  to  resolve  that  there  shall  be  no 
labourers'  dwellings  on  tlieir  estates,  and  their  estates  will 
thenceforth  be  virtually  free  from  half  their  responsibility  for 
the  poor.  How  far  it  has  been  intended,  in  the  English  con- 
stitution and  law,  that  this  kind  of  unconditional  property  in 
land  should  be  acquirable,  and  that  a  landlord,  'doing  as  he 
wills  with  his  own,'  should  be  able  to  treat  the  cultivators 
of  the  soil  as  aliens,  whom  he  may  expel  from  his  territory,  is 
a  question  which  I  do  not  pretend  to  discuss.  .  .  .  For 
that    (power)    of  eviction     .     .     .     does  not  exist   only   in 

'  In    1865    this   law   was   improved   to   some   extent.     It   will   soon    be   learnt   from . 
experience  that  tinkering  of  this  sort  is  of  no  use. 

'  In  order  to  understand  that  which  follows,  we  must  remember  that  "Close 
Villages"  are  those  whose  owners  are  one  or  two  large  landlords.  "Open  villages," 
those  whose  soil  belongs  to  many  smaller  landlords.  It  is  in  the  latter  that  building 
speculators  can  build  cottages  and  lodging-houses. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      751 

theory.  On  a  very  large  scale  it  prevails  in  practice — prevails 
.  .  .  as  a  main  governing  condition  in  the  household  cir- 
cumstances of  agricultural  labour.  ...  As  regards  the 
extent  of  the  evil,  it  may  suffice  to  refer  to  the  evidence  which 
Dr.  Hunter  has  compiled  from  tho  last  census,  that  destruc- 
tion of  houses,  notwithstanding  increased  local  demands  for 
them,  had,  during  the  last  ten  years,  been  in  progress  in  821 
separate  parishes  or  townships  of  England,  so  that  irrespec- 
tively of  persons  who  had  been  forced  to  become  non-resident 
(that  is  in  the  parishes  in  which  they  work),  these  parishes 
and  townships  were  receiving  in  1861,  as  compared  with  1851, 
a  population  5^  per  cent,  greater,  into  house-room  4^  per 
cent.  less.  .  .  .  When  the  process  of  depopulation  has 
completed  itself,  the  result,  says  Dr.  Hunter,  is  a  show- 
village  where  the  cottages  have  been  reduced  to  a  few,  and 
where  none  but  persons  who  are  needed  as  shepherds,  garden- 
ers, or  game-keepers,  are  allowed  to  live ;  regular  servants  who 
receive  the  good  treatment  usual  to  their  class.  ^  But  the  land 
requires  cultivation,  and  it  will  be  found  that  the  labourers 
employed  upon  it  are  not  the  tenants  of  the  owner,  but  that 
they  come  from  a  neighboring  open  village,  perhaps  three 
miles  off,  where  a  numerous  small  proprietary  had  received 
them  when  their  cottages  were  destroyed  in  the  close  villages 
around.  Where  things  are  tending  to  the  above  result,  often 
the  cottages  which  stand,  testify,  in  their  unrepaired  and 
wretched  condition,  to  the  extinction  to  which  they  are  doomed. 
They  are  seen  standing  in  the  various  stages  of  natural  decay. 
While  the  shelter  holds  together,  the  lalx)urer  is  permitted  to 
rent  it,  and  glad  enough  he  will  often  be  to  do  so,  even  at  the 
price  of  decent  lodging.  But  no  repair,  no  improvement  shall 
it  receive,  except  such  as  its  penniless  occupants  can  supply. 
And  when  at  last  it  becomes  quite  uninhabitable — uninhabit- 

'  A  show  village  of  this  kind  looks  very  nice,  but  is  as  unreal  as  the  villages  that 
Catherine  II.  saw  on  her  journey  to  the  Crimea.  In  recent  times  the  shepherd  also 
has  often  been  banished  from  the  show  villages;  e.g.,  near  Market  Ilarboro'  is  a 
sheep-farm  of  about  500  acres,  which  only  employs  the  labour  of  one  man.  To 
reduce  the  long  trudges  over  these  wide  plains,  the  beautiful  pastures  of  Leicester  and 
Northampton,  the  shepherd  used  to  get  a  cottage  on  the  farm.  Now  they  give  him 
a  thirteenth  shilling  a  week  for  lodging,  that  he  must  find  far  away  in  an  open 
village. 


752  Capitalist  Production. 

able  even  to  the  humblest  standard  of  serfdom — it  will  be 
but  one  more  destroyed  cottage,  and  future  poor-rates  will  be 
somewhat  lightened.  While  great  owners  are  thus  escaping 
from  poor-rates  through  the  depopulation  of  lands  over  which 
they  have  control,  the  nearest  town  or  open  village  receive  the 
evicted  labourers:  the  nearest,  I  say,  but  this  "nearest"  may 
mean  three  or  four  miles  distant  from  the  farm  where  the  la- 
bourer has  his  daily  toil.  To  that  daily  toil  tliere  will  then 
have  to  be  added,  as  though  it  were  nothing,  the  daily  need  of 
walking  six  or  eight  miles  for  power  of  earning  his  bread. 
And  whatever  farm-work  is  done  by  his  wife  and  children,  is 
done  at  the  same  disadvantage.  ITor  is  this  nearly  all  the  toil 
which  the  distance  occasions  him.  In  the  open  village,  cot- 
tage-speculators bus  scraps  of  land,  which  they  throng  as 
densely  as  they  can  with  the  cheapest  of  all  possible  hovels. 
And  into  those  wretched  habitations  (which,  even  if  they  ad- 
join the  open  country,  have  some  of  the  worst  features  of  the 
worst  town  residences)  crowd  the  agricultural  labourers  of 
England.^  .  .  .  'Not  on  the  other  hand  must  it  be  sup- 
posed that  even  when  the  labourer  is  housed  upon  the  lands 
which  he  cultivates,  his  household  circumstances  are  generally 
such  as  his  life  of  productive  industry  would  seem  to  deserve. 
Even  on  princely  estates     .     .     .     his  cottage     .     .     .     may 

*  "The  labourers'  houses  (in  the  open  villages,  which,  of  course,  are  always  over- 
crowded) are  usually  in  rows,  built  with  their  backs  against  the  extreme  edge  of  the 
plot  of  land  which  the  builder  could  call  his,  and  on  this  account  are  not  allowed 
light  and  air,  except  from  the  front."  (Dr.  Hunter's  Report,  1.  c.  ,p.  135.)  Very 
often  the  beerseller  or  grocer  of  the  village  is  at  the  same  time  the  letter  of  its 
houses.  In  this  case  the  agricultural  labourer  finds  in  him  a  second  master,  besides 
the  farmer.  He  must  be  his  customer  as  well  as  his  tenant.  "The  hind  with  his 
10s.  a  week,  minus  a  rent  of  £4  a  year  ....  is  obliged  to  buy  at  the  seller's 
own  terms,  his  modicum  of  tea,  sugar,  flour,  soap,  candles,  and  beer."  (1.  c,  p. 
132.)  These  open  villages  form,  in  fact,  the  "penal  settlements"  of  the  English 
agricultural  proletariat.  Many  of  the  cottages  are  simply  lodging-houses,  through 
which  all  the  rabble  of  the  neighbourhood  passes.  The  country  labourer  and  his 
family  who  had  often,  in  a  way  truly  wonderful,  preserved,  under  the  foulest  condi- 
tions, a  thoroughness  and  purity  of  character,  go,  in  these,  utterly  to  the  devil, 
it  is,  of  course,  the  fashion  amongst  the  aristocratic  shylocks  to  shrug  their  shoulders 
pharisaically  at  the  building  speculators,  the  small  landlords,  and  the  open  villages. 
They  know  well  enough  that  their  "close  villages"  and  "show  villages"  are  the  birth- 
places of  the  open  villages,  and  could  not  exist  without  them.  "The  labourers 
.  .  .  .  were  it  not  for  the  small  owners,  would,  for  by  far  the  most  part,  have 
to  sleep  under  the  trees  of  the  farms  on  which  they  work."  (1.  c,  p.  135.)  The 
system  of  "open"  and  "closed"  villages  obtains  in  all  the  Midland  counties  and 
throughout  the  East  of  England. 


The  General  Law  of  Capilalist  Accumulation.      753 

be  of  tlie  meanest  description.     There  are  landlords  who  deem 
any  style  good  enough  for  their  labourer  and  his  family,  and 
who  yet  do  not  disdain  to  drive  with  him  the  hardest  pos- 
sible bargain  for  rent.^     It  may  be  but  a  ruinous  one-bed- 
roomed  hut,  having  no  fire-grate,  no  privy,  no  opening  window, 
no  water  supply  but  the  ditch,  no  garden — but  the  labourer  is 
helpless  against  the  wrong.     .     .     .     And  the  I^uisances  Ee- 
moval     Acts     ...     are     ...     a     mere     dead     letter 
.     .     .     in  great  part  dependent  for  their  working  on  such 
cottage  owners  as  the  one  from  whom  his   (the  labourer's) 
hovel    is    rented.     .     .     .     From    brighter,    but    exceptional 
scenes,  it  is  requisite  in  the  interests  of  justice,  that  attention 
should  again  be  drawn  to  the  overwhelming  preponderance  of 
facts  which  are  a  reproach  to  the  civilization  of  England. 
Lamentable  indeed,  must  be  the  case,  when,  notwithstanding 
all  that  is  evident  with  regard  to  the  quality  of  the  present 
accommodation,  it  is  the  common  conclusion  of  competent  ob- 
servers that  even  the  general  badness  of  dwellings  is  an  evil 
infinitely  less  urgent  than  their  mere  numerical  insufficiency. 
For  years  the  overcrowding  of  rural  labourer's  dwellings  has 
been  a  matter  of  deep  concern,  not  only  to  persons  who  care 
for  sanitary  good,  but  to  persons  who  care  for  decent  and 
moral  life.     For  again  and  again  in  phrases  so  uniform  that 
they  seem  stereotyped,  reporters  on  the  spread  of  epidemic 
disease  in  rural  districts,  have  insisted  on  the  extreme  im- 
portance of  that  over-crowding,  as  an  influence  which  renders 
it  a  quite  hopeless  task,  to  attempt  the  limiting  of  any  infection 
which    is    introduced.     And    again    and    again    it   has    been 
pointed   out  that,   notwithstanding  the  many   salubrious   in- 
fluences which  there  are  in  country  life,  the  crowding  which 

*  "The  employer  ....  is  ...  .  directly  or  indirectly  securing  to  him- 
self the  profit  on  a  man  employed  at  10s.  a  week,  and  receiving  from  this  poor 
hind  £4  or  £5  annual  rent  for  houses  not  worth  £20  in  a  really  free  market,  but 
maintained  at  their  artificial  value  by  the  power  of  the  owner  to  say  'Use  my  house, 
or  go  seek  a  hiring  elsewhere,  without  a  character  from  me.*  ....  Does  a  man 
wish  to  better  himself,  to  go  as  a  plate-layer  on  the  railway,  or  to  begin  quarry- 
work,  the  same  power  is  ready  with  'Work  for  me  at  this  low  rate  of  wages,  or  be- 
gone at  a  week's  notice;  take  your  pig  with  you,  and  get  what  you  can  for  the 
potatoes  growing  in  your  garden.'  Should  his  interest  appear  to  be  better  served  by 
it,  an  enhanced  rent  is  sometimes  preferred  in  these  cases  by  the  owner  {i.e.  the 
farmer)  as  the  penalty  for  leaving  his  service."     (Dr.  Hunter,  1.  c,  p.  132.) 

2  V 


754  Capitalist  Production. 

so  favours  the  extension  of  contagious  disease,  also  favours  tho 
origination  of  disease  which  is  not  contagious.  And  those 
who  have  denounced  the  over-crowded  state  of  our  rural  popu- 
lation have  not  been  silent  as  to  a  further  mischief.  Even 
where  their  primary  concern  has  been  only  with  the  injury  to 
health,  often  almost  perforce  they  have  referred  to  other  rela- 
tions on  the  subject.  In  showing  how  frequently  it  happens 
that  adult  persons  of  both  sexes,  married  and  unmarried,  are 
huddled  together  in  single  small  sleeping  rooms,  their  reports 
have  carried  the  conviction  that,  under  the  circumstances  they 
describe,  decency  must  always  be  outraged,  and  morality  al- 
most of  necessity  must  suffer.^  Thus,  for  instance,  in  the 
appendix  of  my  last  annual  report.  Dr.  Ord,  reporting  on  an 
outbreak  of  fever  at  Wing,  in  Buckinghamshire,  mentions  how 
a  young  man  who  had  come  thither  from  Wingrave  with  fever, 
"in  the  first  days  of  his  illness  slept  in  a  room  with  nine  other 
persons.  Witliin  a  fortnight  several  of  these  persons  were  at^- 
tacked,  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  five  out  of  the  nine 
had  fever,  and  one'  died."  .  .  .  From  Dr.  Harvey,  of  St 
George's  Hospital,  who,  on  private  professional  business, 
visited  Wing  during  the  time  of  the  epidemic,  I  received  in- 
formation exactly  in  the  sense  of  the  above  report.  .  .  . 
"A  young  woman  having  fever,  lay  at  night  in  a  room  occupied 
by  her  father  and  mother,  her  bastard  child,  two  young  men 
(her  brothers),  and  her  two  sisters,  each  with  a  bastard 
child — 10  persons  in  all.  A  few  weeks  ago  13  persons  slept 
in  it."2 

Dr.  Hunter  investigated  5,375  cottages  of  agricultural  lab- 
ourers, not  only  in  the  purely  agricultural  districts,  but  in  all 
counties   of  England.     Of  these,    2,195   had   only   one   bed- 

*  "New  married  couples  are  no  edifying  study  for  grown-up  brothers  and  sisters; 
and  though  instances  must  not  be  recorded,  sufficient  data  are  remembered  to  war- 
rant the  remark,  that  great  depression  and  sometimes  death  are  the  lot  of  the 
female  participator  in  the  offence  of  incest."  (Dr.  Hunter,  1.  c,  p.  137.)  A  mem- 
ber of  the  rural  police  who  had  for  many  years  been  a  detective  in  the  worst 
quarters  of  London,  says  of  the  girls  of  his  village:  "their  boldness  and  shameless- 
ness   I   never  saw   equalled   during  some  years  of   police  life  and   detective  duty  in 

the   worst   parts   of   London They   live   like   pigs,    great   boys   and   girls, 

mothers  and  fathers,  all  sleeping  in  one  room,  in  many  instances."  (Child.  EmpL 
Com.     Sixth   Report,  1867,   p.   77  sq.    155.) 

*  Public   Health.     Seventh   Report,  1864,  pp.  9,   14  passim. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation,      755 

room  (often  at  the  same  time  used  as  living-room),  2,930 
only  two,  and  250,  more  than  two.  I  will  give  a  few  speci- 
mens culled  from  a  dozen  counties. 


(1.)   Bedfordshire. 

Wrestlingworth.  Bedrooms  about  12  feet  long  and  10 
broad,  although  many  are  smaller  than  this.  The  small, 
one-storied  cots  are  often  divided  by  partitions  into  two  bed- 
rooms, one  bed  frequently  in  a  kitchen,  5  feet  6  inches  in 
height.  Rent,  £3  a  year.  The  tenants  have  to  make  their 
own  privies,  the  landlord  only  supplies  a  hole.  As  soon  as 
one  has  made  a  privy,  it  is  made  use  of  by  the  whole  neigh- 
borhood. One  house,  belonging  to  a  family  called  Richard- 
son, was  of  quite  unapproachable  beauty.  "Its  plaster  walls 
bulged  very  like  a  lady's  dress  in  a  curtsey.  One  gable  end 
was  convex,  the  other  concave,  and  on  this  last,  unfortunately, 
stood  the  chimney,  a  curved  tube  of  clay  and  wood  like  an 
elephant's  trunk.  A  long  stick  served  as  prop  to  prevent 
the  chimney  from  falling.  The  doorway  and  window  were 
rhomboidal."  Of  17  houses  visited,  only  4  had  more  than 
one  bedroom,  and  those  four  overcrowded.  The  cots  with  one 
bedroom  sheltered  3  adults  and  3  children,  a  married  couple 
with  6  children,  &c. 

Dunton.  High  rents,  from  £4  to  £5 ;  weekly  wages  of  the 
man,  10s.  They  hope  to  pay  the  rent  by  the  straw-plaiting  of 
the  family.  The  higher  the  rent,  the  greater  the  number 
that  must  work  together  to  pay  it.  Six  adults,  living  with 
4  children  in  one  sleeping  apartment,  pay  £3  10s.  for  it. 
The  cheapest  house  in  Dunton,  15  feet  long  externally,  10 
broad,  let  for  £3.  Only  one  of  the  houses  investigated  had 
2  bedrooms.  A  little  outside  the  village,  a  house  whose 
"tenants  dunged  against  the  house-side,"  the  lower  9  inches 
of  the  door  eaten  away  through  sheer  rottenness ;  the  door- 
way, a  single  opening  closed  at  night  by  a  few  bricks,  in- 
geniously pushed  up  after  shutting  and  covered  with  some 
matting.  Half  a  window,  with  glass  and  frame,  had  gone 
the  way  of  all  flesh.     Here,  without  furniture,  huddled  to- 


756  Capitalist  Production. 

gether,  were  3  adults  and  5  children.     Dunton  is  not  worse 
than  the  rest  of  Biggleswade  Union. 

(2.)  Berkshire. 

Beenham.  In  June,  1864,  a  man,  his  wife  and  4  children 
lived  in  a  cot  (one-storied  cottage).  A  daughter  came  home 
from  service  with  scarlet  fever.  She  died.  One  child  sick- 
ened and  died.  The  mother  and  one  child  were  down  with 
typhus  when  Dr.  Hunter  was  called  in.  The  father  and  one 
child  slept  outside,  but  the  difficulty  of  securing  isolation  was 
seen  here,  for  in  the  crowded  market  of  the  miserable  vil- 
lage lay  the  linen  of  the  fever-stricken  household,  waiting  for 
the  wash.  The  rent  of  H.'s  house.  Is.  a  week ;  one  bedroom 
for  man,  wife,  and  6  children.  One  house  let  for  8d.  a- 
week,  14  feet  6  inches  long,  7  feet  broad;  kitchen,  6  feet 
high ;  the  bedroom  without  window,  fire-place,  door,  or  open- 
ing, except  into  the  lobby ;  no  garden.  A  man  lived  here  for 
a  little  while,  with  two  grown-up  daughters  and  one  grown- 
up son ;  father  and  son  slept  on  the  bed,  the  girls  in  the  pas- 
sage. Each  of  the  latter  had  a  child  while  the  family  was 
living  here,  but  one  went  to  the  workhouse  for  her  con- 
finement and  then  came  home. 

(3.)  Buckinghamshire. 

30  cottages — on  1,000  acres  of  land — contained  here  about 
130-140  persons.  The  parish  of  Bradenham  comprises  1,000 
acres;  it  numbered,  in  1851,  36  houses  and  a  population  of 
84  males  and  54  females.  This  inequality  of  the  sexes  was 
partly  remedied  in  1861,  when  they  numbered  98  males  and 
87  females;  increase  in  10  years  of  14  men  and  33  women. 
Meanwhile,  the  number  of  houses  was  one  less. 

Winslow.  Great  part  of  this  newly  built  in  good  style ;  de- 
mand for  houses  appears  very  marked,  since  very  miserable 
cots  let  at  Is.  to  Is.  3d.  per  week. 

Water  Eaton.  Here  the  landlords,  in  view  of  the  increas- 
ing population,  have  destroyed  about  20  per  cent,  of  the  ex- 
isting houses.     A  poor  labourer,  who  had  to  go  about  4  miles 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      757 

to  his  work,  answered  the  question,  whether  he  could  not 
find  a  cot  nearer :  "No ;  they  know  better  than  to  take  a  man 
in  with  m-y  large  family." 

Tinker  s  End,  near  Winslow.  A  bedroom  in  which  were  4 
adults  and  4  children ;  11  feet  long,  9  feet  broad,  6  feet  5 
inches  high  at  its  highest  part;  another  11  feet  3  inches  by  9 
feet,  5  feet  10  inches  high,  sheltered  6  persons.  Each  of 
these  families  had  less  space  than  is  considered  necessary 
for  a  convict.  No  house  had  more  than  one  bedroom,  not 
one  of  them  a  back-door ;  water  very  scarce ;  weekly  rent  from 
Is.  4d.  to  2s.  In  16  of  the  houses  visited,  only  1  man  that 
earned  10s.  a  week.  The  quantity  of  air  for  each  person  under 
the  circumstances  just  described  corresponds  to  that  which  he 
would  have  if  he  were  shut  up  in  a  box  of  4  feet  measuring 
each  way,  the  whole  night.  But  then,  the  ancient  dens  af" 
forded  a  certain  amount  of  unintentional  ventilation. 

(4.)    Cambbidgeshiee. 

Gamblimgay  belongs  to  several  landlords.  It  contains  the 
wretchedest  cots  to  be  found  anywhere.  Much  straw-plait- 
ing. "A  deadly  lassitude,  a  hopeless  surrendering  up  to 
filth,"  reigns  in  Gamblingay.  The  neglect  in  its  centre,  be- 
comes mortification  at  its  extremities,  north  and  south,  where 
the  houses  are  rotting  to  pieces.  The  absentee  landlords 
bleed  this  poor  rookery  too  freely.  The  rents  are  very  high; 
8  or  9  persons  packed  in  one  sleeping  apartment,  in  2  cases 
6  adults,  each  with  1  or  2  children  in  one  small  bedroom. 

(5.)  Essex. 

In  this  county,  diminutions  in  the  number  of  persons  and 
of  cottages  go,  in  many  parishes,  hand  in  hand.  In  not  less 
than  22  parishes,  however,  the  destruction  of  houses  has  not 
prevented  increase  of  population,  or  has  not  brought  about 
that  expulsion  which,  under  the  name  "migration  to  towns," 
generally  occurs.  In  Fingringhoe,  a  parish  of  3443  acres, 
were  in  1851,  145  houses;  in  1861,  only  110.  But  the  people 
did  not  wish  to  go  away,  and  managed  even  to  increase  under 


758  Capitalist  Production. 

these  circumstances.  In  1851,  252  persons  inhabited  61 
houses,  but  in  1861,  262  persons  were  squeezed  into  49  houses. 
In  Basilden,  in  1851,  157  persons  lived  on  1827  acres,  in  35 
houses;  at  the  end  of  ten  years,  180  persons  in  27  houses.  In 
the  parishes  of  Fingringhoe,  South  Fambridge,  Widford, 
Basilden,  and  Ramsden  Crags,  in  1851,  1392  persons  were 
living  on  8449  acres  in  316  houses;  in  1861,  on  the  same  area, 
1473  persons  in  249  houses. 

(6.)  Hmbefokdshire. 

This  little  county  has  suffered  more  from  the  "eviction- 
spirit"  than  any  other  in  England.  At  Nadby,  over-crowded 
cottages  generally,  with  only  2  bedrooms,  belonging  for  the 
most  part  to  the  farmers.  They  easily  let  them  for  £3  or  £4 
a-year,  and  paid  a  weekly  wage  of  98. 

(7.)  Huntingdon. 

Hartford  had,  in  1851,  87  houses;  shortly  after  this,  19 
cottages  were  destroyed  in  this  small  parish  of  1720  acres; 
population  in  1831,  452 ;  in  1852,  832  ;  and  in  1861,  341.  14 
cottages,  each  vdth  1  bedroom,  were  visited.  In  one,  a  mar- 
ried couple,  3  grown-up  sons,  1  grown-up  daughter,  4  chil- 
dren— in  all  10;  in  another,  3  adults,  6  children.  One  of 
these  rooms,  in  which  8  people  slept,  was  12  feet  10  inches 
long,  12  feet  2  inches  broad,  6  feet  9  inches  high:  the  average, 
without  making  any  deduction  for  projections  into  the  apart- 
ment, gave  about  130  cubic  feet  per  head.  In  the  14  sleep- 
ing rooms,  34  adults  and  33  children.  These  cottages  are 
seldom  provided  with  gardens,  but  many  of  the  inmates  are 
able  to  farm  small  allotments  at  lOs.  or  12s.  per  rood.  These 
allotments  are  at  a  distance  from  the  houses,  which  are  with- 
out privies.  The  family  "must  either  go  to  the  allotment  to 
deposit  their  ordures,"  or,  as  happens  in  this  place,  saving 
your  presence,  "use  a  closet  with  a  trough  set  like  a  drawer 
in  a  chest  of  drawers,  and  drawn  out  weekly  and  conveyed  to 
the  allotment  to  be  emptied  where  its  contents  were  wanted." 
In  Japan,  the  circle  of  life-conditions  moves  more  decently 
than  this. 


The  General  Lazv  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      759 

(8.)  Lincolnshire. 

Langtoft.  A  man  lives  here,  in  Wright's  house,  with  his 
wife,  her  mother,  and  5  children ;  the  house  has  a  front  kit- 
chen, scullery,  bedroom  over  the  front  kitchen ;  front  kitchen 
and  bedroom,  12  feet  2  inches  by  9  feet  5  inches;  the  whole 
ground  floor,  21  feet  2  inches  by  9  feet  5  inches.  The  bed- 
room is  a  garret;  the  walls  run  together  into  the  roof  like  a 
sugar-loaf,  a  dormer-window  opening  in  front  "Why  did 
he  live  here  ?  On  account  of  the  garden  ?  No ;  it  is  very 
small.  Rent?  High,  Is.  3d.  per  week.  Near  his  work? 
No ;  6  miles  away,  so  that  he  walks  daily,  to  and  fro,  12  miles. 
He  lived  there,  because  it  was  a  tenantable  cot,"  and  because 
he  wanted  to  have  a  cot  for  himself  alone,  anywhere,  at  any 
price,  and  in  any  conditions.  The  following  are  the  statistics 
of  12  houses  in  Langtoft,  with  12  bedrooms,  38  adults,  and  36 
children. 


TWELVE   HOUSES   IN   LANGTOFT. 


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(9.)   Kent. 

Kennington,  very  seriously  over-populated  in  1859,  when 
diphtheria  appeared,  and  the  parish  doctor  instituted  a  med- 


^6o  Capitalist  Production. 

ical  inquiry  into  the  condition  of  the  poorer  classes.  He 
found  that  in  this  locality,  where  much  labour  is  employed, 
various  cots  had  been  destroyed  and  no  new  ones  built.  In 
one  district  stood  four  houses,  named  birdcages ;  each  had  4 
rooms  of  the  following  dimensions  in  feet  and  inches: 

Kitchen ;  9  ft.  by  58  ft.  11  by  6  ft  6 
Scullery :  8  ft.  6  by  4  ft  6  by  6  ft.  6. 
Bedroom:  8  ft  5  by  5  ft  10  by  6  ft  3. 
Bedroom:  8  ft  3  by  8  ft  4  by   6  ft  3. 

(10.)  North AMPTONSHiEE. 

Brimvorth,  Pichford  and  Floore:  in  these  villages  in  tho 
winter  20 — 30  men  were  lounging  about  the  streets  from  want 
of  work.  The  farmers  do  not  always  till  sufficiently  the  com 
and  turnip  lands,  and  the  landlord  has  found  it  best  to  throw 
all  his  farms  together  into  2  or  3.  Hence  want  of  employ- 
ment. Whilst  on  one  side  of  the  wall,  the  land  calls  for  labour, 
on  the  other  side  the  defrauded  labourers  are  casting  at  it 
longing  glances.  Feverishly  overworked  in  summer,  and  half- 
starved  in  winter,  it  is  no  wonder  if  they  say  in  their  peculiar 
dialect,  "the  parson  and  gentlefolk  seem  frit  to  death  at 
them." 

At  Floore,  instances,  in  one  bedroom  of  the  smallest  size,  of 
couples  with  4,  5,  6  children ;  3  adults  with  5  children ;  a 
couple  with  grandfather  and  6  children  down  with  scarlet 
fever,  &c. ;  in  two  houses  with  two  bedrooms,  two  families  of 
8  and  9  adults  respectively. 

(11.)  Wiltshire. 

Stratton.  31  houses  visited,  8  with  only  one  bedroom. 
Pentill,  in  the  same  parish :  a  cot  let  at  Is.  3d.  weekly  with  4 
adults  and  4  children,  had  nothing  good  about  it,  except  tho 
walls,  from  the  floor  of  rough-hewn  pieces  of  stones  to  the 
roof  of  worn-out  thatch. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      761 

(12.)    WORCESTEBSHIRE. 

KoiTse-destruction  here  not  quite  so  excessive;  yet  from 
:»51  to  1861,  the  number  of  inhabitants  to  each  house  on  the 
average,  has  risen  from  4*2  to  4-6. 

Badsey.  Many  cots  and  little  gardens  here.  Some  of  the 
farmers  declare  that  the  cots  are  "a  great  nuisance  here,  be- 
cause they  bring  the  poor."  On  the  statement  of  one  gentle- 
man: "The  poor  are  none  the  better  for  them;  if  you  build 
500  they  will  let  fast  enough,  in  fact,  the  more  you  build,  the 
more  they  want,"  (according  to  him  the  houses  give  birth  to 
the  inhabitants,  who  then  by  a  law  of  l^ature  press  on  "the 
means  of  housing").  Dr.  Hunter  remarks:  "Now  these  poor 
must  come  from  somewhere,  and  as  there  is  no  particular  at- 
traction, such  as  doles,  at  Badsey,  it  must  be  repulsion  from 
some  other  unfit  place,  which  will  send  them  here.  If  each 
could  find  an  allotment  near  his  work,  he  would  not  prefer 
Badsey,  where  he  pays  for  his  scrap  of  ground  twice  as  much 
as  the  farmer  pays  for  his." 

The  continual  emigration  to  the  towns,  the  continual  forma- 
tion of  surplus-population  in  the  country  through  the  concen- 
tration of  farms,  conversion  of  arable  land  into  pasture,  ma- 
chinery, &c.,  and  the  continual  eviction  of  the  agricultural 
population  by  the  destruction  of  their  cottages,  go  hand  in 
hand.  The  more  empty  the  district  is  of  men,  the  greater  is 
its  "relative  surplus-population,"  the  greater  is  their  pressure 
on  the  means  of  employment,  the  greater  is  the  absolute  ex- 
cess of  the  agricultural  population  over  the  means  for  hous- 
ing it,  the  greater,  therefore,  in  the  villages  is  the  local  sur- 
plus-population and  the  most  pestilential  packing  together  of 
human  beings.  The  packing  together  of  knots  of  men  in  scat- 
tered little  villages  and  small  country  towns  corresponds  to  the 
forcible  draining  of  men  from  the  surface  of  the  land.  The 
continuous  superseding  of  the  agricultural  labourers,  in  spite 
of  their  diminishing  number  and  the  increasing  mass  of  their 
products,  gives  birth  to  their  pauperism.  Their  pauperism 
is  ultimately  a  motive  to  their  eviction  and  the  chief  source 
of  their  miserable  housing  which  breaks  down  their  last  power 


762  Capitalist  Production. 

of  resistance,  and  makes  them  mere  slaves  of  the  landed  pro- 
prietors and  the  farmers.^  Thus  the  minimum  of  wages  be- 
comes a  law  of  Nature  to  them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  land, 
in  spite  of  its  constant  "relative  surplus-population,"  is  at  the 
same  time  under-populated.  This  is  seen,  not  only  locally 
at  the  points  where  the  efflux  of  men  to  towns,  mines,  railroad- 
making,  &c.,  is  most  marked.  It  is  to  be  seen  everywhere,  in 
harvest-time  as  well  as  in  spring  and  summer,  at  those  fre- 
quently recurring  times  when  English  agriculture,  so  care- 
ful and  intensive,  wants  extra  hands.  There  are  always  too 
many  agricultural  labourers  for  the  ordinary,  and  always  too 
few  for  the  exceptional  or  temporary  needs  of  the  cultivation 
of  the  soil.^  Hence  we  find  in  the  official  documents  contra- 
dictory complaints  from  the  same  places  of  deficiency  and  ex- 
cess of  labour  simultaneously.  The  temporary  or  local  want 
of  labour  brings  about  no  rise  in  wages,  but  a  forcing  of 
the  women  and  children  into  the  fields,  and  exploitation  at  an 
age  constantly  lowered.     As  soon  as  the  exploitation  of  the 

*  "The  heaven-born  employment  of  the  hind  gives  dignity  even  to  this  position. 
He  is  not  a  slave,  but  a  soldier  of  peace,  and  deserves  his  place  in  married  men's 
quarters  to  be  provided  by  the  landlord,  who  has  claimed  a  power  of  enforced  labour 
similar  to  that  the  country  demands  of  the  soldier.  He  no  more  receives  market 
price  for  his  work  than  does  the  soldier.  Like  the  soldier  he  is  caught  young, 
ignorant,  knowing  only  his  own  trade,  and  his  own  locality.  Early  marriage  and 
the  operation  of  the  various  laws  of  settlement  affect  the  one  as  enlistment  and  the 
Mutiny  Act  affect  the  other."  (Dr.  Hunter,  1.  c,  p.  132.)  Sometimes  an  excep- 
tionally soft-hearted  landlord  relents  at  the  solitude  he  has  created.  "It  is  a 
melancholy  thing  to  stand  alone  in  one's  country,"  said  Lord  Leicester,  when  com- 
plimented on  the  completion  of  Hookham.  "I  look  around  and  not  a  house  is  to 
be  seen  but  mine.  I  am  the  giant  of  Giant  Castle,  and  have  eat  up  all  my  neigh- 
bours." 

*A  similar  movement  is  seen  during  the  last  ten  years  in  France;  in  proportion  as 
capitalist  production  there  takes  possession  of  agriculture,  it  drives  the  "surplus" 
agricultural  population  into  the  towns.  Here  also  we  find  deterioration  in  the 
housing  and  other  conditions  at  the  source  of  the  surplus-population.  On  the  special 
"proletariat  foncier,"  to  which  this  system  of  parcelling  out  the  land  has  given  rjse, 
see,  among  others,  the  work  of  Colins,  already  quoted,  and  Karl  Marx  "Der 
Achtzehnte  Brumaire  des  Louis  Bonaparte."  2nd  edition.  Hamburg,  1869,  pp.  56, 
&c.  In  1846,  the  town  population  in  France  was  represented  by  24.42,  the  agri- 
cultural by  75.58;  in  1861,  the  town  by  28.86,  the  agricultural  by  71.4  per  cent. 
During  the  last  5  years,  the  diminution  of  the  agricultural  percentage  of  the  popu- 
.  lation  has  been  yet  more  marked.  As  early  as  1846,  Pierre  Dupont  in  his  "Ouvriers" 
sang: 

Mai  vetus,  loges  dans  des  trous. 

Sous  les  combles,  dans  les  decombres. 


Nous  vivons   avec  les  hiboux 
Et  les  larrons,  amis  des  ombres. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      763 

women  and  children  takes  place  on  a  larger  scale,  it  becomes 
in  turn  a  new  means  of  making  a  surplus-population  of  the 
male  agricultural  labourer  and  of  keeping  down  his  wage.  In 
the  east  of  England  thrives  a  beautiful  fruit  of  this  vicious 
circle — ^the  so-called  gang-system,  to  which  I  must  briefly  re- 
turn here.^ 

The  gang-system  obtains  almost  exclusively  in  the  counties 
of  Lincoln,  Huntingdon,  Cambridge,  j^orfolk,  Suffolk,  and 
Nottingham,  here  and  there  in  the  neighbouring  counties  of 
Northampton,  Bedford,  and  Rutland.  Lincolnshire  will  serve 
us  as  an  example.  A  large  part  of  this  country  is  new  land, 
marsh  formerly,  or  even,  as  in  others  of  the  eastern  counties 
just  named,  won  lately  from  the  sea.  The  steam-engine  has 
worked  wonders  in  the  way  of  drainage.  What  were  once 
fens  and  sandbanks,  bear  now  a  luxuriant  sea  of  com  and  the 
highest  of  rents.  The  same  thing  holds  of  the  alluvial  lands 
won  by  human  endeavor,  as  in  the  island  of  Axholme  and 
other  parishes  on  the  banks  of  the  Trent.  In  proportion  as 
the  new  farms  arose,  not  only  were  no  new  cottages  built :  old 
ones  were  demolished,  and  the  supply  of  labour  had  to  come 
from  open  villages,  miles  away,  by  long  roads  that  wound 
along  tlie  sides  of  the  hills.  There  alone  had  the  population 
formerly  found  shelter  from  the  incessant  floods  of  the  winter- 
time. The  labourers  that  dwell  on  the  farms  of  400 — 1000 
acres  (they  are  called  "confined  labourers")  are  solely  em- 
ployed on  such  kinds  of  agricultural  work  as  is  permanent, 
difficult,  and  carried  on  by  aid  of  horses.  For  every  100 
acres  there  is,  on  an  average,  scarcely  one  cottage.  A  fen 
farmer,  e.g.,  gave  evidence  before  the  Commission  of  In- 
quiry: "I  farm  320  acres,  all  arable  land.  I  have  not  one 
cottage  on  my  farm.  I  have  only  one  labourer  on  my  farm 
now.  I  have  four  horsemen  lodging  about.  We  get  light 
work  done  by  gangs. "^  The  soil  requires  much  light  field 
labour,  such  as  weeding,  hoeing,  certain  processes  of  manur- 
ing, removing  of  stones,  &e.  This  is  done  by  the  gangs,  or  or- 
ganised bands  that  dwell  in  the  open  villages. 

*  "Sixth   and   last   Report   of   the    Children's   Employment   Commission,"   published 
at  the  end  of  March,  1867.     It  deals  solely  with   the  agricultural. 
2  "Child.   Empl.   Comm.,   VI.  Report."     Evidence  173,  p.  37. 


764  Capitalist  Production. 

The  gang  consists  of  10  to  40  or  50  persons,  women,  young 
persons  of  both  sexes  (13-18  years  of  age,  although  the  boys 
are  for  the  most  part  eliminated  at  the  age  of  13),  and  chil- 
dren of  both  sexes  (6-13  years  of  age).  At  the  head  is  the 
gang-master,  always  an  ordinary  agricultural  labourer,  gen- 
erally what  is  called  a  bad  lot,  a  scapegrace,  unsteady, 
drunken,  but  with  a  dash  of  enterprise  and  savior  faire.  He 
is  the  recruiting-sergeant  for  the  gang,  which  works  under 
him,  not  under  the  farmer.  He  generally  arranges  with  the 
latter  for  piece-work,  and  his  income,  which  on  the  average 
is  not  very  much  above  that  of  an  ordinary  agricultural  la- 
bourer,^ depends  almost  entirely  upon  the  dexterity  with 
which  he  manages  to  extract  within  the  shortest  time  the 
greatest  possible  amount  of  labour  from  his  gang.  The 
farmers  have  discovered  that  women  work  steadily  only  under 
the  direction  of  men,  but  that  women  and  children,  once  set 
going,  impetuously  spend  their  life-force —  as  Fourier  knew 
— ^while  the  adult  male  labourer  is  shrewd  enough  to  economise 
his  as  much  as  he  can.  The  gang-master  goes  from  one  farm 
to  another,  and  thus  employs  his  gang  from  6  to  8  months  in 
the  year.  Employment  by  him  is,  therefore,  much  more 
lucrative  and  more  certain  for  the  labouring  families,  than 
employment  by  the  individual  farmer,  who  only  employs  chil- 
dren occasionally.  This  circumstance  so  completely  rivets 
his  influence  in  the  open  villages  that  children  are  generally 
only  to  be  hired  through  his  instrumentality.  The  lending 
out  of  these  individually,  independently  of  the  gang,  is  his 
second  trade. 

The  "drawbacks"  of  the  system  are  the  over-work  of  the 
children  and  young  persons,  the  enormous  marches  that  they 
make  daily  to  and  from  the  farms,  5,  6,  and  sometimes  7  miles 
distant,  finally,  the  demoralisation  of  the  gang.  Although  the 
gangmaster,  who,  in  some  districts  is  called  "the  driver,"  is 
armed  with  a  long  stick,  he  uses  it  but  seldom,  and  complaints 
of  brutal  treatment  are  exceptional.  He  is  a  democratic  em- 
peror, or  a  kind  of  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin.     He  must  there- 

*  Some    gangmasters,    however,    have    worked    themselves    up    to    the    position    of 
farmers  of  600  acres,  or  proprietors  of  whole  rows  of  houses. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      765 

fore  be  popular  with,  his  subjects,  and  he  binds  them  to  him- 
self by  the  charms  of  the  gipsy  life  under  his  direction. 
Coarse  freedom,  a  noisy  jollity,  and  obscenest  impudence  give 
attractions  to  the  gang.  Generally  the  gangmaster  pays  up 
in  a  public  house;  then  he  returns  home  at  the  head  of  the 
procession  reeling  drunk,  propped  up  rigbt  and  left  by  a 
stalwart  virago,  while  children  and  young  persons  bring  up 
the  rear,  boisterous,  and  singing  chaffing  and  bawdy  songs. 
On  the  return  journey  what  Fourier  calls  "phanerogamic,"  is 
the  order  of  the  day.  The  getting  with  child  of  girls  of  13 
and  14  by  their  male  companions  of  the  same  age,  is  common. 
The  open  villages  which,  supply  the  contingent  of  the  gang, 
become  Sodoms  and  Gomorrahs,^  and  have  twice  as  high  a 
rate  of  illegitimate  births  as  the  rest  of  the  kingdom.  The 
moral  character  of  girls  bred  in  these  schools,  when  married 
women,  was  shown  above.  Their  children,  when  opium  does 
not  give  them  the  finishing  stroke,  are  bom  recruits  of  the 

gang. 

The  gang  in  its  classical  form  just  described,  is  called  the 
public,  common,  or  tramping  gang.  For  there  are  also  private 
gangs.  These  are  made  up  in  the  same  way  as  the  common 
gang,  but  count  fewer  members,  and  work,  not  under  a  gang- 
master,  but  under  some  old  farm  servant,  whom  the  farmer 
does  not  know  how  to  employ  in  any  better  way.  The  gipsy 
fun  has  vanished  here,  but  according  to  all  witnesses,  the  pay- 
ment and  treatment  of  the  children  is  worse. 

The  gang-system,  which  during  the  last  years  has  steadily 
increased,^  clearly  does  not  exist  for  the  sake  of  the  gang- 
master.  It  exists  for  the  enrichment  of  the  large  farmers,^ 
and  indirectly  of  the  landlords.*     For  the  farmer  there  is  no 

*  "Half  the  girls  of  Ludford  have  been  ruined  by  going  out"  (in  gangs).  1.  c. 
p.  6,  §  32. 

^  "They  (gangs)  have  greatly  increased  of  late  years.  In  some  places  they  are 
said  to  have  been  introduced  at  comparatively  late  dates;  in  others  where  gangs 
.  .  .  .  have  been  known  for  many  years  ....  more  and  younger  children 
are  employed  in  them."     (1.  c,  p.  79,  §  174.) 

'  "Small  farmers  never  employ  gangs."  "It  is  not  on  poor  land,  but  on  land 
which  affords  rent  of  from  40  to  50  shillings,  that  women  and  children  are  em- 
ployed in  the  greatest  numbers."     (1.  c,  pp.  17,  14.) 

*  To  one  of  these  gentlemen  the  taste  of  his  rent  was  so  grateful  that  he  in- 
dignantly declared  to  the   Commission   of  Inquiry  that  the   whole  hubbub  was   only 


766  Capitalist  Production. 

more  ingenious  method  of  keeping  his  labourers  well  below 
the  normal  level,  and  yet  of  always  having  an  extra  hand 
ready  for  extra  work,  of  extracting  the  greatest  possible 
amount  of  labour  with  the  least  possible  amount  of  money/ 
and  of  making  adult  male  labour  "redundant."  From  the 
exposition  already  made,  it  will  be  understood  why,  on  the 
one  hand,  a  greater  or  less  lack  of  employment  for  the 
agricultural  labourer  is  admitted,  while  on  the  other,  the 
gang-system  is  at  the  same  time  declared  "necessary"  on  ac- 
count of  the  want  of  adult  male  labour  and  its  migration  to 
the  towns. ^  The  cleanly  weeded  land,  and  the  uncleanly  hu- 
man weeds,  of  Lincolnshire,  are  pole  and  counterpole  of 
capitalistic  production.^ 

due  to  the  name  of  the  system.  If  instead  of  "gang"  it  were  called  "the  Agricul- 
tural Juvenile  Industrial  Self-supporting  Association,"  everything  would  be  all  right. 

*  "Gang  work  is  cheaper  than  other  work;  that  is  why  they  are  employed,"  says  a 
former  gangmaster  (1.  c.,  p.  17,  §  14).  "The  gang-system  is  decidedly  the  cheap- 
est for  the  farmer,  and  decidedly  the  worst  for  the  children,"  says  a  farmer.  (1.  c, 
p.   16,   5   3.) 

*  "Undoubtedly  much  of  the  work  now  done  by  children  in  gangs  used  to  be  done 
by  men  and  women.  More  men  are  out  of  work  now  where  children  and  women 
are  employed  than  formerly."  (1.  c,  p.  43,  n.  202.)  On  the  other  hand,  "the 
labour  question  in  some  agricultural  districts,  particularly  the  arable,  is  becoming  so 
serious  in  consequence  of  emigration,  and  the  facility  afforded  by  railways  for  get- 
ting to  large  towns  that  I  (the  "I"  is  the  steward  of  a  great  lord)  think  the  services 
of  children  are  most  indispensable."  (1.  c,  p.  80,  n.  180.)  For  the  "labour  ques- 
tion" in  English  agricultural  districts,  differently  from  the  rest  of  the  civilised 
world,  means  the  landlords'  and  farmers'  question,  viz.,  how  it  is  possible,  despite 
an  always  increasing  exodus  of  the  agricultural  folk,  to  keep  up  a  sufficient  relative 
surplus-population  in  the  country,  and  by  means  of  it  keep  the  wages  of  the  agri- 
cultural labourer  at  a  minimum? 

*The  "Public  Health  Report,"  where  in  dealing  with  the  subject  of  children's 
mortality,  the  gang-system  is  treated  in  passing,  remains  unknown  to  the  press,  and, 
therefore,  to  the  English  public.  On  the  other  hand,  the  last  report  of  the  "Child. 
Empl.  Comm."  afforded  the  press  sensational  copy  always  welcome.  Whilst  the 
Liberal  press  asked  how  the  fine  gentlemen  and  ladies,  and  the  well-paid  clergy  of 
the  State  Church,  with  whom  Lincolnshire  swarms,  could  allow  such  a  system  to 
arise  on  their  estates,  under  their  very  eyes,  they  who  send  out  expressly  missions 
to  the  Antipodes,  "for  the  improvement  of  the  morals  of  South  Sea  Islanders" — the 
more  refined  press  confined  itself  to  reflections  on  the  coarse  degradation  of  the  agri- 
cultural population  who  are  capable  of  selling  their  children  into  such  slavery! 
Under  the  accursed  conditions  to  which  these  "delicate"  people  condemn  the  agri- 
cultural labourer,  it  would  not  be  surprising  if  he  ate  his  own  children.  What  is 
really  wonderful  is  the  healthy  integrity  of  character,  he  has,  in  great  part,  retained. 
The  official  reports  prove  that  the  parents,  even  in  the  gang  districts,  loathe  the 
gang-system.  "There  is  much  in  the  evidence  that  show  that  the  parents  of  the 
children  would,  in  many  instances,  be  glad  to  be  aided  by  the  requirements  of  a  legal 
obligation,  to  resist  the  pressure  and  the  temptations  to  which  they  are  often  sub- 
ject,     fhey  are  liable  to  be  urged  at  times  by  the  parish   officers,  at  times   by  em- 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      yG"^ 

(/".)  Ireland. 

In  concluding  this  section,  we  must  travel  for  a  moment 
to  Ireland.     First,  the  main  facts  of  the  case. 

The  population  of  Ireland  had,  in  1841,  reached  8,222,664 ; 
in  1851,  it  had  dwindled  to  6,623,985 ;  in  1861,  to  5,850,309 ; 
in  1866,  to  5^  millions,  nearly  to  its  level  in  1801.  The 
diminution  began  with  the  famine  year,  1846,  so  that  Ireland, 
in  less  than  twenty  years,  lost  more  than^ths  of  its  people.^ 

Tahle  A. 

LIVE  STOCK. 


Year. 

HOBSES. 

Cattle. 

Total 
Number. 

Decrease. 

Total 
Number. 

Decrease. 

Increase. 

1860 
1861 
1862 
1863 
1864 
1865 

619,811 
614,232 
602,894 
579,978 
562,158 
547,867 

5,993 
11,338 
22,916 
17,820 
14,291 

3,606,374 
3,471,688 
3,254,890 
3,144,231 
3,262,294 
3,493,414 

138,316 
216,798 
110,695 

118,063 
231,120 

ployers,  under  threats  of  being  themselves  discharged,  to  be  taken  to  work  at  an  age 
when  .  .  .  school  attendance  .  .  .  would  be  manifestly  to  their  greater  ad- 
vantage  All  that  time  and  strength  wasted;  all  the  suffering  from  extra 

and  unprofitable  fatigue  produced  to  the  labourer  and  to  his  children;  every  instance 
in  which  the  parent  may  have  traced  the  moral  ruin  of  his  child  to  the  under- 
mining of  delicacy  by  the  overcrowding  of  cottages,  or  to  the  contaminating  in- 
fluences of  the  public  gang,  must  have  been  so  many  incentives  to  feelings  in  the 
minds  of  the  labouring  poor  which  can  be  well  understood,  and  which  it  would  be 
needless  to  particularise.  They  must  be  conscious  that  much  bodily  and  mental  pain 
has  thus  been  inflicted  upon  them  from  causes  for  which  they  were  in  no  way 
finswerable;  to  which,  had  it  b-en  in  their  power,  they  would  have  in  no  way 
consented;  and  against  which  they  were  powerless  to  struggle."  (1.  c,  p.  xx.,  §  83, 
and  xxiii.,  n.  96.) 

^Population  of  Ireland,  1801,   5,319,867  persons;   1811,   0,084,996;  1821,  6,869.544; 
1831,   7,828,347;  1841,   8,222,664. 


768 


Capitalist  Production. 


Its  total  emigration  from  May,  1851,  to  July,  1865,  numbered 
1,591,487 :  the  emigration  during  the  years  1861-18G5  was 
more  than  half-a-million.  The  number  of  inhabitated  houses 
fell,  from  1851-1861,  by  52,990.  From  1851-1861,  the 
number  of  holdings  of  15  to  30  acres  increased  61,000,  that 
of  holdings  over  30  acres,  109,000,  whilst  the  total  number 
of  all  farms  fell  120,000,  a  fall,  therefore,  solely  due  to  the 
suppression  of  farms  under  15  acres — i.e.,  to  their  central- 
isation. 


Year. 

Sheep. 

Pigs. 

Total 
Number. 

Decrease. 

Increase. 

Total 
Number. 

Decrease. 

Increase. 

1860 
1861 
1862 
1863 
1864 
1865 

3,542,080 
3,556,050 
3,456,132 
3,308,204 
3,366,941 
3,688,742 

99,918 
147,982 

13,970 

58,737 
321,801 

1,271,072 
1,102,042 
1,154,324 
1,067,458 
1,058,480 
1,299,893 

169,030 

86,866 
8,978 

62,282 
241,413 

The  decrease  of  the  population  was  naturally  accompanied 
by  a  decrease  in  the  mass  of  products.  For  our  purpose,  it 
suffices  to  consider  the  5  years  from  1861-1865  during  which 
over  half-a-million  emigrated,  and  the  absolute  number  of 
people  sank  by  more  than  ^  of  a  million. 

From  the  above  tables  it  results: — 


Horses. 

Cattle. 

Sheep. 

Pigs. 

Absolute 
Decrease. 

72,358 

i_ 

Absolute 
Decrease. 

116,626 

Absolute 
Increase. 

146,608 

Absolute 
Increase. 

28,819     1 

*The   result  would  be   found  yet   more  unfavourable  if  we  went  further  back. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumiilatioti.      769 

Let  us  now  turn  to  agriculture,  which  yields  the  means  of 
subsistence  for  cattle  and  for  men.  In  the  following  table  is 
calculated  the  decrease  or  increase  for  each  separate  year,  as 
compared  with  its  immediate  predecessor.  The  Cereal  Crops 
include  wheat,  oats,  barley,  rye,  beans  and  peas ;  the  Green 
Crops,  potatoes,  turnips,  mangolds,  beet-root,  cabbages,  car- 
rots, parsnips,  vetches,  &c. 

Table  B. 

INCREASE  OB  DECEEASE  IN  THE  AREA  UNDER  CROPS  AND 
GRASS   IN   ACERAGE. 


a 

> 

Cereal 
Crops. 

Green  Crops. 

Grass  and 
Clover. 

Flax. 

Total  Cultivated 
Land. 

a 

a 
Q 

4) 

to 

rt 

(U 

0 

a 

M 

CB 

Q 

si 

2 

u 
u 

a 

01 

y 

(d 

6 

m 
u 

v 

Q 

in 
a 
11 

u 

a 

1861 
1862 
1863 
1864 
1865 
1861-65 

Acres. 
15,701 
72,734 

144,719 

122,437 
72,450 

438,041 

Acres. 
36,974 
74,785 
19,358 
2,317 

107,984 

.Acres 
25,241 

Acres 
47,969 

Acres 

6,623 
7,724 
47,486 
68,970 
82,834 

Acres 
50,159 

Acres. 

19,271 

2,055 

63,922 

87,761 

122,850 

Acres 

81,873 
138,841 
92,431 

28,218 
330,860 

Acres. 
10,493 

In  the  year  1865,  127,470  additional  acres  came  under  the 
heading  "grass  land,"  chiefly  because  the  area  under  the  head- 
ing of  "bog  and  waste  unoccupied,"  decreased  by  101,543 
acres.  If  we  compare  1865  with  1864,  there  is  a  decrease  in 
cereals  of  246,667  qrs.,  of  which  48,999  were  wheat,  160,605 
oats,  29,892  barley,  &c. :  the  decrease  in  potatoes  was  446,398 
tons,  although  the  area  of  their  cultivation  increased  in  1865. 

From  the  movement  of  population  and  the  agricultural  pro- 
duce of  Ireland,  we  pass  to  the  movement  in  the  purse  of  its 


Thus:  Sheep  in  1865,  3,688,742,  but  in  1856,  3,094,294.     Pigs  in  1865,  1,299,893,  but 
in  1858,  1,409,883. 

2  W 


770 


Capitalist  Production. 


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The  General  Lazv  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      771 

landlords,  larger  farmers,  and  industrial  capitalists.  It  is 
reflected  in  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  Income-tax.  It  may  be 
remembered  that  Schedule  D  (profits  with  the  exception  of 
those  of  farmers),  includes  also  the  so-called,  "professional" 
profits — i.e.,  the  incomes  of  lawyers,  doctors,  &c. ;  and  the 
Schedules  C.  and  E.,  in  which  no  special  details  are  given, 
include  the  incomes  of  employes,  officers.  State  sinecurists, 
State  fundholders,  &c. 

Table.  D. 

THE  INCOME-TAX  ON  THE  SUBJOINED  INCOMES  IN 
POUNDS    STERLING. 


1860. 

1861. 

1862. 

1863. 

1864 

1865. 

Schedule    A. 

Rent   of   Land 

13,893,829 

13,003,554 

J3,39S,938 

13,494,091 

13,470,700 

13,801,616 

Schedule     B. 

Farmrs*.    Pfts. 

2,765,387 

2,773,644 

2,937,899 

2,938,823 

2,930,874 

2,946,072 

Schedule    D. 

Industrial,  &c. 
Profits     

4,891,652 

4,836,203 

4,858,800 

4,846,497 

4,546,147 

4,850,199 

Total    Schedls. 
A.    to   E 

22,962,885 

22,998,394 

23,597,574 

23,658,631 

23,236,298 

23,930,340' 

Under'  Schedule  D.  the  average  annual  increase  of  income 
from  1853-1864:  was  only  0  -93 ;  whilst,  in  the  same  period,  in 
Great  Britain,  it  was  4-58.  Table  E,  p.  772,  shows  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  profits  (with  the  exception  of  those  of  farm- 
ers) for  the  years  1864  and  1865. 

England,  a  country  with  fully  developed  capitalist  produc- 
tion, and  pre-eminently  industrial,  would  have  bled  to  death 
with  such  a  drain  of  population  as  Ireland  has  suffered.  But 
Ireland  is  at  present  only  an  agricultural  district  of  England, 
marked  off  by  a  wide  channel  from  the  country  to  which  it 
yields  corn,  wool,  cattle,  industrial  and  military  recruits. 


*  Tenth    Report    of    the    (Jllommissioners    of    Inland    Revenue.     Lond.    1866. 


•772 


Capitalist  Production. 


Table  E. 

SCHEDULE  D.   INCOME  FROM  PROFITS    (oVER  £60)    IN 
IRELAND. 


1864. 
,  f . 


1865. 
£. 


Total  yearly  income 
of 


Yearly   income   over 
£60  and  under  £100 

Of   the  yearly  total 
income    


Remainder  of  the  to 
tal  yearly   income 

f 


Of  these - 


4,368,610  divided  among 

17,467  persons, 


238,626  „  5,015  „ 

1,979,066  „  11,321  „ 

2,150,818  „  1,131  „ 

1,083,906  „  910  „ 

1,066,912  „  121  „ 

430,535  „  105  „ 

646,377  „  26  „ 

262,610  „  3  „ 


4,669,979  divided  among 

18,081  persons 


222,575  „  4,703  „ 

2,028,471  „  12,184  „ 

2,418,933  „  1,194  „ 

1,097,937  „  1,044  „ 

1,320,996  „  186  „ 

584,458  „  122  „ 

736,448  „  28  „ 

264,528  „  3  „i 


The  depopulation  of  Ireland  has  thrown  much  of  the  land 
out  of  cultivation,  has  greatly  diminished  the  produce  of  the 
soil,^  and,  in  spite  of  the  greater  area  devoted  to  cattle  breed- 
ing, has  brought  about,  in  some  of  its  branches,  an  absolute 
diminution,  in  others,  an  advance  scarcely  worthy  of  mention, 
and  constantly  interrupted  by  retrogressions.  Nevertheless, 
with  the  fall  in  numbers  of  the  population,  rents  and  farmers' 
profits  rose,  although  the  latter  not  as  steadily  as  the  former. 

'  The  total  yearly  income  under  Schedule  D.  is  different  in  this  style  from  that 
which  appears  in  the  preceding  ones,  because  of  certain  deductions  allowed  by  law. 

'  If  the  product  also  diminishes  relatively  per  acre,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
for  a  century  and  a  half  England  has  indirectly  exported  the  soil  of  Ireland,  with- 
out as  much  as  allowing  its  cultivators  the  means  for  making  up  the  constituents  of 
the  soil  that  had  been  exhausted. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumidatio:        773 

The  reason  of  this  is  easily  comprehensible.  On  the  one  hand, 
with  the  throwing  of  small  holdings  into  large  ones,  and  the 
change  of  arable  into  pasture  land,  a  larger  part  of  the  whole 
produce  was  transformed  into  surplus  produce.  The  surplus 
produce  increased,  although  the  total  produce,  of  which  it 
formed  a  fraction,  decreased.  On  the  other  hand,  the  money- 
value  of  this  surplus  produce  increased  yet  more  rapidly  than 
its  mass,  in  consequence  of  the  rise  in  the  English  market- 
price  of  meat,  wool,  &c.,  during  the  last  20,  and  especially 
during  the  last  10,  years. 

The  scattered  means  of  production  that  serve  the  producers 
themselves  as  means  of  employment  and  subsistence,  without 
expanding  their  own  value  by  the  incorporation  of  the  labour 
of  others,  are  no  more  capital  than  a  product  consumed  by  its 
own  producer  is  a  commodity.  If,  with  the  mass  of  the  popu- 
lation, that  of  the  means  of  production  employed  in  agricul- 
tural also  diminished,  the  mass  of  the  capital  employed  in 
agriculture  increased,  because  a  part'  of  the  means  of  produc- 
tion that  were  formerly  scattered,  was  concentrated  and 
turned  into  capital. 

The  total  capital  of  Ireland  outside  agriculture,  employed 
in  industry  and  trade,  accumulated  during  the  last  two  de- 
cades slowly,  and  with  great  and  constantly  recurring 
fluctuations ;  so  much  the  more  rapidly  did  the  concentration 
of  its  individual  constituents  develop.  And,  however  small 
its  absolute  increase,  in  proportion  to  the  dwindling  popu- 
lation it  had  increased  largely. 

Here,  then,  under  our  own  eyes  and  on  a  large  scale,  a  pro- 
cess is  revealed,  than  which  nothing  more  excellent  could  be 
wished  for  by  orthodox  economy  for  the  support  of  its  dogma : 
that  misery  springs  from  absolute  surplus-population,  and 
that  equilibrium  is  re-established  by  depopulation.  This  is 
a  far  more  important  experiment  than  was  the  plague  in  the 
middle  of  the  14th  century  so  belauded  of  Malthusians.  ISTote 
further:  If  only  the  naivete  of  the  schoolmaster  could  apply, 
to  the  conditions  of  production  and  population  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  the  standard  of  the  14th,  this  naivete,  into  the 
bargain,  overlooked  the  fact  that  whilst,  after  the  plague  and 


774  Capitalist  Production. 

the  decimation  that  accompanied  it,  followed  on  this  side  of 
the  channel,  in  England,  enfranchisement  and  enrichment  of 
the  agricultural  population,  on  that  side,  in  France,  followed 
greater  servitude  and  more  misery.^ 

The  Irish  famine  of  1846  killed  more  than  1,000,000  peo- 
ple, but  it  killed  poor  devils  only.  To  the  wealth  of  the  coun- 
try it  did  not  the  slightest  damage.  The  exodus  of  the  next 
20  years,  an  exodus  still  constantly  increasing  did  not,  as,  e.g., 
the  thirty  years'  war,  decimate,  along  with  the  human  beings, 
their  means  of  production.  Irish  genius  discovered  an  al- 
together new  way  of  spiriting  a  poor  people  thousands  of 
miles  away  from  the  scene  of  its  misery.  The  exiles  trans- 
planted to  the  United  States,  send  home  sums  of  money  every 
year  as  travelling  expenses  for  those  left  behind.  Every 
troop  that  emigrates  one  year,  draws  another  after  it  the 
next  Thus,  instead  of  costing  Ireland  anything,  emigration 
forms  one  of  the  most  lucrative  branches  of  its  export  trade. 
Finally,  it  is  a  systematic  process,  which  does  not  simply 
make  a  passing  gap  in  the  population,  but  sucks  out  of  it 
every  year  more  people  than  are  replaced  by  the  births,  so 
that  the  absolute  level  of  the  population  falls  year  by  year.^ 

What  were  the  consequences  for  the  Irish  labourers  left  be- 
hind and  freed  from  the  surplus-population  ?  That  the  rela- 
tive surplus-population  is  to-day  as  great  as  before  1846 ;  that 
wages  are  jiist  as  low,  that  the  oppression  of  the  labourers^ 
has  increased,  that  misery  is  forcing  the  country  towards  a 
new  crisis.  The  facts  are  simple.  The  revolution  in  agri- 
culture has  kept  pace  with  emigration.  The  production  of 
relative  surplus  population  has  more  than  kept  pace  with  the 
absolute  depopulation.  A  glance  at  table  C  shows  that  the 
change  of  arable  to  pasture  land  must  work  yet  more  acutely 
in  Ireland  than  in  England.  In  England  the  cultivation  oi 
green  crops  increases  with  the  breeding  of  cattle;  in  Ireland, 

*  As  Ireland  is  regarded  as  the  promised  land  of  the  "principle  of  population,'' 
A.  Sadler,  before  the  publication  of  his  work  on  population,  issued  his  famous  book 
"Ireland,  its  evils  and  their  remedies.  2nd  edition,  London,  1829."  Here,  by  com 
parison  of  the  statistics  of  the  individual  provinces,  and  of  the  individual  counties  in 
each  province,  he  proves  that  the  misery  there  is  not,  as  Malthus  would  have  it,  iu 
proportion  to  the  number  of  the  population,  but  in  inverse  ratio  to  this. 

*  Between  1851  and  1874,  the  total  number  ot  emigrants  amounted  to  2,325,922. 


TJie  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation       775 

it  decreases.  Whilst  large  number  of  acres,  that  were  for- 
merly tilled,  lie  idle  or  are  turned  permanently  into  grass- 
land, a  great  part  of  the  waste  land  and  peat  bogs  that  were 
unused  formerly,  become  of  service  for  the  extension  of  cat- 
tle-breeding. The  smaller  and  medium  farmers — I  reckon 
among  these  all  wbo  do  not  cultivate  more  than  100  acres — 
still  make  up  about ^ths  of  the  whole  number.^  They  are, 
one  after  the  other,  and  with  a  degree  of  force  unknown  be- 
fore, crushed  by  the  competition  of  an  agriculture  managed  by 
capital,  and  therefore  they  continually  furnish  new  recruits  to 
the  class  of  wage-labourers.  The  one  great  industry  of  Ire- 
land, linen-manufacture,  requires  relatively  few  adult  men 
and  only  employs  altogether,  in  spite  of  its  expansion  since 
the  price  of  cotton  rose  in  1861-1866,  a  comparatively  insig- 
nificant part  of  the  population.  Like  all  the  other  great  mod- 
ern industries,  it  constantly  produces,  by  incessant  fluctuations, 
a  relative  surplus-population  within  its  own  sphere,  even  with 
an  absolute  increase  in  the  mass  of  human  beings  absorbed 
by  it.  The  misery  of  the  agricultural  population  forms  the 
pedestal  for  gigantic  shirt^factories,  whose  armies  of  labourers 
are,  for  the  most  part,  scattered  over  the  country.  Here,  we 
encounter  again  the  system  described  above  of  domestic  in- 
dustry, which  in  under-payment  and  over-work,  possesses  its 
own  systematic  means  for  creating  supernumerary  labourers. 
Finally,  although  the  depopulation  has  not  such  destructive 
consequences  as  would  result  in  a  country  with  fully  developed 
capitalistic  production,  it  does  not  go  on  without  constant  re- 
action upon  the  home^market.  The  gap  which  emigration 
causes  here,  limits  not  only  the  local  demand  for  labour,  but 
also  the  incomes  of  small  shopkeepers,  artisans,  tradespeople 
generally.  Hence  the  diminution  in  incomes  between  £60  and 
£100  in  table  E. 

A  clear  statement  of  the  condition  of  the  agricultural  la- 
bourers in  Ireland  is  to  be  found  in  the  Reports  of  the  Irish 
Poor   Law   Inspectors    (1870).^     Officials   of  a   government 

*  According  to  a  table  in  Murphy's  "Ireland  industrial,  political  and  social,"  1870, 
9*.C   per   cert,    of   the   holdings   do   not   reach   100   acres,   5.4    exceed   100  acres. 
*"Psvrr':';  fr^-n  the  Poor  Law  Inspectors  on  the  wages  of  Agricultural  Labourers 


77^ 


Capitalist  Production. 


which  is  maintained  only  by  bayonets  and  by  a  state  of  siege, 
now  open,  now  disguised,  they  have  to  observe  all  the  pre- 
cautions of  language  that  their  colleagues  in  England  disdain. 
In  spite  of  this,  however,  they  do  not  let  their  government 
cradle  itself  in  illusions.  According  to  them  the  rate  of 
wages  in  the  country,  still  very  low,  has  within  the  last  20 
years  risen  50-60  per  cent.,  and  stands  now,  on  the  average,  at 
Cs.  to  9s.  per  week.  But  behind  this  apparent  rise,  is  hidden 
an  actual  fall  in  wages,  for  it  does  not  correspond  at  all  to  the 
rise  in  price  of  the  necessary  means  of  subsistence  that  has 
taken  place  in  the  meantime.  For  proof,  the  following  ex- 
tract from  the  official  accounts  of  an  Irish  workhouse. 

Average  Weekly  Cost  per  Head. 


Year  ended 

Provisions    and 
Necessaries. 

Clothing. 

Total. 

29th  Sept.  1849 
1869 

Is.  34d. 
2s.  7id. 

3d. 
6d. 

Is.  6}d. 
8s.  l|d. 

The  price  of  the  necessary  means  of  subsistence  is  therefore 
fully  twice,  and  that  of  clothing  exactly  twice,  as  much  as 
they  were  20  years  before. 

Even  apart  from  this  disproportion,  the  mere  comparison  of 
the  rate  of  wages  expressed  in  gold  would  give  a  result  far 
from  accurate.  Before  the  famine,  the  great  mass  of  a^icul- 
tural  wages  were  paid  in  kind,  only  the  smallest  part  in 
money;  to-day,  payment  in  money  is  the  rule.  From  this 
it  follows  that,  whatever  the  amount  of  the  real  wage,  its 
money  rate  must  rise.  "Previous  to  the  famine,  the  labourer 
enjoyed  his  cabin     .     .     .     with  a  rood,  or  half -acre  or  acre 

in  Dublin,  1870."  See  also  "Agricultural  Labourers  (Ireland)  Return,  etc.,  8 
March   1862,   London  1862."  / 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation,      yyy 

of  land,  and  facilities  for  ...  a  crop  of  potatoes,  lie 
was  able  to  read  his  pig  and  keep  fowl.  .  .  .  But  they 
iioAV  have  to  buy  bread,  and  they  have  no  refuse  upon  which 
they  can  feed  a  pig  or  fowl,  and  they  have  consequently  no 
benefit  from  the  sale  of  a  pig,  fowl,  or  eggs."^  In  fact,  for- 
merly, the  agricultural  labourers  were  but  the  smallest  of  the 
small  farmers,  and  formed  for  the  most  part  a  kind  of  rear- 
guard of  the  medium  and  large  farms  on  which  they  found 
employment  Only  since  the  catastrophe  of  1846  have  they 
begun  to  form  a  fraction  of  the  class  of  purely  wage-la- 
bourers, a  special  class,  connected  with  its  wage-masters  only 
by  monetary  relations. 

We  know  what  were  the  conditions  of  their  dwellings  in 
1846.  Since  then  they  have  grown  yet  worse.  A  part  of  the 
agricultural  labourers,  which,  however,  grows  less  day  by  day, 
dwells  still  on  the  holdings  of  the  farmers  in  over-crowded 
huts,  whose  hideousness  far  surpasses  the  worst  that  the 
English  agricultural  labourers  offered  us  in  this  way.  And 
this  holds  generally  with  the  exception  of  certain  tracts  of 
Ulster;  in  the  south,  in  the  counties  of  Cork,  Limerick,  Kil- 
kenny, &:c. ;  in  the  east,  in  Wicklow,  Wexford,  &c. ;  in  the 
centre  of  Ireland,  in  King's  and  Queen's  County,  Dublin,  &c. ; 
in  the  west,  in  Sligo,  Roscommon,  Mayo,  Galway,  &c.  "The 
agricultural  labourers'  huts,"  an  inspiector  cries  out,  "are  a 
disgrace  to  the  Christianity  and  to  the  civilisation  of  this 
country."^  In  order  to  increase  the  attractions  of  these  holes 
for  the  labourers,  the  pieces  of  land  belonging  thereto  from 
time  immemorial,  are  systematically  confiscated.  "The  mere 
sense  that  they  exist  subject  to  this  species  of  ban,  on  the 
part  of  the  landlords  and  their  agents,  has  .  .  .  given 
birth  in  the  minds  of  the  labourers  to  corresponding  senti- 
ments of  antagonism  and  dissatisfaction  towards  those  by 
whom  they  are  thus  led  to  regard  themselves  are  being  treated 
as     ...     a   proscribed   race."^ 

The  first  act  of  the  agricultural  revolution  was  to  sweep 
away  the  huts  situated  on  the  field  of  labour.  This  was  done 
on  the  largest  scale,  and  as  if  in  obedience  to  a  command  from 

n.    c.    pp.    29,    1.  «1.    c.    p.    12.  »!..  c.    p.    12. 


778  Capitalist  Production. 

on  high.  Thus  many  labourers  were  compelled  to  seek  shelter 
in  villages  and  towns.  There  they  were  thrown  like  refuse 
into  garrets,  holes,  cellars  and  corners,  in  the  worst  back  slums. 
Thousands  of  Irish  families,  who  according  to  the  testimony 
of  the  English,  eaten  up  as  these  are  with  national  prejudice, 
are  notable  for  their  rare  attachment  to  the  domestic  hearth, 
'■  for  their  gaiety  and  the  purity  of  their  home-life,  found  them- 
selves suddenly  transplanted  into  hotbeds  of  vice.  The  men 
are  now  obliged  to  seek  work  of  the  neighboring  farmers 
and  are  only  hired  by  the  day,  and  therefore  under  the  most 
precarious  forms  of  wage.  Hence  "they  sometimes  have  long 
distances  to  go  to  and  from  work,  often  get  wet,  and  suffer 
much  hardship,  not  unfrequently  ending  in  sickness,  disease 
and  want»"^ 

"The  towns  have  had  to  receive  from  year  to  year  what 
was  deemed  to  be  the  surplus-labour  of  the  rural  division ;  "^ 
and  then  people  still  wonder  "there  is  still  a  surplus  of  labour 
in  the  towns  and  villages,  and  either  a  scarcity  or  a  threatened 
scarcity  in  some  of  the  country  divisions."^  The  truth  is  that 
this  want  only  becomes  perceptible  "in  harvest-time,  or  during 
spring,  or  at  such  times  as  agricultural  operations  are  carried 
on  with  activity ;  at  other  periods  of  the  year  many  hands  are 
idle  ;"*  that  "from  the  digging  out  of  the  main  crop  of  potatoes 
in  October  until  the  early  spring  following  .  .  '  .  there  is 
no  employment  for  them  ;"^  and  further,  that  during  the  ac- 
tive times  they  "  are  subject  to  broken  days  and  to  all  kinds  of 
interruptions."® 

These  results  of  the  agricultural  revolution — i.e.,  the  change 
of  arable  into  pasture  land,  the  use  of  machinery,  the  most 
rigorous  economy  of  labour,  &c.,  are  still  further  aggravated 
by  the  model  landlords,  who,  instead  of  spending  their  rents 
in  other  countries,  condescend  to  live  in  Ireland  on  their  de- 
mesnes. In  order  that  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  may  not 
be  broken,  these  gentlemen  draw  their  "labour-supply  .  .  . 
chiefly  from  their  small  tenants^  who  are  obliged  to  attend 
when  required  to  do  the  landlord's  work,  at  rates  of  wages,  in 

11.   c.    p.   25.  M.   c.   p.   26.  »1.   c.   pp.   81,   32. 

» 1.   c.   p.   27.  *  1.   c.   p.   1.  •  L  c.  p.  26. 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.     779 

many  instances,  considerably  under  the  current  rates  paid  to 
ordinary  labourers,  and  without  regard  to  the  inconvenience 
or  loss  to  the  tenant  of  being  obliged  to  neglect  his  own  business 
at  critical  periods  of  sowing  or  reaping."^ 

The  uncertainty  and  irregularity  of  employment,  the  con- 
stant return  and  long  duration  of  gluts  of  labour,  all  these 
symptoms  of  a  relative  surplus-population,  figure  therefore  in 
the  reports  of  the  Poor  Law  administration,  as  so  many  hard- 
ships of  the  agricultural  proletariat.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  we  met,  in  the  English  agricultural  proletariat,  with  a 
similar  spectacle.  But  the  difference  is  that  in  England,  an 
industrial  country,  the  industrial  reserve  recruits  itself  from 
the  country  districts,  whilst  in  Ireland,  an  agricultural  coun- 
try, the  agricultural  reserve  recruits  itself  from  the  towns,  the 
cities  of  refuge  of  the  expelled  agricultural  labourers.  In  the 
former,  the  supernumeraries  of  agriculture  are  transformed 
into  factory-operatives;  in  the  latter,  those  forced  into  the 
towns,  whilst  at  the  same  time  they  press  on  the  wages  in 
towns,  remain  agricultural  labourers,  and  are  constantly  sent 
back  to  the  country  districts  in  search  of  work. 

The  official  inspectors  sum  up  the  material  condition  of  the 
agricultural  labourer  as  follows:  "Though  living  with  the 
strictest  frugality,  his  own  wages  are  barely  sufficient  to  pro- 
vide food  for  an  ordinary  family  and  pay  his  rent,  and  he  de- 
pends upon  other  sources  for  the  means  of  clothing  himself,  his 
wife,  and  children.  .  .  The  atmosphere  of  these  cabins, 
combined  with  the  other  privations  they  are  subjected  to,  has 
made  this  class  particularly  susceptible  to  low  fever  and  pul- 
monary consumption."^  After  this,  it  is  no  wonder  that,  ac- 
cording to  the  unanimous  testimony  of  the  inspectors,  a  sombre 
discontent  runs  through  the  ranks  of  this  class,  that  they  long 
for  the  return  of  the  past,  loathe  the  present,  despair  of  the  fu- 
ture, give  themselves  up  to  "to  the  evil  influence  of  agita- 
tors," and  have  only  one  fixed  idea,  to  emigrate  to  America. 
This  is  the  land  of  Cockaigne,  into  which  the  great  Malthu- 
sian  panacea,  depopulation,  has  transformed  green  Erin. 

What  a  happy  life  the  Irish  factory  operative  leads,  one 

»1.  c.  p.  30  *I.  c.   pp.  21,  13. 


780  Capitalist  Production. 

example  will  show:  "On  my  recent  visit  to  the  North  of 
Ireland,"  says  the  English  Factory  Inspector,  Robert  Baker, 
"I  met  ^vith  the  following  evidence  of  effort  in  an  Irish  skill- 
ed workman  to  afford  education  to  his  children;  and  I  give 
his  evidence  verbatim,  as  I  took  it  from  his  month.  That  ho 
was  a  skilled  factory  hand,  may  be  understood  when  I  say  that 
he  was  employed  on  goods  for  the  Manchester  market.  'John- 
son.— I  am  a  beetler  and  work  from  6  in  the  morning  till  11 
at  night,  from  Monday  till  Friday.  Saturday  we  leave  off 
at  6  p.m,.  and  get  three  hoursi  of  it  (for  meals  and  rest).  I 
have  five  children  in  all.  For  this  work  I  get  10s.  6d.  a  week ; 
my  wife  works  here  also,  and  gets  5s.  a  week.  The  oldest 
girl  who  is  12,  minds  the  house.  She  is  also  cook,  and  all  the 
servant  we  have.  She  gets  the  young  ones  ready  for  school. 
A  girl  going  past  the  house  wakes  me  at  half  past  five  in  the 
morning.  My  wife  gets  up  and  goes  along  with  me.  We  get 
nothing  (to  eat)  before  we  come  to  work.  The  child  of  12 
takes  care  of  the  little  children  all  the  day,  and  we  get  noth- 
ing till  breakfast  at  eight  At  eight  we  go  home.  We  get 
tea  once  a  week;  at  other  times  we  get  stirabout,  sometimes 
of  oatmeal,  sometimes  of  Indian  meal,  as  we  are  able  to  get 
it.  In  the  winter  we  get  a  little  sugar  and  water  to  our  Indian 
meal.  In  the  summer  we  get  a  few  potatoes,  planting  a 
small  patch  ourselves;  and  when  they  are  done  we  get  back  to 
stirabout.  Sometimes  we  get  a  little  milk  as  it  may  be.  So 
we  go  on  from  day  to  day,  Sunday  and  week  day,  always  the 
same  the  year  round.  I  am  always  very  much  tired  when  I 
have  done  at  night*  We  may  see  a  bit  of  flesh  meat  sometimes, 
but  very  seldom.  Three  of  our  children  attend  school,  for 
whom  we  pay  Id.  a  week  a  head.  Our  rent  is  9d.  a  week. 
Peat  for  firing  costs  Is.  6d.  a  fortnight  at  the  very  lowest."* 
Such  are  Irish  wages,  such  is  Irish  life ! 

In  fact  the  misery  of  Ireland  is  again  the  topic  of  the  day  in 
England.  At  the  end  of  1866  and  the  beginning  of  1867,  one 
of  the  Irish  land  magnates,  Lord  Dufferin,  set  about  its  solu- 
tion in  the  "Times."  "Wie  menschlich  von  solch  grossem 
Herrn !" 

>  Rept.  of  Insp.  of  Fact.   31st  Oct.,  1866,  p.  96, 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      781 

From  Table  E.  we  saw  that,  during  1861,  of  £.1,308,010  of 
total  profits,  three  surplus-value  makers  poeketed  only 
£262,610;  that  in  1865,  however,  out  of  £4,669,979  total 
profits,  the  same  three  virtuosi  of  "abstinence"  pocketed 
£274,448;  in  1804,  26  surplus-value  makers  reached  to 
£046,377;  in  1805,  28  surplus-value  makers  reached  to 
£730,448 ;  in  18G4,  121  surplus-value  makers,  £1,006,912 ;  in 
1865,  1S6  surplus-value  makers,  £1,320,996;  in  1864,  1131 
surplus-value  makers  £2,150,818,  nearly  half  of  the  total  an- 
nual profit;  in  1865,  1194  surplus-value  makers  £2,418,933, 
more  than  half  of  the  total  annual  profit.  But  the  lion's 
share,  which  an  inconceivably  small  number  of  land  magnates 
in  England,  Scotland  and  Ireland  svv^allow  up  of  the  yearly 
national  rental,  is  so  monstrous  that  the  wisdom  of  the  English 
state  does  not  think  fit  to  afford  the  same  statistical  materials 
about  the  distribution  of  rents  as  about  the  distribution  of 
profits.  Lord  Dufferin  is  one  of  those  land  magnates.  That 
rent-rolls  and  profits  can  ever  be  "excessive,"  or  that  their 
plethora  is  in  any  way  connected  with  plethora  of  the  people's 
misery  is,  an  idea  as  "disreputable"  as  "unsound."  He  keeps 
to  facts.  The  fact  is  that,  as  the  Irish  population  diminishes, 
the  Irish  rent-rolls  swell;  that  depopulation  benefits  the  land- 
lords, therefore  also  benefits  the  soil,  and,  therefore  the  people, 
that  were  accessory  of  the  soil.  He  declares,  therefore,  that 
Ireland  is  still  over-populated,  and  the  stream  of  emigration 
still  flows  too  lazily.  To  be  perfectly  happy,  Ireland  must 
get  rid  of  at  least  one-third  of  a  million  of  labouring  men. 
Let  no  man  imagine  that  this  lord,  poetic  into  the  bargain, 
is  a  physician  of  the  school  of  Sangrado,  who  as  often  as  he 
did  not  find  his  patient  better,  ordered  phlebotomy  and  again 
phlebotomy,  until  the  patient  lost  his  sickness  at  the  same 
time  as  his  blood.  Lord  Dufferin  demands  a  new  blood-letting 
of  one-third  of  a  million  only,  instead  of  about  two  millions ; 
in  fact,  without  the  getting  rid  of  these,  the  millennium  in 
Erin  is  not  to  be.     The  proof  is  easily  given. 

Centralisation  has  from  1851  to  1861  destroyed  principally 
farms  of  the  first  three  categories,  under  1  and  not  over  15 
ceres.     These  above  all  must  disappear.     This  gives  307,058 


782 


Capitalist  Production. 


NUMBEB.  AND  ExTENT  OF  FaBMS  IN  IrEI^AND  IN  1864. 


(1)  Farms  not  over 
1  acre. 

(2)  Farms  over  1,  not 
over  6  acres. 

(3)  Farms  over  5,  not 
over  15  acres. 

(4)  Farms  over  15,  not 
over  30  acres. 

No. 
48,663 

Acres. 
25,394 

No. 
82,037 

Acres. 
288,916 

No. 
176,368 

Acres. 
1,836,310 

No. 
136,678 

Acres. 
3,061,343 

(6)  Farms  over  30,  not 
over  60  acres. 

(6)  Farms  over 50,  not 
over  100  acres. 

(7)  Farms  over  100 
acres. 

(8)  Total  area. 

No. 
71,961 

Acres. 
2,906,274 

No. 
64,247 

Acres. 
3,983,880 

No. 
31,927 

Acres. 
8,227,807 

Acres. 
26,819,9241 

"supernumerary"  farmers,  and  reckoning  the  families  the  low 
average  of  4  persons  1,228,232  persons.  On  the  extravagant 
supposition  that,  after  the  agricultural  revolution  is  complete, 
one-fourth  of  these  are  again  absorbable,  there  remain  for  emi- 
gi'ation  921,174  persons.  Categories,  4,  5,  6,  of  over  15  and 
not  over  100  acres,  are,  as  was  known  long  since  in  England, 
too  small  for  capitalistic  cultivation  of  corn,  and  for  sheep- 
breeding  are  almost  vanishing  quantities.  On  the  same  sup- 
position as  before,  therefore,  there  are  further  788,761  persons 
to  emigrate;  total,  1,709,532.  And  as  I'appetit  vient  en 
mangeant,  Eent-roU's  eyes  will  soon  discover  that  Ireland,  with 
Sy^  millions,  is  still  always  miserable  because  she  is  over- 
populated.  Therefore  her  depopulation  must  go  yet  further, 
that  thus  she  may  fulfill  her  true  destiny,  that  of  an  English 
siheep  walk  and  cattle-pasture.^ 

^  The  total  area  includes  also  peat,  bogs,  and  waste  land. 

*  How  the  famine  and  its  consequences  have  been  deliberately  made  the  most  of, 
both  by  the  individual  landlords  and  by  the  English  legislature,  to  forcibly  carry  out 
the  agricultural  revolution  and  to  thin  the  population  of  Ireland  down  to  the  propor- 
tion satisfactory  to  the  landlords,  I  shall  show  more  fully  in  Vol.  III.  of  this  work, 
in  the  section  on  landed  property.  There  also  I  return  to  the  condition  of  the  small 
farmers  and  the  agricultural  labourers.  At  present,  only  one  quotation.  Nassau  W. 
Senior  says,  with  other  things,  in  his  posthumous  work,  "Journals,  Conversations 
and  Essays,  relating  to  Ireland."  2  vols.  London  1868;  Vol.  II.,  p.  282.  "Well," 
said  Dr.  G.,  "we  have  got  our  Poor  Law  and  it  is  a  great  instrument  for  giving  the 


The  General  Law  of  Capitalist  Accumulation.      783 

Like  all  good  things  in  this  bad  world,  this  profitable  method 
has  its  drawbacks.  With  the  accumulation  of  rents  in  Ireland, 
the  accumulation  of  the  Irish  in  America  keeps  pace.  The 
Irishman,  banished  by  sheep  and  ox,  reappears  on  the  other 
side  of  the  ocean  as  a  Fenian,  and  face  to  face  with  the  old 
queen  of  the  sea  rises,  threatening  and  more  threatening,  the 
young  giant  Republic: 

Acerba   fata   Romanos   agunt 
Scelusque  fraternse  necis. 

victory  to  the  landlords.  Another,  and  a  still  more  powerful  instrument  is  emigra- 
tion .  .  .  No  friend  to  Ireland  can  wish  the  war  to  be  prolonged  [between  the 
landlords  and  the  small  Celtic  farmers] — still  less,  that  it  should  end  by  the  victory 
of  the  tenants.  The  sooner  it  is  over — the  sooner  Ireland  becomes  a  grazing  country, 
with  the  comparatively  thin  population  which  a  grazing  country  requires,  the  better 
for  all  classes."  The  English  Corn  Laws  of  1815  secured  Ireland  the  monopoly  of 
the  free  importation  of  corn  into  Great  Britain.  They  favoured  artificially,  therefore, 
the  cultivation  of  corn.  With  the  abolition  of  the  Corn  Laws  in  1846,  this  monopoly 
was  suddenly  removed.  Apart  from  all  other  circumstances,  this  event  alone  was 
sufficient  to  give  a  great  impulse  to  the  turning  of  Irish  arable  into  pasture  land, 
to  the  concentration  of  farms,  and  to  the  eviction  of  small  cultivators.  After  the 
fruitfulness  of  the  Irish  soil  had  been  praised  from  1815  to  1846,  and  proclaimed 
loudly  as  by  Nature  herself  destined  for  the  cultivation  of  wheat,  English  agrono- 
mists, economists,  politicians,  discover  suddenly  that  it  is  good  for  nothing  but  to 
produce  forage.  M.  Leonce  de  Lavergne  has  hastened  to  repeat  this  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Channel.  It  takes  a  "serious"  man,  a  La  Lavergne,  to  be  caught  by  such 
childishness. 


PART  VIII. 
THE  SO-CALLED  PRIMITIVE  ACCUMULATION. 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

THE   SECRET  OF  PRIMITIVE  ACCTTMULATIOH". 

We  have  seen  how  money  is  changed  into  capital;  how 
through  capital  surplus-value  is  miade,  and.  from  surpluan 
value  more  capital.  But  the  accumulation  of  capital  pre- 
supposes surplusrvalue ;  surplus-value  presupposes  capital- 
istic production ;  capitalistic  production  presupposes  the  pre- 
existence  of  considerable  masses  of  capital  and  of  labour-pow- 
er in  the  hands  of  producers  of  commodities.  The  whole 
movement,  therefore,  seems  to  turn  in  a  vicious  circle,  out  of 
which  we  can  only  get  by  supposing  a  primitive  accumulation 
(previous  accumulation  of  Adam  Smith)  preceding  capital- 
istic accumulation ;  an  accumulation  not  the  result  of  the  capi- 
talist mode  of  production,  but  its  starting  point. 

This  primitive  accumulation  plays  in  Political  Economy 
about  the  same  part  as  original  sin  in  theology.  Adam  bit  the 
apple,  and  thereupon  sin  fell  on  the  human  race.  Its  origin  is 
supposed  to  be  explained  when  it  is  told  as  an  anecdote  of  the 
past.  In  times  long  gone  by  there  were  two  sorts  of  people; 
one,  the  diligent,  intelligent,  and,  above  all,  frugal  elite;  the 
other,  lazy  rascals,  spending  their  substance,  and  more,  in 
riotous  living.  The  legend  of  theological  original  sin  tells  us 
certainly  how  man  came  to  be  condemned  to  eat  his  bread  in 
the  sweat  of  his  brow ;  but  the  history  of  economic  original  sin 
reveals  to  us  that  there  are  people  to  whom  this  is  by  no  means 
essential.     Never  mind !     Thus  it  came  lo  pass  that  the  former 

784 


The  Secret  of  Primitive  Accumulation.  785 

sort  accumulated  wealth,  and  the  latter  sort  had  at  last  nothing 
to  sell  except  their  own  skins.  And  from  this  original  sin 
dates  the  poverty  of  the  great  majority  that,  despite  all  its 
Labour,  has  up  to  now  nothing  to  sell  but  itself,  and  the  wealth 
of  the  few  that  increases  constantly  although  they  have  long- 
ceased  to  work.  Such  insipid  childishness  is  every  day 
preached  to  us  in  the  defence  of  property.  M.  Thiers,  e.g., 
had  the  assurance  to  repeat  it  with  all  th«.  solemnity  of  a  states- 
man, to  the  French  people,  once  so  spirituel.  But  as  soon  as 
the  question  of  property  crops  up,  it  becomes  a  sacred  duty 
to  proclaim  the  intellectual  food  of  the  infant  as  the  one 
thing  fit  for  all  ages  and  for  all  stages  of  development.  In 
actual  history  it  is  notorious  that  conquest,  enslavement,  rob- 
bery, murder,  briefly  force,  play  the  great  part.  In  the  tender 
annals  of  Political  Economy,  the  idyllic  reigns  from  time  im- 
memorial. Eight  and  ''labour"  were  from  all  time  the  solo 
means  of  enrichment,  the  present  year  of  course  always  ex- 
cepted. As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  methods  of  primitive  accumu- 
lation are  anything  but  idyllic. 

In  themselves,  money  and  commodities  are  no  more  capital 
than  are  the  means  of  production  and  of  subsistence.  They 
want  transforming  into  capital.  But  this  transformation  it- 
self can  only  take  place  under  certain  circumstances  that 
centre  in  this,  viz.,  that  two  very  different  kinds  of  commodity- 
possessors  must  come  face  to  face  and  into  contact;  on  the 
one  hand,  the  owners  of  money,  means  of  prqduction,  means 
of  subsistence,  who  are  eager  to  increase  the  sum  of  values 
they  possess,  by  buying  other  people's-  labour-power;  on  the 
other  hand,  free  labourers,  the  sellers  of  their  ovm  labour-pow- 
er, and  therefore  the  sellers  of  labour.  Free  labourers,  in  the 
double  sense  that  neither  they  themselves  form  part  and  parcel 
of  the  means  of  production,  as  in  the  case  of  slaves,  bondsmen, 
&c.,  nor  do  the  means  of  production  belong  to  them,  as  in 
the  case  of  peasant-proprietors;  they  are,  therefore,  free 
from,  unencumbered  by,  any  means  of  production  of  their 
own.  With  this  polarisation  of  the  market  for  commodities, 
the  fundamental  conditions  of  capitalist  production  are 
given.     The  capitalist  system  presupposes  the  complete  sep- 


786  Capitalist  Production. 

aration  of  the  labourers  from  all  property  in  the  means  by 
which  they  can  realise  their  labour.  As  soon  as  capitalist 
production  is  once  on  its  own  legs,  it  not  only  maintains  this 
separation,  but  reproduces  it  on  a  continually  extending  scale. 
The  process,  therefore,  that  clears  the  way  for  the  capitalist 
system,  can  be  none  other  than  the  process  which  takes  away 
from  the  labourer  the  possession  of  his  means  of  production ;  a 
process  that  transforms,  on  the  one  hand,  the  social  means 
of  subsistence  and  of  production  into  capital,  on  the  other, 
the  immediate  producers  into  wage-labourers.  The  so-called 
primitive  accumulation,  therefore,  is  nothing  else  than  the 
historical  process  of  divorcing  the  producer  from  the  means 
of  production.  It  appears  as  primitive,  because  it  forms 
the  pre-historic  stage  of  capital  and  of  the  mode  of  produo- 
tion  corresponding  with  it. 

The  economic  structure  of  capitalistic  society  has  grown  out 
of  the  economic  structure  of  feudal  society.  The  dissolution 
of  the  latter  set  free  the  elements  of  the  former. 

The  immediate  producer,  the  labourer,  could  only  dispose 
of  his  own  person  after  he  had  ceased  to  be  attached  to  the 
soil  and  ceased  to  be  the  slave,  serf,  or  bondman  of  another. 
To  become  a  free  seller  of  labour-power,  who  carries  his  com- 
modity wherever  he  finds  a  market,  he  must  further  have 
escaped  from  the  regime  of  the  guilds,  their  rules  for  appren- 
tices and  journeymen,  and  the  impediments  of  their  labour 
regulations,  ^ence,  the  historical  movement  which  changes 
the  producers  into  wage-workers,  appears,  on  the  one  hand, 
as  their  emancipation  from  serfdom  and  from  the  fetters 
of  the  guilds,  and  this  side  alone  exists  for  our  bourgeois  histor- 
ians. But,  on  the  other  hand,  these  new  freedmen  became  sell- 
ers of  themselves  only  after  they  had  been  robbed  of  all  their 
own  means  of  production,  and  of  all  the  guarantees  of  ex- 
istence afforded  by  the  old  feudal  arrangements.  And  the 
history  of  this,  their  expropriation,  is  written  in  the  annals 
of  mankind  in  letters  of  blood  and  fire. 

The  industrial  capitalists,  these  new  potentates,  had  on  their 
part  not  only  to  displace  the  guild  masters  of  handicrafts,  but 
also  the  feudal  lords,  the  possessors  of  the  sources  of  wealth. 


The  Secret  of  Primitive  Accumulation.  787 

In  this  respect  their  conquest  of  social  power  appears  as  tlie 
fruit  of  a  victorious  struggle  both  against  feudal  lordship  and 
its  revolting  prerogatives,  and  against  the  guilds  and  the  fetters 
they  laid  on  the  free  development  of  production  and  the  free 
exploitation  of  man  by  man.  The  chevaliers  d'industrie,  how- 
ever, only  succeed  in  supplanting  the  chevaliers  of  the  sword 
by  making  use  of  events  of  which  they  themselves  were  wholly 
innocent.  They  have  risen  by  means  as  vile  as  those  by  which 
the  Roman  freed-man  once  on  a  time  made  himself  the  master 
of  his  patronus. 

The  starting-point  of  the  development  that  gave  rise  to  the 
wage-labourer  as  well  as  to  the  capitalist,  was  the  servitude  of 
the  labourer.  The  advance  consisted  in  a  change  of  form  of 
this  servitude,  in  the  transformation  of  feudal  exploitation  in- 
to capitalist  exploitation.  To  understand  its  march,  we  need 
not  go  back  very  far.  Although  we  come  across  the  first  be- 
ginnings of  capitalist  production  as  early  as  the  14th  or  15th 
century,  sporadically,  in  certain  towns  of  the  Mediterranean, 
the  capitalistic  era  dates  from  the  16th  century.  Wherever' 
it  appears,  the  abolition  of  serfdom  has  been  long  effected,  and 
the  highest  development  of  the  middle  ages,  the  existence  of 
sovereign  towns,  has  been  long  on  the  wane. 

In  the  history  of  primitive  accumulation,  all  revolutions  are 
epoch-making  that  act  as  levers  for  the  capitalist  class  in 
course  of  formation ;  but,  above  all,  those  moments  when  great 
masses  of  men  are  suddenly  and  forcibly  torn  from  their 
means  of  subsistence,  and  hurled  as  free  and  "unattached", 
proletarians  on  the  labour  market.  The  expropriation  of  the 
agricultural  producer,  of  the  peasant,  from  the  soil,  is  the  basis 
of  the  whole  process.  The  history  of  this  expropriation,  in 
different  countries,  assumes  different  aspects,  and  runs  through 
its  various  phases  in  different  orders  of  succession,  and  at 
different  periods.  In  England  alone,  which  we  take  as  our 
example,  has  it  the  classic  form.^ 

*  In  Italy,  where  capitalistic  production  developed  earliest,  the  dissolution  of 
serfdom  also  took  place  earlier  than  elsewhere.  The  serf  was  emancipated  in  that 
country  before  he  had  acquired  any  prescriptive  right  to  the  soil.  His  emancipation 
at  once  transformed  him  into  a  free  proletarian,  who,  moreover,  found  his  master 
ready  waiting  for  him  in  the  towns,  for  the  most  part  handed  down  as  legacies  from 


788  Capitalist  Production, 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

EXPBOPEIATION     OF     THE     AGKICULTURAI.     POPULATION     FEOM 

THE;  LAND. 

In  iJngland,  serfdom  had  practically  disappeared  in  the  last 
part  of  the  14th  century.  The  immense  majority  of  the 
population^  consisted  then,  and  to  a  still  larger  extent,  in  the 
15th  century,  of  free  peasant  proprietors,  whatever  was  the 
feudal  title  under  which  their  right  of  property  was  hidden. 
In  the  larger  seignorial  domains,  the  old  bailiff,  himself  a  serf, 
was  displaced  by  the  free  farmer.  The  wage-labourers  of 
agriculture  consisted  partly  of  peasants,  who  utilised  their 
leisure  time  by  working  on  the  large  estates,  partly  of  an 
independent  special  class  of  wage-labourers,  relatively  and 
absolutely  few  in  numbers.  The  latter  also  were  practically 
at  the  same  time  peasant  farmers,  since,  besides  their  wages, 
they  had  alloted  to  them  arable  land  to  the  extent  of  4  or  more 
acres,  together  with  their  cottages.  Besides  they,  with  the 
rest  of  the  peasants,  enjoyed  the  ufcufruct  of  the  common 
land,  which  gave  pasture  to  their  cattle,  furnished  them  with 
timber,    fire-wood,   turf,   &c.*     In   all   countries    of   Europe, 

the  Roman  time.  When  the  revolution  of  the  world-market,  about  the  end  of  the 
15th  century,  annihilated  Northern  Italy's  commercial  supremacy,  a  movement  in 
the  reverse  direction  set  in.  The  labourers  of  the  towns  were  driven  en  masse  into 
the  country,  and  gave  an  impulse,  never  before  seen,  to  the  petite  culture,  carried  on 
in    the    form   of   gardening. 

*  "The  petty  proprietors  who  cultivated  their  own  fields  with  their  own  hands,  and 
enjoyed  a  modest  competence  ....  then  formed  a  much  more  important  part 
of  the  nation  than  at  present.  If  we  may  trust  the  best  statistical  writers  of  that 
age,  not  less  than  160,000  proprietors  who,  with  their  families,  must  have  made  up 
more  than  a  seventh  of  the  whole  population,  derived  their  subsistence  from  little 
freehold  estates.  The  average  income  of  these  small  landlords  ....  was  esti- 
mated at  between  £60  and  £70  a  year.  It  was  computed  that  the  number  of  per- 
sons who  tilled  their  own  land  was  greater  than  the  number  of  those  who  farmed 
the  land  of  others."  Macaulay:  History  of  England,  10th  ed.,  1854,  I.  p.  333,334. 
Even  in  the  last  third  of  the  17th  century,  ^  of  the  English  people  were  agricul- 
ural.  (1.  c,  p.  413.)  I  quote  Macaulay,  because  as  systematic  falsifier  of  history  he 
minimises  as  much   as  possible   facts  of  this   kind. 

*  We  must  never  forget  that  even  the  serf  was  not  only  the  owner,  if  but  a 
tribute-paying  owner,  of  the  piece  of  land  attached  to  his  house,  but  also  a  co- 
possessor  of  the  common  land.     "Le  paysan  y  (in  Silesia,  under  Frederick  II.)  est 


Expropriation  of  Agricultural  Population.         789 

feudal  production  is  characterised  by  division  of  the  soil 
amongst  the  greatest  possible  number  of  sub-feudatories.  The 
might  of  the  feudal  lord,  like  that  of  the  sovereign,  depended 
not  on  the  length  of  his  rent  roll,  but  on  the  number  of  his 
subjects,  and  the  latter  depended  on  the  number  of  peasant 
proprietors.^  Although,  therefore,  the  English  land,  after  the 
Xorman  conquest,  was  distributed  in  gigantic  baronies,  one  of 
which  often  included  some  900  of  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  lord- 
ships, it  was  bestrewn  with  small  peasant  properties,  only  here 
and  there  interspersed  with  great  seignorial  domains.  Such 
conditions,  together  with  the  prosperity  of  the  towns  so  charac- 
teristic of  the  15th  century,  allowed  of  that  wealth  of  the 
people  which  Chancellor  Fortescue  so  eloquently  paints  in  his 
"Laudes  legum  Anglise;"  but  it  excluded  the  possibility  of 
capitalistic  wealth. 

The  prelude  of  the  revolution  that  laid  the  foundation  of 
the  capitalist  mode  of  production,  was  played  in  the  last  third 
of  the  15th,  and  the  first  decade  of  the  16th  century.  A  mass 
of  free  proletarians  was  hurled  on  the  labour-market  by  the 
breaking-up  of  the  bands  of  feudal  retainers,  who,  as  Sir  James 
Steuart  well  says,  "everywhere  uselessly  filled  house  and 
castle."  Although  the  royal  power,  itself  a  product  of  bour- 
geois development,  in  its  strife  after  absolute  sovereignty  for- 
cibly hastened  on  the  dissolution  of  these  bands  of  retainers, 
it  was  by  no  means  the  sole  cause  of  it.  In  insolent  conflict 
with  king  and  parliament,  the  great  feudal  lords  created  an 
incomparably  larger  proletariat  by  the  forcible  driving  of  the 
peasantry  from  the  land,  to  which  the  latter  had  the  same 
feudal  right  as  the  lord  himself,  and  by  the  usurpation  of  the 
common  lands.  The  rapid  rise  of  the  Flem^ish  wool  manufac- 
tures, and  the  corresponding  rise  in  the  price  of  wool  in  Eng- 
land, gave  the  direct  impulse  to  these  evictions.    The  old  nobil- 

serf."  Nevertheless,  these  serfs  possess  common  lands.  "On  n'  a  pas  pu  encore 
engager  les  Silesiens  au  partage  des  communes,  tandis  que  dans  la  Nouvellc  Marche, 
il  n'y  a  guere  de  village  ou  ce  partage  ne  soit  execute  avec  le  plus  grand  succes." 
(Mirabeau:  De  la  Monarchic  Prussienne.     Londres,  1788,  t.  ii.,  pp.  125,  126.) 

*  Japan,  with  its  purely  feudal  organisation  of  landed  property  and  its  developed 
petite  culture,  gives  a  much  truer  picture  of  the  European  middle  ages  than  all  our 
history  books,  dictated  as  these  are,  for  the  most  part,  by  bourgeois  prejudices.  It 
is  very  convenient  to  be  "liberal"  at  the  expense  of  the  middle  ages. 


790  Capitalist  Production. 

ity  had  been  devoured  by  the  great  feudal  wars.  The  new 
nobility  was  the  child  of  its  time,  for  which  money  was  the 
power  of  all  powers.  Transformation  of  arable  land  into 
sheep-walks  was,  therefore,  its  cry.  Harrison,  in  his  "Descrip- 
tion of  England,  prefixed  to  Holinshed's  Chronicle,"  describes 
how  the  expropriation  of  small  peasants  is  ruining  the  country. 
"What  care  our  great  encroachers  ?"  The  dwellings  of  the 
peasants  and  the  cottages  of  the  labourers  were  razed  to  the 
ground  or  doomed  to  decay.  '*If,"  says  Harrison,  "the  old 
records  of  euerie  manour  be  sought  ....  it  will  soon 
appear  that  in  some  manour  seventeene,  eighteene,  or  twentie 
houses  are  shrunk  ....  that  England  was  neuer  less  fur- 
nished with  people  than  at  the  present.  ...  Of  cities  and 
townes  either  utterly  decaied  or  more  than  a  quarter  or  half 
diminished,  though  some  one  be  a  little  increased  here  or  there ; 
of  townes  pulled  downe  for  sheepe-walks,  and  no  more  but  the 
lordships  now  standing  in  them  ....  I  could  sale  some- 
what." The  complaints  of  these  old  chroniclers  are  always 
exaggerated,  but  they  reflect  faithfully  the  impression  made 
on  contemporaries  by  the  revolution  in  the  conditions  of  prod- 
uction. A  comparison  of  the  writings  of  Chancellor  Fortescue 
and  Thomas  More  reveals  the  gulf  between  the  15th  and  16th 
century.  As  Thornton  rightly  has  it,  the  English  working- 
class  was  precipitated  without  any  transition  from  its  golden 
into  its  iron  age. 

Legislation  was  terrified  at  this  revolution.  It  did  not  yet 
stand  on  that  height  of  civilisation  where  the  "wealth  of  the 
nation"  (i.e.,  the  formation  of  capital,  and  the  reckless  ex- 
ploitation and  impoverishing  of  the  mass  of  the  people)  figure 
as  the  ultima,  Thule  of  all  state-craft.  In  his  history  of 
Henry  VII.,  Bacon  says:  "Inclosures  at  that  time  (1489) 
began  to  be  more  frequent,  whereby  arable  land  (which  could 
not  be  manured  without  people  and  families)  was  turned  into 
pasture,  which  was  easily  rid  by  a  few  herdsmen ;  and  tenan- 
cies for  years,  lives,  and  at  will  (whereupon  much  of  the  yeo- 
manry lived)  were  turned  into  demenses.  This  bred  a  decay 
of  people,  and  (by  consequence)  a  decay  of  towns,  churches, 
tithes,  and  the  like In  remedying  of  this  inconvenience 


Expropriation  of  Agricultural  Population.  791 

the  king's  wisdom  was  admirable,  and  the  parliament  at  that 
time  ....  they  took  a  course  to  take  away  depopulating  in- 
closures,  and  depopulating  pasturage."  An  Act  of  Henry 
VII.,  1489,  cap.  19,  forbad  the  destruction  of  all  "houses  of 
husbandry"  to  which  at  least  20  acres  of  land  belonged.  By 
an  Act,  25  Henry  VIII.,  the  same  law  was  renewed.  It  re- 
cites, among  other  things,  that  many  farms  and  large  flocks  of 
cattle,  especially  of  sheep,  are  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a 
few  men,  whereby  the  rent  of  land  has  much  risen  and  tillage 
has  fallen  off,  churches  and  houses  have  been  pulled  down,  and 
marvellous  numbers  of  people  have  been  deprived  of  the  means 
wherewith  to  maintain  themselves  and  their  families.  The 
Act,  therefore,  ordains  the  rebuilding  of  the  decayed  farm- 
steads, and  fixes  a  proportion  between  com  land  and  pasture 
land,  &c.  An  Act  of  1533  recites  that  some  owners  possess 
24,000  sheep,  and  limits  the  number  to  be  owned  to  2000.^ 
The  cry  of  the  people  and  the  legislation  directed,  for  150 
years  after  Henry  VII.,  against  the  appropriation  of  the 
small  farmers  and  peasants,  were  alike  fruitless.  The  secret 
of  their  inefficiency  Bacon,  without  knowing  it,  reveals  to  us. 
"The  device  of  King  Henry  VII.,"  says  Bacon,  in  his  "Essays, 
Civil  and  Moral,"  Essay  29,  "was  profound  and  admirable, 
in  making  farms  and  houses  of  husbandry  of  a  standard ;  that 
is,  maintained  with  such  a  proportion  of  land  unto  them  as 
may  breed  a  subject  to  live  in  convenient  plenty,  and  no  ser- 
vile condition,  and  to  keep  the  plough  in  the  hands  of  the 
owners  and  not  mere  hirelings."^     What  the  capital  system 

^  In  his  "Utopia,"  Thomas  More  says,  that  in  England  "your  shepe  that  were 
wont  to  be  so  meke  and  tame,  and  so  smal  eaters,  now,  as  I  heare  saye,  be  become  so 
great  devourers  and  so  wylde  that  they  eate  up,  and  swallow  downe,  the  very  men 
themselfes."     "Utopia,"    transl.    by    Robinson.,    ed.    Arber,    Lond.,    1869,    p.    41. 

*  Bacon  shows  the  connexion  between  a  free,  well-to-do  peasantry  and  good  in- 
fantry. "This  did  wonderfully  concern  the  might  and  mannerhood  of  the  kingdom 
to  have  farms  as  it  were  of  a  standard  sufficient  to  maintain  an  able  body  out  of 
penury,  and  did  in  effect  amortize  a  great  part  of  the  lands  of  the  kingdom  unto 
the  hold  and  occupation  of  the  yeomanry  or  middle  people,  of  a  condition  between 

gentlemen,    and    cottagers    and    peasants For    it   hath    been    held    by    the 

general  opinion  of  men  of  best  judgment  in  the  wars  ....  that  the  principal 
strength  of  an  army  consisteth  in  the  infantry  or  foot.  And  to  make  good  infantry 
it  requireth  men  bred,  not  in  a  servile  or  indigent  fashion,  but  in  some  free  and 
plentiful  manner.  Therefore,  if  a  state  run  most  to  noblemen  and  gentlemen,  and 
that   the   husbandmen   and    ploughmen   be   but   as   their    workfolk   and   labourers,   or 


J792  Capitalist  Production. 

uemanded  was,  on  the  other  hand,  a  degraded  and  almost 
servile  condition  of  the  mass  of  the  people,  the  transformation 
of  them  into  mercenaries,  and  of  their  means  of  labour  into 
capital.  During  this  rtansformation  period,  legislation  also 
strove  to  retain  the  4  acres  of  land  by  the  cottage  of  the  ag- 
ricultural wage-labourer,  and  forbad  him  to  take  lodgers  into 
his  cottage.  In  the  reign  of  James  I.  1627,  Roger  Crocker  of 
Front  Mill,  was  condemned  for  having  built  a  cottage  on 
the  manor  of  Front  Mill  without  4  acres  of  land  attached  to 
the  same  in  perpetuity.  As  late  as  Charles  I.'s  reign,  1038, 
a  royal  commission  was  appointed  to  enforce  the  carrying  out 
of  the  old  laws,  especially  that  referring  to  the  4  acres  of 
land.  Even  in  Cromwell's  time,  the  building  of  a  house  with- 
in 4  miles  of  London  was  forbidden  unless  it  w^as  endowed 
with  4  acres  of  land.  As  late  as  the  first  half  of  the  18th 
century  complaint  is  made  if  the  cottage  of  the  agricultural 
labourer  has  not  an  adjunct  of  one  or  two  acres  of  land.  Now- 
adays he  is  lucky  if  it  is  furnished  with  a  little  garden,  or 
if  he  may  rent,  far  away  from  his  cottage,  a  few  roods. 
"Landlords  and  farmers,"  says  Dr.  Hunter,  "work  here  hand 
in  hand.  A  few  acres  to  the  cottage  would  make  the  labourers 
ioo  independent."^ 

The  process  of  forcible  expropriation  of  the  people  received 
in  the  16th  century  a  new  and  frightful  impulse  from  the 
Reformation,  and  from  the  consequent  colossal  spoliation 
of  the  church  property.  The  Catholic  church  was,  at  the 
time  of  the  Reformation,  feudal  proprietor  of  a  great  part  of 
the  English  land.  The  suppression  of  the  monasteries,  &c., 
hurled  their  inmates  into  the  proletariat.  The  estates  of 
the  church  were  to  a  large  extent  given  away  to  rapacious 

else  mere  cottages   (wiiich  are  but   hous'd   beggars),   you  may   have  a  good  cavalry, 

bat  never  good  stable  bands  of  foot And  this  is  to  be  seen  in   France, 

and  Italy,  and  some  other  parts  abroad,  where  in  effect  all  is  noblesse  or  peasantry 
.  .  .  .  insomuch  that  they  are  inforced  to  employ  mercenary  bands  of  Switzers 
and  the  like,  for  their  battalions  of  foot;  whereby  also  it  comes  to  pass  that  those 
nations  have  much  people  and  few  soldiers."  ("The  Reign  of  Henry  VII."  Ver- 
batim   reprint    from    Rennet's    England.     Ed.    1719.     Lond.,    1870,    p.    308.) 

^  Dr.  Hunter,  1.  c,  p.  134.  "The  quantity  of  land  assigned  (in  the  old  laws) 
would  now  be  judged  too  great  for  labourers,  and  rather  as  likely  to  convert  them 
into  small  farmers."  (George  Roberts:  "The  Social  History  of  the  People  of  the 
Southern   Counties  of  England  in   past  centuries."     Lond.,   1856,   pp.    184-185.) 


Expropriation  of  Agricultural  Population.         793 

royal  favourites^  or  sold  at  a  nominal  price  to  speculating 
farmers  and  citizens,  who  drove  out,  en  masse,  the  hereditary 
sub-tenants  and  threw  their  holdings  into  one.  The  legally 
guaranteed  property  of  the  poorer  folk  in  a  part  of  the  church's 
tithes  was  tacitly  confiscated.^  "Pauper  ubique  jacet,"  cried 
Queen  Elizabeth,  after  a  journey  through  England.  In  the 
43rd  year  of  her  reign  the  nation  was  obliged  to  recognise 
pauperism  officially  by  the  introduction  of  a  poor-rate.  "The 
authors  of  this  law  seem  to  have  been  ashamed  to  state  the 
grounds  of  it,  for  [contrary  to  traditional  usage]  it  has  no  pre- 
amble whatever."^  By  the  16th  of  Charles  I.,  ch.  4,  it  was 
declared  perpetual,  and  in  fact  only  in  1834  did  it  take  a  new 
and  harsher  form.^  These  immediate  results  of  the  Reforma- 
tion  were  not  its  most  lasting  ones.     The  property  of  the 

*  "The  right  of  the  poor  to  share  in  the  tithe,  is  established  by  the  tenour  of  an- 
cient statutes."      (Tuckett,  1.  c.,  Vol.   II.,   pp.   804-805.) 

*  William   Cobbett:    "A    History    of   the    Protestant    Reformation,"    §   471. 

'  The  "spirit"  of  Protestantism  may  be  seen  from  the  following,  among  other 
things.  In  the  south  of  England  certain  landed  proprietors  and  well-to-do  farmers 
put  their  heads  together  and  propounded  ten  questions  as  to  the  right  interpretation 
of  the  poor-law  of  Elizabeth.  These  they  laid  before  a  celebrated  jurist  of  that 
time,  Sergeant  Snigge  (later  a  judge  under  James  I.)  for  his  opinion.  "Question 
9 — Some  of  the  more  wealthy  farmers  in  the  parish  have  devised  a  skilful  mode  by 
which  all  the  trouble  of  executing  this  Act  (the  43rd  of  Elizabeth)  might  be  avoided. 
They  have  proposed  that  we  shall  erect  a  prison  in  the  parish,  and  then  give  notice 
to  the  neighbourhood,  that  if  any  persons  are  disposed  to  farm  the  poor  of  this 
parish,  they  do  give  in  sealed  proposals,  on  a  certain  day,  of  the  lowest  price  at 
which  they  will  take  them  off  our  hands;  and  that  they  will  be  authorised  to  refuse 
to  any  one  unless  he  be  shut  up  in  the  aforesaid  prison.  The  proposers  of  this  plan 
conceive  that  there  will  be  found  in  the  adjoining  counties,  persons,  who,  being  un- 
willing to  labour  and  not  possessing  substance  or  credit  to  take  a  farm  or  ship,  so 
as  to  live  without  labour,  may  be  induced  to  make  a  very  advantageous  offer  to  the 
parish.  If  any  of  the  poor  perish  under  the  contractor's  care,  the  sin  will  lie  at 
his  door,  as  the  parish  will  have  done  its  duty  by  them.  We  are,  however,  apprehen- 
sive that  the  present  Act  (43rd  of  Elizabeth)  will  not  warrant  a  prudential  measure 
of  this  kind;  but  you  are  to  learn  that  the  rest  of  the  freeholders  of  the  county, 
and  of  the  adjoining  county  of  B,  will  very  readily  join  in  instructing  their  members 
to  propose  an  Act  to  enable  the  parish  to  contract  with  a  person  to  lock  up  and 
work  the  poor;  and  to  declare  that  if  any  person  shall  refuse  to  be  so  locked  up 
and  worked,  he  shall  be  entitled  to  no  relief.  This,  it  is  hoped,  will  prevent  per- 
sons in  distress  from  wanting  relief,  and  be  the  means  of  keeping  down  parishes." 
(R.  Blakey:  "The  History  of  Political  Literature  from  the  earliest  Times."  Lond., 
1855,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  84-85.)  In  Scotland,  the  abolition  of  serfdom  took  place  some 
centuries  later  than  in  England.  Even  in  1C98,  Fletclier  of  Saltoun,  declared  in  the 
Scotch  parliament,  "The  number  of  beggars  in  Scotland  is  reckoned  at  not  less  than 
200,000.  The  only  remedy  that  I,  a  republican  on  principle  can  suggest,  is  to  restore 
the  old  state  of  .serfdom,  to  make  slaves  of  all  those  who  are  unable  to  provide  for 
their  own  subsistence."  Eden,  1.  c.  Book  I.,  ch.  1,  pp.  60-61,  says,  "The  decrease  of 
villenagc  seems  necessarily  to  hsve  been   the  era  of  the  origin   of  the  poor.     Manu- 


794  Capitalist  Production. 

church  formed  the  religious  bulwark  of  the  traditional  condi- 
tions of  landed  property.  With  its  fall  these  were  no  longer 
tenable.^ 

Even  in  the  last  decade  of  the  17th  century,  the  yeomanry, 
the  class  of  independent  peasants,  were  more  numerous  than 
the  class  of  farmers.  They  had  formed  the  backbone  of  Crom- 
well's strength,  and,  even  according  to  the  confession  of 
Macaulay,  stood  in  favourable  contrast  to  the  drunken  squires 
and  to  their  servants,  the  country  clergy,  who  had  to  marry 
their  master's  cast-off  mistresses.  About  1Y50,  the  yeomanry 
had  disappeared,^  and  so  had,  in  the  last  decade  of  the  ISth 
century,  the  last  trace  of  the  common  land  of  the  agricultural 
labourer.  We  leave  on  one  side  here  the  purely  economic 
causes  of  the  agricultural  revolution.  We  deal  only  with  the 
forcible  means  employed. 

After  the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts,  the  landed  proprietors 
carried,  by  legal  means,  an  act  of  usurpation,  effected  every- 
where on  the  Continent  without  any  legal  formality.  They 
abolished  the  feudal  tenure  of  land,  i.e.,  they  got  rid  of  all 
its  obligations  to  the  State,  "indemnified"  the  State  by  taxes 
on  the  peasantry  and  the  rest  of  the  mass  of  the  people,  vindi- 
cated for  themselves  the  rights  of  modem  private  property  in 
estates  to  which  they  had  only  a  feudal  title,  and,  finally, 
passed  those  laws  of  settlement,  which,  rmduiis  rmdandis,  had 
the  same  effect  on  the  English  agricultural  labourer,  as  the 

factures  and  commerce  are  the  two  parents  of  our  national  poor."  Eden,  like  our 
Scotch  republican  on  principle,  errs  only  in  this:  not  the  abolition  of  villenage,  but 
the  abolition  of  the  property  of  the  agricultural  labourer  in  the  soil  made  him  a 
proletarian,  and  eventually  a  pauper.  In  France,  where  the  expropriation  was 
effected  in  another  way,  the  ordonnance  of  Moulins,  1571,  and  the  Edict  of  1656, 
correspond  to  the  English  poor-laws. 

*  Professor  Rogers,  although  formerly  Professor  of  Political  Economy  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Oxford,  the  hotbed  of  Protestant  orthodoxy,  in  his  preface  to  the  "History 
of  Agriculture"  lays  stress  on  the  fact  of  the  pauperisation  of  the  mass  of  the  people 
by  the  Reformation. 

*  A  letter  to  Sir  T.  C.  Banbury,  Bart.,  on  the  High  Price  of  Provisions.  By  a 
Suffolk  Gentleman.  Ipswich,  1795,  p.  i.  Even  the  fanatical  advocate  of  the  system 
of  large  farms,  the  author  of  the  "Inquiry  into  the  connection  of  large  farms,  etc., 
London,  1773,"  p.  133,  says:  "I  most  lament  the  loss  of  our  yeomanry,  that  set  of 
men  who  really  kept  up  the  independence  of  this  nation;  and  sorry  I  am  to  see  their 
lands  now  in  the  hands  of  monopolizing  lords,  tenanted  out  to  small  farmers,  who 
hold  their  leases  on  such  conditions  as  to  be  little  better  than  vassals  ready  to  attend 
a  summons  on  every  mischievous  occasion." 


Expropriation  of  Agricultural  Population.  795 

edict  of  the  Tartar  Boris  Godunof  on  the  Russian  peasantry. 
The  "glorious  Revolution"  brought  into  power,  along  with 
William  of  Orange,  the  landlord  and  capitalist  appropriators 
of  surplus-value.^  They  inaugurated  the  new  era  by  practis- 
ing on  a  colossal  scale  thefts  of  state  lands,  thefts  that  had  been 
hitherto  managed  more  modestly.  These  estates  were  given 
away,  sold  at  a  ridiculous  figure,  or  even  annexed  to  private  es- 
tates by  direct  seizure.^  All  this  happened  without  the  slight- 
est observation  of  legal  etiquette.  The  crown  lands  thus 
fraudulently  appropriated,  together  with  the  robbery  of  the 
Church  estates,  as  far  as  these  had  not  been  lost  again  during 
the  republican  revolution,  form  the  basis  of  the  to-day  princely 
domains  of  the  English  oligarchy.^  The  bourgeois  capitalists 
favoured  the  operation  with  the  view,  among  others,  to  pro- 
moting free  trade  in  land,  to  extending  the  domain  of  modern 
agriculture  on  the  large  farm-system,  and  to  increasing  their 
supply  of  the  free  agricultural  proletarians  ready  to  hand. 
Besides,  the  new  landed  aristocracy  was  the  natural  ally  of 
the  new  bankocracy,  of  the  newly-hatched  haute  -finance,  and 
of  the  large  manufacturers,  then  depending  on  protective 
duties.  The  English  bourgeoisie  acted  for  its  own  interest 
quite  as  wisely  as  did  the  Swedish  bourgeoisie  who,  reversing 
the  process,  hand  in  hand  with  their  economic  allies,  the 
peasantry,  helped  the  kings  in  the  forcible  resumption  of  the 
Crown  lands  from  the  oligarchy.  This  happened  since  1604 
under  Charles  X.  and  Charles  XI. 

Communal  property^always  distinct  from  the  State  prop- 

'  On  the  private  moral  character  of  this  bourgeois  hero,  among  other  things: 
"The  large  grant  of  lands  in  Ireland  to  Lady  Orkney,  in  1695,  is  a  public  instance  of 
the  king's  affection,  and  the  lady's  influence.  .  .  .  Lady  Orkney's  endearing 
offices  are  supposed  to  have  been— fceda  labiorum  ministeria."  (In  the  Sloanc  Manu- 
script Collection,  at  the  British  Museum,  No.  4224.  The  Manuscript  is  entitled: 
"The  charakter  and  behaviour  of  King  William,  Sunderland,  etc.,  as  represented  in 
Original  Letters  to  the  Duke  of  Shrewsbury,  from  Somers  Halifax,  Oxford,  Secre- 
tary Vernon,   etc."     It  is   full   of   curiosa.) 

^  "The  illegal  alienation  of  the  Crown  Estates,  partly  by  sale  and  partly  by  gift,  is 
a  scandalous  chapter  in  English  history  ...  a  gigantic  fraud  on  the  nation." 
(F.  W.  Newman,  Lectures  on  Political  Economy.  London,  1851,  pp.  129,  130.) 
[For  details  as  to  how  the  present  large  landed  proprietors  of  England  came  into 
their  possessions  see  "Our  Old  Nobility.     By  Noblesse  Oblige."     London,  1879. — Ed.] 

*  Read  e.g.,  E.  Burke's  Pamphlet  on  the  ducal  house  of  Bedford,  whose  offshoot 
was  Lord  John   Russell,  the  "tomtit  of   Liberalism." 


796  Capitalist  Production. 

erty  just  dealt  with — ^was  an  old  Teutonic  institution  which 
lived  on  under  cover  of  feudalism.  We  have  seen  how  the 
forcible  usurpation  of  this,  generally  accompanied  by  the  turn- 
ing of  arable  into  pasture  land,  begins  at  the  end  of  the  15th 
and  extends  into  the  16th  century.  But,  at  that  time,  the 
process  was  carried  on  by  means  of  individual  acts  of  violence 
against  which  legislation,  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  fought 
in  vain.  The  advance  made  by  the  18th  century  shows  itself 
in  this,  that  the  law  itself  becomes  now  the  instrument  of 
the  theft  of  the  people's  land,  although  the  large  farmers  make 
use  of  their  little  independent  methods  as  well.^  The  parlia- 
mentary form  of  the  robbery  is  that  of  Acts  for  enclosures  of 
Commons,  in  other  words,  decrees  by  which  the  landlords 
grant  themselves  the  people's  land  as  private  property,  decrees 
of  expropriation  of  the  people.  Sir  F.  M.  Eden  refutes  his 
own  crafty  special  pleading,  in  which  he  tries  to  represent  com- 
munal property  as  the  private  property  of  the  great  landlords 
who  have  taken  the  place  of  the  feudal  lords,  when  he,  him- 
self, demands  a  "general  "Act  of  Parliament  for  the  enclosure 
of  Commons,"  (admitting  thereby  that  a  parliamentary  co^lp 
d'etat  is  necessary  for  its  transformation  into  private  prop- 
erty), and  moreover  calls  on  the  legislature  for  the  indemnifi- 
cation for  the  expropriated  poor.^ 

Whilst  the  place  of  the  independent  yeoman  was  taken  by 
tenants  at  will,  small  farmers  on  yearly  leases,  a  servile  -rabble 
dependent  on  the  pleasure  of  the  landlords,  the  "systematic 
robbery  of  the  Communal  lands  helped  especially,  next  to 
the  theft  of  the  State  domains,  to  swell  those  large  farms,  that 
were  called  in  the  18th.  century  capital  farms^  or  merchant 
farms,*  and  to  "set  free"  the  agricultural  populations  as  prole- 
tarians for  manufacturing  industry. 

*  "The  farmers  forbid  cottagers  to  keep  any  living  creatures  besides  themselves 
and  children,  under  the  pretence  that  if  they  keep  any  beasts  or  poultry,  they  will 
steal  from  the  farmers'  barns  for  their  support;  they  also  say,  keep  the  cottagers  poor 
and  you  will  keep  them  industrious,  &c.,  but  the  real  fact,  I  believe,  is  that  the 
farmers  may  have  the  whole  right  of  common  to  themselves."  (A  Political  Inquiry 
into  the  consequences  of  enclosing  Waste  Lands.     London,  1785  p.  75.) 

*  Eden,  1.  c.   preface. 

*  "Capital  Farms."  Two  letters  on  the  Flour  Trade  and  the  Dearness  of  Corn. 
By  a  person  in  business.     London,  1767,  pp.  19,  20. 

*  "Merchant    Farms."     An   inquiry   into   the    present    High    Prices   of    Provisions. 


Expropriation  of  Agricultural  Population.  797 

The  18tli  century,  however,  did  not  yet  recognise  as  fully  as 
the  19th,  the  identity  between  national  wealth  and  the  poverty 
of  the  people.  Hence  the  most  vigorous  polemic,  in  the  eco- 
nomic literature  of  that  time,  on  the  "enclosure  of  commons." 
From  the  mass  of  materials  that  lie  before  me,  I  give  a  few 
extracts  that  will  throw  a  strong  light  on  the  circumstances 
of  the  time.  "In  several  parishes  of  Hertfordshire,"  writes 
one  indignant  person,  "24  farms,  numbering  on  the  average 
50-150  acres,  have  been  melted  up  into  three  farms."^  "In 
Northamptonshire  and  Leicestershire  the  enclosure  of  common 
lands  has  taken  place  on  a  very  large  scale,  and  most  of  the 
new  lordships,  resulting  from  the  enclosure,  have  been  turned 
into  pasturage,  in  consequence  of  which  many  lordships  have 
not  now  50  acres  ploughed  yearly,  in  which  1500  were 
ploughed  formerly.  The  ruins  of  former  dwelling-houses, 
bams,  stables,  &c.,"  are  the  sole  traces  of  the  former  inhabi- 
tants. "An  hundred  houses  and  families  have  in  some  open 
field  villages  ....  dwindled  to  eight  or  ten  ....  The  land- 
holders in  most  parishes  that  have  been  enclosed  only  15  or  20 
years,  are  very  few  in  comparison  of  the  numbers  who  occupied 
them  in  their  open-field  state.  It  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  4 
or  5  wealthy  graziers  to  engross  a  large  enclosed  lorship  which 
was  before  in  the  hands  of  20  or  30  farmers,  and  as  many 
smaller  tenants  and  proprietors.  All  these  are  hereby  thrown 
out  of  their  livings  with  their  families  and  many  other  families 
who  were  chiefly  employed  and  supported  by  them."^  It  was 
not  only  the  land  that  lay  waste,  but  often  land  cultivated 
either  in.  common  or  held  under  a  definite  rent  paid  to  the 
community,  that  was  annexed  by  the  neighbouring  landlords 
under  pretext  of  enclosure.  "I  have  here  in  view  enclosures 
of  open  fields  and  lands  already  improved.  It  is  acknowledged 
by  even  the  writers  in  defence  of  enclosures  that  these  di- 
minished villages  increase  the  monopolies  of  farms,  raise  the 

London,  1767,  p.  11.  Note. — This  excellent  work,  that  was  published  anonymously, 
is  by  the  Rev.   Nathaniel  Forstcr. 

^Thomas  Wright:  A  short  address  to  the  public  on  the  monopoly  of  large  farms, 
1779,  pp.  2,  3. 

*  Rev.  Addington:  Inquiry  into  the  reasons  for  or  against  enclosing  open  fields. 
London,   1772,  pp.  37,  43  passim. 


798  Capitalist  Production. 

prices  of  provisions,  and  produce  depopulation  .  .  .  .  and 
even  the  enclosure  of  waste  lands  (as  now  carried  on)  bears 
hard  on  the  poor,  by  depriving  them  of  a  part  of  their  subsist- 
ence, and  only  goes  towards  increasing  farms  already  too 
large.  ^  "When,"  says  Dr.  Price,  "this  land  gets  into  the 
hands  of  a  few  great  farmers,  the  consequence  must  be  that  the 
little  farmers"  (earlier  designated  by  him  "a  multitude  of  lit- 
tle proprietors  and  tenants,  who  maintain  themselves  and 
families  by  the  produce  of  the  ground  they  occupy  by  sheep 
kept  on  a  common,  by  poultry,  hogs,  &c.,  and  who  therefore 
have  little  occasion  to  purchase  any  of  the  means  of  subsist- 
ence") "will  be  converted  into  a  body  of  men  who  earn  their 
subsistence  by  working  for  others,  and  who  will  be  under  a  ne- 
cessity of  going  to  market  for  all  they  want  ....  There  will, 
perhaps,  be  more  labour,  because  there  will  be  more  compulsion 
to  it  ...  .  Towns  and  manufacturers  will  increase,  because 
more  will  be  driven  to  them  in  quest  of  places  and  employment. 
This  is  the  way  in  which  the  engrossing  of  farms  naturally 
operates.  And  this  is  the  way  in  which,  for  many  years,  it 
has  been  actually  operating  in  this  kingdom.^  He  sums  up  the 
effect  of  the  enclosures  thus:  "Upon  the  whole,  the  circum- 
stances of  the  lower  ranks  of  men  are  altered  in  almost  every 
respect  for  the  worse.  From  little  occupiers  of  land,  they  are 
reduced  to  the  state  of  day-labourers  and  hirelings ;  and,  at  the 
same  time,  their  subsistence  in  that  state  has  become  more  dif- 
ficult."^    In  fact^  usurpation  of  the  common  lands  and  the 

*  Dr.  R.  Price,  1.  c,  v.  ii.,  p.  155,  Forster,  Addington,  Kent,  Price,  and  James 
Anderson,  should  be  read  and  compared  with  the  miserable  prattle  of  Sycophant 
MacCulloch  in  his  catalogue:     The  Literature  of  Political  Economy,  London,  1845. 

« Price,  1.  c,  p.   147. 

•  Price,  1.  c,  p.  159.  We  are  reminded  of  ancient  Rome.  "The  rich  had  got  pos- 
session of  the  greater  part  of  the  undivided  land.  They  trusted  in  the  conditions 
of  the  time,  that  these  possessions  would  not  be  again  taken  from  them,  and  bought, 
therefore,  some  of  the  pieces  of  land  lying  near  theirs,  and  belonging  to  the  poor, 
with  the  acquiescence  of  their  owners,  and  took  some  by  force,  so  that  they  now 
were  cultivating  widely  extended  domains,  instead  of  isolated  fields.  Then  they 
employed  slaves  in  agriculture  and  cattle-breeding,  because  freemen  would  have  been 
taken  from  labour  for  military  service.  The  possession  of  slaves  brought  them  great 
gain,  inasmuch  as  these,  on  account  of  their  immunity  from  military  service,  could, 
freely  multiply  and  have  a  multitude  of  children.  Thus  the  powerful  men  drew  all 
wealth  to  themselves,  and  all  the  land  swarmed  with  slaves.  The  Italians,  on  the 
other  hand,  were  always  decreasing  in  number,  destroyed  as  they  were  by  poverty, 
taxes,  and  military  service.     Even  when  times  of  peace  came,  they  were  doomed  to 


Expropriation  of  Agricultural  Population.         799 

revolution  in  agriculture  accompanying  this,  told  so  acutely  on 
the  agricultural  labourers  that,  even  according  to  Eden,  be- 
tween 1765  and  1780,  their  wages  began  to  fall  below  the  mini- 
mum, and  to  be  supplemented  by  official  poor-law  relief. 
Their  wages,  he  says,  ''were  not  more  than  enough  for  the  abso- 
lute necessaries  of  life." 

Let  us  hear  for  a  moment  a  defender  of  enclosures  and  an 
opponent  of  Dr.  Price.  "I^or  is  it  a  consequence  that  there 
must  be  depopulation,  because  men  are  not  seen  wasting  their 
labour  in  the  open  field  ....  If,  by  converting  the  little 
farmers  into  a  body  of  men  who  must  work  for  others,  more 
labour  is  produced,  it  is  an  advantage  which  the  nation"  (to 
which,  of  course,  the  "converted"  ones  do  not  belong)  "should 
wish  for  ....  the  produce  being  greater  when  their  joint 
labours  are  employed  on  one  farm,  there  will  be  a  surplus  for 
manufactures,  and  by  this  means  manufactures,  one  of  the 
mines  of  the  nation,  will  increase,  in  proportion  to  the  quantity 
of  com  produced."^ 

The  stoical  peace  of  mind  with  which  the  political  economist 
regards  the  most  shameless  violation  of  the  "sacred  rights  of 
property"  and  the  grossest  acts  of  violence  to  persons,  as  soon 
as  they  are  necessary  to  lay  the  foundations  of  the  capitalistic 
mode  of  production,  is  shown  by  Sir.  F.  M.  Eden,  philanthro- 
pist and  tory,  to  boot.  The  whole  series  of  thefts,  outrages, 
and  popular  misery,  that  accompanied  the  forcible  expropria- 
tion of  the  people,  from  the  last  third  of  the  15th  to  the  end  of 
the  18th  century,  lead  him  merely  to  the  comfortable  conclu- 
sion: "The  due  proportion  between  arable  land  and  pasture 
had  to  be  established.  During  the  whole  of  the  14th  and  the 
greater  part  of  the  15th  century,  there  was  one  acre  of  pasture 

complete  inactivity,  because  the  rich  were  in  possession  of  the  soil,  and  used  slaves 
instead  of  free  men  in  the  tilling  of  it."  (Appian:  Civil  Wars,  I.  7.)  This  pas- 
sage refers  to  the  time  before  the  Licinian  rogations.  Military  service,  which  has- 
tened to  so  great  an  extent  the  ruin  of  the  Roman  plebeians,  was  also  the  chief 
means  by  which,  as  in  a  forcing-house,  Charlemagne  brought  about  the  transforma- 
tion of  free  German  peasants  into  serfs  and  bondsmen. 

*  An  Inquiry  into  the  Connection  between  the  Present  Prices  of  Provisions,  &c.,  p. 
124,  129.  To  the  like  effect,  but  with  an  opposite  tendency:  "Working-men  are 
driven  from  their  cottages  and  forced  into  the  towns  to  seek  for  employment;  but 
then  a  larger  surplus  is  obtained,  and  thus  capital  is  augmented."  (The  Perils  of 
the  Nation,  2nd  ed.     London.  1843,  p.  14.) 


Soo  Capitalist  Production. 

to  2,  3  and  even  4  of  arable  land.  About  the  middle  of  the 
16th  century  the  proportion  was  changed  to  2  acres  of  pasture 
to  2,  later  on,  of  2  acres  of  pasture  to  one  of  arable,  until  at 
last  the  just  proportion  of  3  acres  of  pasture  to  one  of  arable 
land  was  attained." 

In  the  19th  century,  the  very  memory  of  the  connexion 
Ixjtween  the  agricultural  labourer  and  tlie  communal  property 
had,  of  course,  vanished.  To  say  nothing  of  more  recent  times, 
have  the  agricultural  population  received  a  farthing  of  com- 
pensation for  the  3,511, Y70  acres  of  common  land  which  be- 
tween 1801  and  1831  were  stolen  from  them  and  by  parlia- 
mentary devices  presented  to  the  landlords  by  the  landlords  ? 

The  last  process  of  wholesale  expropriation  of  the  agricul- 
tural population  from  the  soil  is,  finally,  the  so-called  clearing 
of  estates,  i.e.^  the  sweeping  men  off  them.  All  the  English 
methods  hitherto  considered  culminated  in  "clearing."  As 
we  saw  in  the  picture  of  modem  conditions  given  in  a  former 
chapter,  where  there  are  no  more  independent  peasants  to  get 
rid  of,  the  "clearing"  of  cottages  begins ;  so  that  the  agricul- 
tural labourers  do  not  find  on  the  soil  cultivated  by  them  even 
the  spot  necessary  for  their  own  housing.  But  what  "clearing 
of  estates"  really  and  properly  signifies,  we  learn  only  in,  the 
promised  land  of  modern  romance,  the  Highlands  of  Scotland. 
There  the  process  is  distinguished  by  its  systematic  character, 
by  the  magnitude  of  the  scale  on  which  it  is  carried  out  at  one 
blow  (in  Ireland  landlords  have  gone  to  the  length  of  sweeping 
away  several  villages  at  once;  in  Scotland  areas  as  large  as 
German  principalities  are  dealt  with),  finally  by  the  pecu- 
liar form  of  property,  under  which  the  embezzled  lands  were 
held. 

The  Highland  Celts  were  organised  in  clans,  each  of  which, 
was  the  owner  of  the  land  on  which  it  was  settled.  The 
representative  of  the  clan,  its  chief  or  "great  man,"  was  only 
the  titular  owner  of  this  property,  just  as  the  Queen  of  Eng- 
land is  the  titular  owner  of  all  the  national  soil.  When  the 
English  government  succeeded  in  suppressing  the  intestine 
wars  of  these  "great  men,"  and  their  constant  incursions  into 
the  Lowland  plains,  the  chiefs  of  the  clans  by  no  means  gave 


Expropriation  of  Agricultural  Population.  80 1 

up  their  time-honoured  trade  as  robbers ;  they  only  changed  its 
form.  On  their  own  authority  they  transformed  their  nominal 
right  into  a  right  of  private  property,  and  as  this  brought 
them  into  collision  -with  their  clansmen,  resolved  to  drive  them 
out  by  open  force.  "A  king  of  England  might  as  well  claim 
to  drive  his  subjects  into  the  sea,"  says  Professor  Newman.^ 
This  revolution,  which  began  in  Scotland  after  the  last  rising 
of  the  followers  of  the  Pretender,  can  be  followed  through  its 
first  phases  in  the  writings  of  Sir  James  Steuart^  and  James 
Anderson.^  In  the  18th  century  the  hunted-out  Gaels  were 
forbidden  to  emigrate  from  the  country,  with  a  view  to  driv- 
ing them  by  force  to  Glasgow  and  other  manufacturing  towns.* 
As  an  example  of  the  method^  obtaining  in  the  19th  century, 
the  "clearing"  made  by  the  Duchess  of  Sutherland  will  suf- 
fice here.     This  person,  well  instructed  in  economy,  resolved, 

*1.  c,  p.  132. 

*  Steuart  says :  "If  you  compare  the  rent  of  these  lands"  (he  erroneously  includes 
in  this  economic  category  the  tribute  of  the  taskmen  to  the  clan-chief)  "with  the 
extent,  it  appears  very  small.  If  you  compare  it  with  the  numbers  fed  upon  the 
farm,  you  will  find  that  an  estate  in  the  Highlands  maintains,  perhaps,  ten  times 
as  many  people  as  another  of  the  same  value  in  a  good  and  fertile  province."  (1.  c., 
vol.  i.,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  104.) 

*  James  Anderson :  Observations  on  the  means  of  exciting  a  spirit  of  National 
Industry,   &c.     Edinburgh,  1777. 

*  In  1860  the  people  expropriated  by  force  were  exported  to  Canada  under  false 
pretences.  Some  fled  to  the  mountains  and  neighbouring  islands.  They  were  fol- 
lowed by  the  police,  came  to  blows  with  them  and  escaped. 

*  "In  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,"  says  Buchanan,  the  commentator  on  Adam 
Smith,  1814,  "the  ancient  state  of  property  is  daily  subverted.  .  .  .  The  land- 
lord, without  regard  to  the  hereditary  tenant  (a  category  used  in  error  here),  now 
offers  his  land  to  the  highest  bidder,  who,  if  he  is  an  improver,  instantly  adopts  a  new 
system  of  cultivation.  The  land,  formerly  overspread  with  small  tenants  or  labourers, 
was  peopled  in  proportion  to  its  produce,  but  under  the  new  system  of  improved 
cultivation  and  increased  rents,  the  largest  possible  produce  is  obtained  at  the  least 
possible  expense :  and  the  useless  hands  being,  with  this  view,  removed,  the  popula- 
tion is  reduced,  not  to  what  the  land  will  maintain,  but  to  what  it  will  employ.  The 
dispossessed  tenants  either  seek  a  subsistence  in  the  neighbouring  towns,"  &c. 
(David  Buchanan :  Observations  on,  &c.,  A.  Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations.  Edinburgh, 
1814,  vol.  iv.,  p.  144.)  "The  Scotch  grandees  dispossessed  families  as  they  would 
grub  up  coppice-wood,  and  they  treated  villages  and  their  people  as  Indians  harassed 
with  wild  beasts  do,  in  their  vengeance,  a  jungle  with  tigers.  .  .  .  Man  is  bar- 
tered for  a  fleece  or  a  carcase  of  mutton,  nay,  held  cheaper.  .  .  .  Why,  how 
much  worse  is  it  than  the  intention  of  the  Moguls,  who,  when  they  had  broken 
into  the  northern  provinces  of  China,  proposed  in  council  to  exterminate  the  in- 
habitants, and  convert  the  land  into  pasture.  This  proposal  many  Highland  pro- 
prietors have  effected  in  their  ovr.  country  against  their  own  countrymen."  (Georgo 
Ensor:  An  inquiry  concerning  be  population  of  nations.  Lond.,  1818,  pp.  215, 
216.) 

2Y 


8o2  Capitalist  Production. 

on  entering  upon  her  governmesnt,  to  effect  a  radical  cure,  and 
to  turn  the  whole  country,  whose  population  liad  already  been, 
by  earlier  processes  of  the  like  kind,  reduced  to  15,000,  into 
a  sheep-walk.  From  1814  to  1820  these  15,000  inhabitants, 
about  3000  families,  were  systematically  hunted  and  rooted 
out.  All  their  villages  were  destroyed  and  burnt,  all  their 
fields  turned  into  pasturage.  British  soldiers  enforced  this 
eviction,  and  came  to  blows  with  the  inhabitants.  One  old 
woman  was  burnt  to  death  in  the  flames  of  tlie  hut,  which 
she  refused  to  leave.  Thus  this  fine  lady  appropriated  794,- 
000  acres  of  land  that  had  from  time  immemorial  belonged 
to  the  clan.  She  assigned  to  the  expelled  inhabitants  about 
6000  acres  on  the  sea-shore — 2  acres  per  family.  The  6000 
acres  had  until  this  time  lain  waste,  and  brought  in  no  in- 
come to  their  owners.  The  Duchess,  in  the  nobility  of  her 
heart,  actually  went  so  far  as  to  let  these  at  an  average  rent 
of  2s.  6d.  per  acre  to  the  clansmen,  who  for  centuries  had 
shed  their  blood  for  her  family.  The  whole  of  the  stolen 
clan-land  she  divided  into  29  great  sheep  farms,  each  inhabited 
by  a  single  family,  for  the  most  part  imported  English  farm- 
servants.  In  the  year  1835  the  15,000  Gaels  were  already 
replaced  by  131,000  sheep.  The  remnant  of  the  aborigines 
flung  on  the  sea-shore,  tried  to  live  by  catching  fish.  They 
became  amphibious  and  lived,  as  an  English  author  says,  half 
on  land  and  half  on  water,  and  withal  only  half  on  both.^ 

But  the  brave  Gael's  must  expiate  yet  more  bitterly  their 
idolatry,  romantic  and  of  the  mountains,  for  the  "great  men" 
of  the  clan.  The  smell  of  their  fish  rose  to  the  noses  of  the 
great  men.  They  scented  some  profit  in  it,  and  let  the  sea- 
shore to  the  great  fishmongers  of  London.  For  the  second 
time  the  Gaels  were  hunted  out.^ 

'  When  the  present  Duchess  of  Sutherland  entertained  Mrs.  Beecher  Stowe,  au- 
thoress of  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  with  great  magnificence  in  London,  to  show  her 
sympathy  for  the  negro  slaves  of  the  American  republic — a  sympathy  that  she  pru- 
dently forgot,  with  her  fellow-aristocrats,  during  the  civil  war,  in  which  every 
."noble"  English  heart  beat  for  the  slave-owner — I  gave  in  the  "New  York  Tribune" 
the  facts  about  the  Sutherland  slaves.  (Epitomised  in  part  by  Carey  in  The  Slave 
Trade.  London,  1853,  p.  202,  203.)  My  article  was  reprinted  in  a  Scotch  news- 
paper, and  led  to  a  pretty  polemic  between  the  latter  and  the  sycophants  of  the 
Sutherlands. 

'  Interesting   details   on   this   fish   trade   will   be   found   in   Mr.    David   Urqubart's 


Expropriation  of  Agricultural  Population.         803 

But,  finally,  part  of  the  sheep-walks  are  turned  into  deer 
preserves.  Every  one  knows  that  there  are  no  real  forests 
in  England.  The  deer  in  the  parks  of  the  great  are  demurely 
domestic  cattle,  fat  as  London  aldermen.  Scotland  is  there- 
fore the  last  refuge  of  the  "noble  passion."  "In  the  High- 
lands," says  Somers  in  1848,  "new  forests  are  springing  up 
like  mushrooms.  Here,  on  one  side  of  Gaick,  you  have  the 
new  forest  of  Glenfeshie ;  and  there  on  the  other  you  have  the 
new  forest  of  Ardverikie.  In  the  same  line  you  have  the 
Black  Mount,  an  immense  waste  also  recently  erected.  From 
east  to  west — from  the  neighbourhood  of  Aberdeen  to  the 
crags  of  Oban — you  have  now  a  continuous  line  of  forests; 
while  in  other  parts  of  the  Highlands  there  are  the  new  for- 
ests of  Loch  Archaig,  Glengarry,  Glenmoriston,  &c.  Sheep 
were  introduced  into  glens  which  had  been  the  seats  of  com- 
munities of  small  farmers ;  and  the  latter  were  driven  to  seek 
subsistence  on  coarser  and  more  sterile  tracks  of  soil.  Now 
deer  are  supplanting  sheep;  and  these  are  once  more  dispos- 
sessing the  small  tenants,  who  will  necessarily  be  driven  down 
upon  still  coarser  land  and  to  more  grinding  penury.  Deer 
forests^  and  the  people  cannot  co-exist.  One  or  other  of  the 
two  must  yield.  Let  the  forests  be  increased  in  number  and 
extent  during  the  next  quarter  of  a  century,  as  they  have  been 
in  the  last,  and  the  Gaels  will  perish  from  their  native  soil. 
.  .  .  This  movement  among  the  Highland  proprietors  is 
witli  some  a  matter  of  ambition.  .  .  .  with  some  love  of 
sport.  .  .  .  while  others,  of  a  more  practical  cast,  follow 
the  trade  in  deer  with  an  eye  solely  to  profit.  For  it  is  a  fact, 
that  a  mountain  range  laid  out  in  forest  is,  in  many  cases, 
more  profitable  to  the  proprietor  than  when  let  as  a  sheep  walk. 
.  .  .  The  huntsman  who  wants  a  deer-forest  limits  his 
offers  by  no  other  calculation  than  the  extent  of  his  purse. 
.     .     .     Sufferings    have    been    inflicted    in    the    Highlands 

Portfolio,  new  series. — Nassau  W.  Senior,  in  his  posthumous  work,  already  quoted, 
terms  "the  proceedings  in  Sutherlandshire  one  of  the  most  beneficent  clearings  since 
the   memory   of   man."      (1.   c.) 

*  The  deer-forests  of  Scotland  contain  not  a  single  tree.  The  sheep  are  driven 
from,  and  then  the  deer  driven  to,  the  naked  hills,  and  then  it  is  called  a  deci 
forest.     Not  even  timber-planting  and  real  forest  culture. 


8o4  Capitalist  Production. 

scarcely  less  severe  than  those  occasioned  by  the  policy  of  the 
Norman  kings.  Deer  have  received  extended  ranges,  while 
men  have  been  hunted  within  a  narrower  and  still  narrower 
circle.  .  .  .  One  after  one  the  liberties  of  the  people  have 
been  cloven  down.  .  .  .  And  the  oppressions  are  daily  on 
the  increase.  .  .  .  •  The  clearance  and  dispersion  of  the 
people  is  pursued  by  the  proprietors  as  a  settled  principle,  as 
an  agricultural  necessity,  just  as  trees  and  brushwood  are 
cleared  from  the  wastes  of  America  or  Australia ;  and  the  op- 
eration goes  on  in  a  quiet,  business-like  way,  &c."^ 

*  Robert  Somers:  Letters  from  the  Highlands:  or  the  Famine  of  1847.  London 
1848,  pp.  12-28  passim.  These  letters  originally  appeared  in  the  "Times."  The  Eng- 
lish economists  of  course  explained  the  famine  of  the  Gaels  in  1847,  by  their  over- 
population. At  all  events,  they  "were  pressing  on  their  food-supply."  The  "clear- 
ing of  estates,"  or  as  it  is  called  in  Germany  "Bauernlegen,"  occurred  in  Germany 
especially  after  the  30  years'  war,  and  led  to  peasant-revolts  as  late  as  1790  in 
Kursachsen.  It  obtained  especially  in  East  Germany.  In  most  of  the  Prussian 
provinces,  Frederick  II.  for  the  first  time  secured  right  of  property  for  the  peasants. 
After  the  conquest  of  Silesia  he  forced  the  landlords  to  rebuild  the  huts,  barns,  etc., 
and  to  provide  the  peasants  with  cattle  and  implements.  He  wanted  soldiers  for  his 
army  and  tax-payers  for  his  treasury.  For  the  rest,  the  pleasant  life  that  the  peasant 
led  under  Frederick's  system  of  finance  and  hodge-podge  rule  of  despotism,  bureau- 
cracy and  feudalism,  may  be  seen  from  the  following  quotation  from  his  admirer. 
Mirabeau:  "Le  lin  fait  done  une  des  grandes  richesses  du  cultivateur  dans  le  Nord 
de  I'Allemagne.  Malheureusement  pour  I'espece  humaine,  ce  n'est  qu'une  ressource 
contre  la  misere  et  non  un  moyen  de  bien-etre.  Les  impots  directs,  les  corvees,  les 
servitudes  de  tout  genre,  ecrasent  le  cultivateur  allemand,  qui  paie  encore  des  impots 
indirects  dans  tout  ce  qu'il  achete  .  .  .  et  poure  comble  de  ruine,  il  n'ose  pas 
vendre  ses  productions  ou  et  comme  il  le  veut;  il  n'ose  pas  achter  ce  dont  il  a  besoin 
aux  marchands  qui  pourraient  le  lui  livrer  au  meilleur  prix.  Toutes  ces  causes  le 
ruinent  insensiblement,  et  il  se  trouverait  hors  d'etat  de  payer  les  impots  directs  a 
I'echeance  sans  la  filerie;  elle  lui  ofFre  une  ressource,  en  occupant  utilement  sa  femme, 
ses  enfants,  ses  servants,  ses  valets,  et  lui-meme;  mais  quelle  penible  vie,  meme  aidee 
de  ce  secours.  En  ete,  il  travaille  comme  un  forgat  au  labourage  et  a  la  recolte; 
il  se  couche  a  9  heures  et  se  leve  a  deux,  pour  suffire  aux  travaux;  en  hiver  il  devrait 
reparer  ses  forces  par  un  plus  grand  repos;  mais  il  manquera  de  grains  pour  le  pain 
et  les  semailles,  s'il  se  defait  des  denrees  qu'il  faudrait  vendre  pour  payer  les  impots. 
II  faut  done  filer  pour  suppleer  a  ce  vide  .  .  .  il  faut  y  apporter  la  plus  grande 
assiduite.  Aussi  le  paysan  se  couche-t-il  en  hiver  i  minuit,  une  heure,  et  se  leve  a 
cinq  ou  six;  ou  bien  il  se  couche  a  neuf,  et  se  leve  a  deux,  et  cela  tous  les  jours  de 
la  vie  si  ce  n'est  le  dimanche.  Ces  exces  de  veille  et  de  travail  usent  la  nature 
humaine,  et  de  la  vient  qu'  hommes  et  femmes  vieillissent  beaucoup  pliatot  dans  les 
campagnes  que  dans  les  villes.      (Mirabeau,  1.  c.  t.  III.,  pp.  212  sqq.) 

Note  to  the  second  edition.  In  April  1866,  18  years  after  the  publication  of  the 
work  of  Robert  Somers  quoted  above.  Professor  Leone  Levi  gave  a  lecture  before  the 
Society  of  Arts  on  the  transformation  of  sheep  walks  into  deer-forests,  in  which  he 
depicts  the  advance  in  the  devastation  of  the  Scottish  Highlands.  He  says,  with 
other  things:  "Depopulation  and  transformation  into  sheep-walks  were  the  most 
convenient  means  for  getting  an  income  without  expenditure.  ...  A  deer  forest 
in  place  of  a  sheep-walk  was  a  common  change  in  the  Highlands.  The  landowners 
turned  out  the  sheep  as  they  once  turned  out  the  men  from  their  estates,  and  wel- 


Legislation  Against  the  Expropriated.  805 

The  spoliation  of  the  churche's  property,  the  fraudulent 
alienation  of  the  State  domains,  the  robbery  of  the  common 
lands,  the  usurpation  of  feudal  and  clan  property,  and  its 
transformation  into  modern  private  property  under  circum- 
stances of  reckless  terrorism^,  were  just  so  many  idyllic  meth- 
ods of  primitive  accumulation.  They  conquered  the  field  for 
capitalistic  agriculture,  made  the  soil  part  and  parcel  of  cap- 
ital, and  created  for  the  town  industries  the  necessary  supply 
of  a  "free"  and  outlawed  proletariat. 


CHAPTEK  XXVIII. 

BLOODY  LEGISLATION  AGAINST  THE  EXPROPRIATED,  FROM  THE 
END  OF  THE  15tH  CENTURY.  FORCING  DOWN  OF  WAGES 
BY  ACTS  OF  PARLIAMENT. 

The  proletariat  created  by  the  breaking  up  of  the  bands  of 
feudal  retainers  and  by  the  forcible  expropriation  of  the  peo- 

comed  the  new  tenants — the  wild  heasts  and  tha  feathered  birds.  .  .  .  One  can 
walk  from  the  Earl  of  Dalhousie's  estates  in  Forfarshire  to  John  o'  Groats,  without 
ever  leaving  forest  land.  ...  In  many  of  these  woods  the  fox,  the  wild  cat, 
the  marten,  the  polecat,  the  weasel  and  the  Alpine  hare  are  common;  whilst  the 
rabbit,  the  squirrel  and  the  rat  have  lately  made  their  way  into  the  country.  Im- 
mense tracts  of  land,  much  of  which  is  described  in  the  statistical  account  of  Scot- 
land as  having  a  pasturage  in  richness  and  extent  of  very  superior  description,  are 
thus  shut  out  from  all  cultivation  and  improvement,  and  are  solely  devoted  to  the 
sport  of  a  few  persons  for  a  very  brief  period  of  the  year."  The  London  Economist 
of  June  2,  1866,  says,  "Amongst  the  items  of  news  in  a  Scotch  paper  of  last  week, 
we  read.  .  .  .  'One  of  the  finest  sheep  farms  in  Sutherlandshire,  for  which  a 
rent  of  £1,200  a  year  was  recently  offered,  on  the  expiry  of  the  existing  lease  this 
year,  is  to  be  converted  into  a  deer  forest.'  Here  we  see  the  modern  instincts  of 
feudalism  .  .  .  operating  pretty  much  as  they  did  when  the  Norman  Conqueror 
.  .  .  destroyed  36  villages  to  create  the  New  Forest.  .  .  .  Two  millions  of 
acres  .  .  .  totally  laid  waste,  embracing  within  their  area  some  of  the  most 
fertile  lands  of  Scotland.  The  natural  grass  of  Glen  Tilt  was  among  the  most 
nutritive  in  the  county  of  Perth.  The  deer  forest  of  Ben  Aulder  was  by  far  the  best 
grazing  ground  in  the  wide  district  of  Badenoch;  a  part  of  the  Black  Mount  forest 
was  the  best  pasture  for  black-faced  sheep  in  Scotland.  Some  idea  of  the  ground 
laid  waste  for  purely  sporting  purposes  in  Scotland  may  be  formed  from  the  fact 
that  it  embraced  an  area  larger  than  the  whole  county  of  Perth.  The  resources 
of  the  forest  of  Ben  Aulder  might  give  some  idea  of  the  loss  sustained  from  the 
forced  desolations.  The  ground  would  pasture  15,000  sheep,  and  as  it  was  not  more 
than  one-thirtieth  part  of  the  old  forest  ground  in  Scotland  ...  it  might,  &c., 
.  .  .  All  that  forest  land  is  as  totally  unproductive.  ...  It  might  thus  as 
well  have  been  submerged  under  the  waters  of  the  German  Ocean.  .  .  .  Such 
extemporized  wildernesses  or  deserts  ought  to  be  put  down  by  the  decided  inter- 
ference of  the  Legislature." 


8o6  Capitalist  Production. 

pie  from  the  soil,  this  "free"  proletariat  could  not  possibly  be 
absorbed  by  the  nascent  manufactures  as  fast  as  it  was  thrown 
upon  the  world.  On  the  other  hand,  these  men,  suddenly 
dragged  from  their  wanted  mode  of  life,  could  not  as  suddenly 
adapt  themselves  to  the  discipline  of  their  new  condition. 
They  were  turned  en  masse  into  beggars,  robbers,  vagabonds, 
partly  from  inclination,  in  most  cases  from  stress  of  circum- 
stances. Hence  at  the  end  of  the  15th  and  during  the  whole 
of  the  16tli  century,  throughout  Western  Europe  a  bloody 
legislation  against  vagabondage.  The  fathers  of  the  present 
working-class  were  chastised  for  their  enforced  transforma- 
tion into  vagabonds  and  paupers.  Legislation  treated  them 
as  "voluntary"  criminals,  and  assumed  that  it  depended  on 
their  own  goodwill  to  go  on  working  under  the  old  conditions 
that  no  longer  existed. 

In  England  this  legislation  began  under  Henry  VII. 

Henry  VIII.  1530 :  Beggars  old  and  unable  to  work  receive 
a  beggar's  licence.  On  the  other  hand,  whipping  and  impris- 
onment for  sturdy  vagabonds.  They  are  to  be  tied  to  the  cart- 
tail  and  whipped  until  the  blood  streams  from  their  bodies, 
then  to  swear  an  oath  to  go  back  to  their  birthplace  or  to  where 
they  have  lived  the  last  three  years  and  to  "put  themselves 
to  labour."  What  grim  irony !  In  27  Henry  VIII.  the  for- 
mer statute  is  repeated,  but  strengthened  with  new  clauses. 
For  the  second  arrest  for  vagabondage  the  whipping  is  to  be 
repeated  and  half  the  ear  sliced  off ;  but  for  the  third  relapse 
the  offender  is  to  be  executed  as  a  hardened  criminal  and 
enemy  of  the  common  weal. 

Edward  VI. :  A  statute  of  the  first  year  of  his  reign,  1547, 
ordains  that  if  anyone  refuses  to  work,  he  shall  be  condemned 
as  a  slave  to  the  person  who  has  denounced  him  as  an  idler. 
The  master  shall  feed  his  slave  on  bread  and  water,  weak  broth 
and  such  refuse  meat  as  he  thinks  fit.  He  has  the  right  to 
force  him  to  do  any  work,  no  matter  how  disgusting,  with  whip 
and  chains.  If  the  slave  is  absent  a  fortnight,  he  is  con- 
demned to  slavery  for  life  and  is  to  be  branded  on  forehead  or 
liaek  with  the  letter  S ;  if  he  runs  away  thrice,  he  is  to  be  exe- 
cuted as  a  felon.     The  master  can  sell  him,  beq,ueath  him,  let 


Legislation  Against  the  Expropriated.  807 

him  out  on  hire  as  a  slave,  just  as  any  other  personal  chattel  or 
cattle.  If  the  slaves  attempt  anything  against  the  masters, 
they  are  also  to  be  executed.  Justices  of  the  peace,  on  informa- 
tion, are  to  hunt  the  rascals  clown.  If  it  happens  that  a  vaga- 
bond has  been  idling  about  for  three  days,  he  is  to  be  taken  to 
his  birthplace,  branded  M^ith  a  redhot  iron  with  the  letter  V 
on  the  breast  and  be  set  to  work,  in  chains,  in  the  streets  or  at 
some  other  labour.  If  the  vagabond  gives  a  false  birthplace, 
he  is  then  to  become  the  slave  for  life  of  this  place,  of  its  in- 
habitants, or  its  corporation,  and  to  be  branded  with  an  S.  All 
persons  have  the  right  to  take  away  the  children  of  the  vaga- 
bonds and  to  keep  them  as  apprentices,  the  young  men  until  the 
24th  year,  the  girls  until  the  20th.  If  they  run  away,  they 
are  to  become  up  to  this  age  the  slaves  of  their  masters,  who 
can  put  them  in  irons,  whip  them,  &c.,  if  they  like.  Every 
master  may  put  an  iron  ring  round  the  neck,  arms  or  legs  of  his 
slave,  by  which  to  know  him  more  easily  and  to  be  more  certain 
of  him.^  The  last  part  of  the  statute  provides,  that  certain 
poor  people  may  be  employed  by  a  place  or  by  persons,  who  are 
willing  to  give  them  food  and  drink  and  to  find  them  work. 
This  kind  of  parish-slaves  was  kept  up  in  England  until  far 
into  the  19th  century  under  the  name  of  "roundsmen." 

Elizabeth,  1572 :  Unlicensed  beggars  above  14  years  of  age 
are  to  be  severely  flogged  and  branded  on  the  left  ear  unless 
some  one  will  take  them  into  service  for  two  years;  in  case  of  a 
repetition  of  the  offence,  if  they  are  over  18,  they  are  to  be 
executed,  unless  some  one  will  take  them  into  service  for  two 
years ;  but  for  the  third  offence  they  are  to  be  executed  without 
mercy  as  felons.  Similar  statutes:  18  Elizabeth,  c.  13,  and 
another  of  1597. 

James  I :  Any  one  wandering  about  and  begging  is  declared 
a  rogue  and  a  vagabond.  Justices  of  the  peace  in  petty  ses- 
sions are  authorised  to  have  them  publicly  whipped  and  for  the, 
first  offence  to  imprison  them  for  G  m.onths,  for  the  second  for 
2  years.     Whilst  in  prison  they  are  to  be  whipped  as  much 

1  The  author  of  the  Essay  on  Trade,  etc.,  1770,  says,  "In  the  reign  of  Edward  VI. 
indeed  the  English  seem  to  have  set,  in  good  earnest,  about  encouraging  manufac- 
tures and  employing  the  poor.  This  we  learn  from  a  remarkable  statute  which  runs 
thus:     'That  all  vagrants  shall  be  branded,  &c.,' "  1.  c,  p.  5. 


8o8  Capitalist  Production. 

and  as  often  as  the  justices  of  the  peace  think  fit  .  .  .  Incor- 
rigible and  dangerous  rogues  are  to  be  branded  with  an  R  on 
the  left  shoulder  and  set  to  hard  labour,  and  if  they  are  caught 
begging  again,  to  be  executed  without  mercy.  These  statutes, 
legally  binding  until  the  beginning  of  the  18th  century,  were 
only  repealed  by  12  Ann,  c.  23.^ 

Similar  laws  in  France,  where  by  the  middle  of  the  17th 
century  a  kingdom  of  vagabonds  (truands)  was  established 
in  Paris.  Even  at  the  beginning  of  Louis  XVI.'s  reign  (Or- 
dinance of  July  13th,  1777)  every  man  in  good  health  from 
16  to  60  years  of  age,  if  without  means  of  subsistence  and  not 
practising  a  trade,  is  to  be  sent  to  the  galleys.  Of  the  same 
nature  are  the  statute  of  Charles  V.  for  the  Netherlands  (Oc- 
tober, 1537),  the  first  edict  of  the  States  and  Towns  of  Hol- 
land (March  10,  1614),  the  "Plakaat"  of  the  United  Provinces 
(June  26,  1649),  &c. 

Thus  were  the  agricultural  people,  first  forcibly  expropri- 

*  In  France,  the  regisseur,  steward,  collector  of  dues  for  the  feudal  lords  during 
cormaraunte  and  very  plage  of  his  native  contrey  maye  compasse  aboute  and  inclose 
many  thousand  akers  of  grounde  together  within  one  pale  or  hedge,  the  husbandmen 
be  thrust  owte  of  their  owne,  or  els  either  by  coneyne  and  fraude,  or  by  violent  op- 
pression they  be  put  besydes  it,  or  by  wrongs  and  iniuries  thei  be  so  weried  that 
they  be  compelled  to  sell  all:  by  one  meanes,  therfore,  or  by  other,  cither  by  hooke 
or  crooke  they  muste  needes  departe  awaye,  poore,  selye,  wretched  soules,  men, 
women,  husbands,  wiues,  fatherlesse  children,  widowes,  wofull  mothers  with  their 
yonge  babes,  and  their  whole  household  smal  in  substance,  and  muche  in  numbre,  as 
husbandrye  requireth  many  >  handes.  Awaye  thei  trudge,  I  say,  owte  of  their 
knowen  accustomed  houses,  fyndynge  no  place  to  reste  in.  All  their  householde 
stuffe,  which  is  very  little  woorthe,  thoughe  it  might  well  abide  the  sale:  yet  beeynge 
sodainely  thruste  owte,  they  be  constrayned  to  sell  it  for  a  thing  of  nought.  And 
when  they  haue  wandered  abrode  tyll  that  be  spent,  what  can  they  then  els  doe  but 
steale,  and  then  iustly  pardy  be  hanged,  or  els  go  about  beggyng.  And  yet  then 
also  they  be  caste  in  prison  as  vagabondes,  because  theey  go  aboute  and  worke  not; 
whom  no  man  wyl  set  a  worke  though  thei  neuer  so  willyngly  profre  themselues 
therto."  Of  these  poor  fugitives  of  whom  Thomas  More  says  that  they  were  forced 
to  thieve,  "7200  great  and  petty  thieves  were  put  to  death,"  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
VIII.  (HolJinshed,  description  of  England,  Vol.  1.,  p.  186.)  In  Elizabeth's  time, 
"rogues  were  trussed  up  apace,  and  that  there  was  not  one  year  commonly  wherein 
three  or  four  hundred  were  not  devoured  and  eaten  up  by  the  gallowes."  (Strype's 
Annals  of  the  Reformation  and  Establishment  of  Religion,  and  other  Various  Occur- 
rences in  the  Church  of  England  during  Queen  Elizabeth's  Happy  Reign.  Second 
ed.,  1725,  Vol.  2.)  According  to  this  same  Strype,  in  Somersetshire,  in  one  year, 
40  persons  were  executed,  35  robbers  burnt  in  the  hand,  37  whipped,  and  183  dis- 
charged as  "incorrigible  vagabonds."  Nevertheless,  he  is  of  opinion  that  this  large 
number  of  prisoners  does  not  comprise  even  a  fifth  of  the  actual  criminals,  thanks 
to  the  negligence  of  the  justices  and  the  foolish  compassion  of  the  people;  and  the 
other  counties  of  England  were  not  better  off  in  this  respect  than  Somersetshire, 
while  some  were  even  worse. 


Legislation  Against  the  Expropriated.  809 

ated  from  the  soil,  driven  from  their  homes,  turned  into  vaga- 
bonds, and  then  whipped,  branded,  tortured  by  laws  gro- 
tesquely terrible,  into  the  discipline  necessary  for  the  wage 
system.  1 

It  is  not  enough  that  the  conditions  of  labour  are  concen- 
trated in  a  mass,  in  the  shape  of  capital,  at  the  one  pole  of 
society,  while  at  the  other  are  grouped  masses  of  men,  who 
have  nothing  to  sell  but  their  labour-power.  Neither  is  it 
enough  that  they  are  compelled  to  sell  it  voluntarily.  The 
advance  of  capitalist  production  develops  a  working-class, 
which  by  education,  tradition,  habit,  looks  upon  the  conditions 
of  that  mode  of  production  is  self-evident  laws  of  nature. 
The  organization  of  the  capitalist  process  of  production,  once 
fully  developed,  breaks  down  all  resistance.  The  constant 
generation  of  a  relative  surplus-population  keeps  the  law  of 
supply  and  demand  of  labour,  and  therefore  keeps  wages,  in 
a  rut  that  corresponds  with  the  wants  of  capital.  The  dull 
compulsion  of  economic  relations  completes  the  subjection  of 
the  labourer  to  the  capitalist.  Direct  force,  outside  economic 
conditions,  is  of  course  still  used,  but  only  exceptionally.  In 
the  ordinary  run  of  things,  the  labourer  can  be  left  to  the 
"natural  laws  of  production,"  i.e.,  to  his  dependence  on  capital, 
a  dependence  springing  from,  and  guaranteed  in  perpetuity  by, 
the  conditions  of  production  themselves.  It  is  otherwise  dur- 
ing the  historic  genesis  of  capitalist  production.  The  bour- 
geoisie, at  its  rise,  wants  and  uses  the  power  of  the  state  to 
"regulate"  wages,  i.e.,  to  force  them  within  the  limits  suitable 
for  surplus-value  making,  to  lengthen  the  working-day  and  to 
keep  the  labourer  himself  in  the  normal  degree  of  dependence. 
This  is  an  essential  element  of  the  so-called  primitive  accumu- 
lation. 

The  class  of  wage-labourers,  which  arose  in  the  latter  half  of 
the  14th  century,  formed  then  and  in  the  following  century' 
only  a  very  small  part  of  the  population,  well  protected  in  its 
position  by  the  independent  peasant  proprietary  in  the  coun- 
try and  the  guild-organization  in  the  town.  In  country  and 
town  master  and  workman  stood  close  together  socially.  The 
subordination  of  labour  to  capital  was  only  formal — i.e.,  the 


8 10  Capitalist  Production. 

mode  of  production  itself  had  as  yet  no  specific  capitalistic 
character.  Variable  capital  preponderated  greatly  over  con- 
stant. The  demand  for  wage-labour  grew,  therefore,  rapidly 
with  every  accumulation  <jf  capital,  whilst  the  supply  of  wage- 
labour  followed  but  slowly.  A  large  part  of  the  national  pro- 
duct, changed  later  into  a  fund  of  capitalist  accumulation,  then 
still  entered  into  the  consumption  fund  of  the  labourer. 

Legislation  on  wage-labour,  (from  the  first,  aimed  at  the  ex- 
ploitation of  the  labourer  and,  as  it  advanced,  always  equally 
hostile  to  him),^  is  started  in  England  by  the  Statute  of  La- 
bourers, of  Edward  III.,  1349.  The  ordinance  of  1350  in 
France,  issued  in  the  name  of  King  John,  corresponds  with  it. 
English  and  French  legislation  run  parallel  and  are  identical 
in  purport.  So  far  as  the  labour-statutes  aim  at  compulsory 
extension  of  the  working-day,  I  do  not  return  to  them,  as  this 
point  was  treated  earlier  (Chap.  X.,  Section  5). 

The  Statute  of  Labourers  was  passed  at  the  urgent  instance 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  A  Tory  says  naively :  "Formerly 
the  poor  demanded  such  high  wages  as  to  threaten  industry 
and  wealth.  Next,  their  wages  are  so  low  as  to  threaten  in- 
dustry and  wealth  equally  and  perhaps  more,  but  in  another 
way."^  A  tariff  of  wages  was  fixed  by  law  for  town  and  coun- 
try, for  piece-work  and  day-work.  The  agricultural  labourers 
were  to  hire  themselves  out  by  the  year,  the  town  ones  "in  open 
market."  It  was  forbidden,  under  pain  of  imprisonment,  to 
pay  higher  wages  than  tho^e  fixed  by  the  statute,  but  the  tak- 
ing of  higher  wages  was  more  severely  punished  than  the  giv- 
ing them.  [So  also  in  Sections  18  and  19  of  the  Staute  of 
Apprentices  of  Elizabeth,  ten  days'  imprisonment  is  decreed 
for  him  that  pays  the  higher  wages,  but  twenty-one  days  for 
him  that  receives  them.]  A  statute  of  1360  increased  the 
penalties  and  authorised  the  masters  to  extort  labour  at  the 
legal  rate  of  wages  by  corporal  punishment.     All  combina- 

•  "Whenever  the  legislature  attempts  to  regulate  the  differences  between  masters 
and  their  workmen,  its  counsellors  are  always  the  masters,"  says  A.  Smith.  "L' esprit 
des  lois,  c'est  la  propriete,"  says  Linguet. 

*  "Sophisms  of  Free  Trade."  By  a  Barrister.  Lond.,  1850,  p.  53.  He  adds 
maliciously:  "We  were  ready  enough  to  interfere  for  the  employer,  can  nothing 
now  be  done  for  the  employed?" 


Legislation  Against  the  Expropriated.  8ii 

tions,  contracts,  oaths,  &c.,  by  which  masons  and  carpenters  re- 
ciprocally bound  themselves,  were  declared  null  and  void. 
Coalition  of  the  labourers  is  treated  as  a  heinous  crime  from 
the  14th  century  to  1825,  the  year  of  the  repeal  of  the  laws 
against  Trades'  Unions.  The  spirit  of  the  Statute  of  Labour- 
ers of  1349  and  of  its  offshoots,  comes  out  clearly  in  the  fact, 
that  indeed  a  maximum  of  wages  is  dictated  by  the  State,  but 
on  no  account  a  minimum. 

In  the  16th  century,  the  condition  of  the  labourers  had,  as 
w^e  know,  become  much  worse.  The  money  wage  rose,  but  not 
in  proportion  to  the  depreciation  of  money  and  the  correspond- 
ing rise  in  the  prices  of  commodities.  Wages,  therefore,  in 
reality  fell.  Nevertheless,  the  laws  for  keeping  them  down 
remained  in  force,  together  with  the  ear-clipping  and  branding 
of  those  "whom  no  one  was  willing  to  take  into  service."  By 
the  Statute  of  Apprentices  5  Elizabeth,  c.  3,  the  justices  of  the 
peace  were  empowered  to  fix  certain  wages  and  to  modify  them 
according  to  the  time  of  the  year  and  the  price  of  commodities. 
James  I.  extended  these  regulations  of  labour  also  to  weavers, 
spinners,  and  all  possible  categories  of  workers.-^  George  II. 
extended  the  laws  against  coalitions  of  labourers  to  manufac- 
tures. In  the  manufacturing  period  par  excellence,  the  capi- 
talist mode  of  production  had  become  sufficiently  strong  to  ren- 
der legal  regulation  of  wages  as  impracticable  as  it  was 
unnecessary ;  but  the  ruling  classes  were  unwilling  in  case  of 

*  From  a  clause  of  Statute  2  James  I.,  c.  6,  we  see  that  certain  cloth-makers  took 
upon  themselves  to  dictate,  in  their  capacity  of  justices  of  the  peace,  the  official  tariff 
of  wages  in  their  own  shops.  In  Germany,  especially  after  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 
statutes  for  keeping  down  wages  were  general.  "The  want  of  servants  and  labour- 
ers was  very  troublesome  to  the  landed  proprietors  in  the  depopulated  districts. 
All  villagers  were  forbidden  to  let  rooms  to  single  men  and  women;  all  the  latter 
were  to  be  reported  to  the  authorities  and  cast  into  prison  if  they  were  unwilling  to 
become  servants,  even  if  they  were  employed  at  any  other  work,  such  as  sowing  seeds 
for  the  peasants  at  a  daily  wage,  or  even  buying  and  selling  corn.  (Imperial  privi- 
leges and  sanctions  for  Silesia,  I.,  25.)  For  a  whole  century  in  the  decrees  of  the 
small  German  potentates  a  bitter  cry  goes  up  again  and  again  about  the  wicked  and 
impertinent  rabble  that  will  not  reconcile  itself  to  its  hard  lot,  will  not  be  content 
with  the  legal  wage;  the  individual  landed  proprietors  are  forbidden  to  pay  more 
than  the  State  had  fixed  by  a  tariff.  And  yet  the  conditions  of  service  were  at  times 
better  after  the  war  than  100  years  later;  the  farm  servants  of  Silesia  had,  in  1652, 
meat  twice  a  week,  whilst  even  in  our  century,  districts  are  known  where  they  have 
it  only  three  times  a  year.  Further,  wages  after  the  war  were  higher  than  in  the 
following  century."     (G.    Freitag.) 


8i2  Capitalist  Production. 

necessity  to  be  without  the  weapons  of  the  old  arsenal.  Still, 
8  George  II.  forbade  a  higher  day's  wage  than  2s.  7^d.  for 
journeymen  tailors  in  and  around  London,  except  in  cases  of 
general  mourning;  still  13  George  III.,  c.  68,  gave  the  regula- 
tion of  the  wages  of  silk- weavers  to  the  justices  of  the  peace ; 
still,  in  1706,  it  required  two  judgments  of  the  higher  courts 
to  decide,  whether  the  mandates  of  justices  of  the  peace  as  to 
wages  held  good  also  for  non-agricultural  labourers;  still,  in 
1799,  an  art  of  Parliament  ordered  that  the  wages  of  the 
Scotch  miners  should  continue  to  be  regulated  by  a  statute  of 
Elizabeth  and  two  Scotch  acts  of  1661  and  1671.  How  com- 
pletely in  the  meantime  circumstances  had  changed,  is  proved 
by  an  occurrence  imheard-of  before  in  the  English  Lower 
House.  In  that  place,  where  for  more  than  400  years  laws 
had  been  made  for  the  maximum,  beyond  which  wages  abso- 
lutely must  not  rise,  Whitbread  in  1796  proposed  a  legal  mini- 
mum wage  for  agricultural  labourers.  Pitt  opposed  this,  but 
confessed  that  the  "condition  of  the  poor  was  cruel."  Finally, 
in  1813,  the  laws  for  the  regulation  of  wages  were  repealed. 
They  were  an  absurd  anomaly,  since  the  capitalist  regulated 
his  factory  by  his  private  legislation,  and  could  by  the  poor- 
rates  make  up  the  wage  of  the  agricultural  labourer  to  the 
indispensable  minimum.  The  provisions  of  the  labour  stat- 
utes as  to  contracts  between  master  and  workman,  as  to  giving 
notice  and  the  like,  which  only  allows  of  a  civil  action  against 
the  contract-breaking  master,  but  on  the  contrary  pennit  a 
criminal  action  against  the  contract-breaking  workman,  are  to 
this  hour  (1873)  in  full  force.  The  barbarous  laws  against 
Trades'  Unions  fell  in  1825  before  the  threatening  bearing  of 
the  proletariat  Despite  this,  they  fell  only  in  part.  Certain 
beautiful  fragments  of  the  old  statute  vanished  only  in  1859. 
Einally,  the  act  of  Parliament  of  June  29,  1871,  made  a  pre- 
tence of  removing  the  last  traces  of  this  class  of  legislation  by 
legal  recognition  of  Trades  Unions.  But  an  act  of  Parlia- 
ment of  the  same  date  (an  act  to  amend  the  criminal  law  relat- 
ing to  violence,  threats,  and  molestation),  re-established,  in 
point  of  fact,  the  former  state  of  things  in  a  new  shape.  By 
this  Parliamentary  escamotage  the  means  which  the  labourers 


Legislation  Against  the  Expropriated.  813 

could  use  in  a  strike  or  lock-out  were  withdrawn  from  the  laws 
common  to  all  citizens,  and  placed  under  exceptional  penal  leg- 
islation, the  interpretation  of  which  fell  to  the  masters  them- 
selves in  their  capacity  as  justices  of  the  peace.  Two  years 
earlier,  the  same  House  of  Commons  and  the  same  Mr.  Glad- 
stone in  the  well-known  straightforward  fashion  brought  in  a 
bill  for  the  abolition  of  all  exceptional  penal  legislation  against 
the  working-class.  But  this  was  never  allowed  to  go  beyond 
the  second  reading,  and  the  matter  was  thus  protracted  until 
at  last  the  "great  Liberal  party,"  by  an  alliance  with  the  Tor- 
ies, found  courage  to  turn  against  the  very  proletariat  that  had 
carried  it  into  power.  Xot  content  wdth  this  treachery,  the 
"great  Liberal  party"  allowed  the  English  judges,  ever  com- 
plaisant in  the  service  of  the  ruling  classes,  to  dig  up  again 
the  earlier  laws  against  "conspiracy,"  and  to  apply  them  to 
coalitions  of  labourers.  We  see  that  only  against  its  will  and 
under  the  pressure  of  the  masses  did  the  English  Parliament 
give  up  the  laws  against  Strikes  and  Trades'  Unions,  after  it 
had  itself,  for  500  years,  held,  with  shameless  egoism,  the  posi- 
tion of  a  permanent  Trades'  Union  of  the  capitalists  against 
the  labourers. 

During  the  very  first  storms  of  the  revolution,  the  French 
bourgeoisie  dared  to  take  away  from  the  workers  the  right  of 
association  but  just  acquired.  By  a  decree  of  June  14,  1791, 
they  declared  all  coalition  of  the  workers  as  "an  attempt 
against  liberty  and  the  declaration  of  the  rights  of  man,"  pun- 
ishable by  a  fine  of  500  livres,  together  with  deprivation  of  the 
rights  of  an  active  citizen  for  one  year.^  This  law  which,  by 
means  of  State  compulsion,  confined  the  struggle  between  capi- 
tal and  labour  within  limits  comfortable  for  capital,  has  out- 
lived revolutions  and  changes  of  dynasties.  Even  the  Reign 
of  Terror  left  it  untouched.  It  was  but  quite  recently  struck 
out  of  the  Penal  Code.  Nothing  is  more  characteristic  than 
the  pretext  for  this  bourgeois  coup  d'etat.  "Granting,"  says 
Chapclier,  the  reporter  of  the  Select  Committee  on  this  law, 
"that  wages  ought  to  be  a  little  higher  than  they  are,  .  .  . 
that  they  ought  to  be  high  enough  for  him  that  receives  them, 

'Article  I.  of  this  law  runs:     "L'  aneantissement  de  toute  espece  de  corporations 


8 14  Capitalist  Production. 

to  be  free  from  that  state  of  absolute  dependence  due  to  the 
want  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  which  is  almost  that  of  slav- 
ery," yet  the  workers  must  not  be  allowed  to  come  to  any 
understanding  about  their  own  interests,  nor  to  act  in  common 
and  thereby  lessen  their  "absolute  dependence,  which  is  almost 
that  of  slavery;"  because,  forsooth,  in  doing  this  they  injure 
"the  freedom  of  their  cidevant  masters,  the  present  entrepre- 
neurs," and  because  a  coalition  against  the  despotism  of  the 
quondam  masters  of  the  corporations  is — ^guess  what! — is  a 
restoration  of  the  corporations  abolished  by  the  French  consti- 
tution.* 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

GENESIS  OF  THE  CAPITALIST  FAKMEE. 

Now  that  we  have  considered  the  forcible  creation  of  a  class  of 
outlawed  proletarians,  the  bloody  discipline  that  turned  them 
into  wage-labourers,  the  disgraceful  action  of  the  state  which 
employed  the  police  to  accelerate  the  accumulation  of  capital 
by  increasing  the  degree  of  exploitation  of  labour,  the  ques- 
tion remains :  whence  came  the  capitalists  originally  ?  For 
the  expropriation  of  the  agricultural  population  creates, 
directly,  none  by  great  landed  proprietors.  As  far,  however, 
as  concerns  the  genesis  of  the  farmer,  we  can,  so  to  say,  put  our 
hand  on  it,  because  it  is  a  slow  process  evolving  through  many 
centuries.  The  serfs,  as  well  as  the  free  small  proprietors, 
held  land  under  very  different  tenures,  and  were  therefore 
emancipated  under  very  different  economic  conditions.  In 
England  the  first  form  of  the  farmer  is  the  bailiff,  himself  a 

du  meme  etat  et  profession  etant  I'une  des  bases  fondamentales  de  la  constitution- 
frangaise,  il  est  defendu  de  les  retablir  de  fait  sous  quelque  pretexte  ct  sous  quelque 
forme  que  ce  soit."  Article  IV.  declares,  that  if  "des  citoyens  attaches  aux  memes 
professions,  arts  et  metiers  prenaient  des  deliberatipns,  faisaient  entre  eux  des  con- 
ventions tendantes  a  refuser  de  concert  ou  a  n'accorder  qu'a  un  prix  determine  le 
secours  de  leur  Industrie  ou  de  leurs  travaux,  les  dites  deliberations  et  conventions 
.  .  .  seront  declarees  inconstitutionnelles,  attentatoires  a  la  liberte  et  a  la  declara- 
tion des  droits  de  I'homme,  &c." :  felony,  therefore,  as  in  the  old  labour-statutes. 
("Revolutions  de  Paris."  Paris,  1791,  t.  III.,  p.  523.) 
*  Buchez  et   Roux:     "Histoire  Parlementaire,"  t,  x.,  p.  196. 


Genesis  of  the  Capitalist  Farmer.  815 

serf.  His  position  is  similar  to  tliat  of  the  old  Roman  villicus, 
only  in  a  more  limited  sphere  of  action.  During  the  second 
half  of  the  1-ltli  century  he  is  replaced  by  a  farmer,  whom  the 
landlord  provides  with  seed,  cattle  and  implements.  His  con- 
dition is  not  very  different  from  that  of  the  peasant.  Only  he 
exploits  more  wage-labour.  Soon  he  becomes  a  metayer,  a 
half-farmer.  He  advances  one  part  of  the  agricultural  stock, 
the  landlord  the  other.  The  two  divide  the  total  product  in 
proportions  determined  by  contract.  This  form  quickly  disap- 
pears in  England,  to  give  place  to  the  farmer  proper,  who 
makes  his  own  capital  breed  by  employing  wage-labourers,  and 
pays  a  part  of  the  surplus  product,  in  money  or  in  kind,  to  the 
landlord  as  rent.  So  long,  during  the  15th  century,  as  the 
independent  peasant  and  the  farm-labourer  working  for  him- 
self as  well  as  for  wages,  enriched  themselves  by  their  own  la- 
bour, the  circumstances  of  the  farmer,  and  his  field  of  produc- 
tion, were  equally  mediocre.  The  agricultural  revolution 
which  commenced  in  the  last  third  of  the  15th  century,  and 
continued  during  almost  the  whole  of  the  16th  (excepting,  how- 
ever, its  last  decade),  enriched  him  just  as  speedily  as  it  im- 
poverished the  mass  of  the  agricultural  people.^ 

The  usurpation  of  the  common  lands  allowed  him  to  aug- 
ment greatly  his  stock  of  cattle,  almost  without  cost,  whilst 
they  yielded  him  a  richer  supply  of  manure  for  the  tillage  of 
the  soil.  To  this,  was  added  in  the  16th  century,  a  very  im- 
portant element.  At  that  time  the  contracts  for  farms  ran  for 
a  long  time,  often  for  99  years.  The  progressive  fall  in  the 
value  of  the  precious  metals,  and  therefore  of  money,  brought 
the  farmers  golden  fruit.  Apart  from  all  the  other  circum- 
stances discussed  above,  it  lowered  wages.  A  portion  of  the 
latter  was  now  added  to  the  profits  of  the  farm.  The  con- 
tinuous rise  in  the  price  of  com,  wool,  meat,  in  a  word  of  all 
agricultural  produce,  swelled  the  money  capital  of  the  farmer 
without  any  action  on  his  part,  whilst  the  rent  he  paid,  (being 

*  Harrison  in  his  'Description  of  England,'  says  "although  peradventure  four* 
pounds  of  old  rent  be  improved  to  fortie,  toward  the  end  of  his  term,  if  he  have 
not  six  or  seven  years  rent  liefig  by  him,  fiftie  or  a  hundred  pounds,  yet  will  the 
farmer   thinke  his  gaines  verie  small." 


8i6  Capitalist  Production. 

calculated  on  the  old  value  of  money)  diminished  in  reality.* 
Thus  they  grew  rich  at  the  expense  both  of  their  labourers  and 
their  landlords.  No  wonder  therefore,  that  England,  at  the 
end  of  the  16th  century,  had  a  class  of  capitalist  fanners,  rich, 
considering  the  circumstances  of  the  time.^ 

*  On  the  influence  of  the  depreciation  of  money  in  the  16th  century,  on  the 
different  classes  of  society,  see  "A  Compendious  or  Briefe  Examination  of  Certayne 
Ordinary  complaints  of  Diverse  of  our  Countrymen  in  these  our  days."  By  W.  S., 
Gentleman.  (London  1581).  The  dialogue  form  of  this  work  led  people  for  a  long 
time  to  ascribe  it  to  Shakespeare,  and  even  in  1751,  it  was  published  under  his 
name.     Its  author  is  William  Stafford.     In  one  place  the  knight  reasons  as  follows: 

Knight:  "You,  my  neighbour,  the  husbandman,  you  Maister  Mercer,  and  you 
Goodman  Cooper,  with  other  artificers,  may  save  yourselves  metely  well.  For  as 
much  as  all  things  are  deerer  than  they  were,  so  much  do  you  arise  in  the  pryce  of 
your  wares  and  occupations  that  ye  sell  agayne.  But  we  have  nothing  to  sell  where- 
by we  might  advance  ye  price  there  of,  to  countervaile  those  things  that  we  must  buy 
ngayne."  In  another  place  the  knight  asks  the  doctor:  "I  pray  you,  what  be  those 
sorts  that  ye  meane.  And  first,  of  those  that  ye  thinke  should  have  no  losse 
thereby? — Doctor:  I  mean  all  those  that  live  by  buying  and  selling,  for  as  they  buy 
deare,  they  sell  thereafter.  Knight:  What  is  the  next  sort  that  ye  say  would  win 
by  it?  Doctor:  Marry,  all  such  as  have  takings  or  fearmes  in  their  owne  manurance 
[cultivation]  at  the  old  rent,  for  where  they  pay  after  the  olde  rate  they  sell  after 
the  newe — that  is,  they  paye  for  theire  lande  good  cheape,  and  sell  all  things  grow- 
ing thereof  deare.  Knight:  What  sorte  is  that  which,  ye  sayde  should  have  greater 
losse  hereby,  than  these  men  had  profit?  Doctor:  It  is  all  noblemen,  gentlemen, 
and  all  other  that  live  cither  by  a  stinted  rent  or  stypend,  or  do  not  manure  [cultiva- 
tion] the  ground,  or  doe  occupy  no  buying  and  selling." 

•  In  France,  the  regisseur,  steward,  collector  of  dues  for  the  feudal  lords  during 
the  earlier  part  of  the  middle  ages,  soon  became  an  homme  d'affaires,  who  by  extor- 
tion, cheating,  S:c.,  swindled  himself  into  a  capitalist.  These  regisseurs  themselves 
were  sometimes  noblemen.  E.  g.  C'est  li  compte  que  messire  Jacques  de  Thoraine, 
chevalier  chastelain  sor  Cesangon  rent  es-seigneur  tenant  les  comptes  a  Dijon  pour 
monseigneur  le  due  et  comte  de  Bourgoigne,  des  rentes  appartenant  a  la  dite  chas- 
tellenie,  depuis  xxve  jour  de  decembre  MCCCLIX  jusqu*  au  xxviiie  jour  de  decem- 
bre  MCCCLX.  (Alexis  Montei}:  Histoire  des  Materiaux  manuscrits,  etc.,  p.  244.) 
Already  it  is  evident  here  how  in  all  spheres  of  social  life  the  lion's  share  falls  to  the 
middleman.  In  the  economic  domain,  e.g..  financiers,  stock-exchange  speculators, 
merchants,  shopkeepers  skim  the  cream;  in  civil  matters,  the  lawyer  fleeces  his 
clients;  in  politics  the  representative  is  of  more  importance  than  the  voters,  the 
minister  than  the  sovereign;  in  religion  God  is  pushed  into  the  background  by  the 
"Mediator,"  and  the  latter  again  is  shoved  back  by  the  priests,  the  inevitable 
middlemen  between  the  good  shepherd  and  his  sheep.  In  France,  as  in  England, 
the  great  feudal  territories  were  divided  into  inumerable  small  homesteads,  but 
under  conditions  incomparably  more  unfavourable  for  the  people.  During  the  14th 
century  arose  the  farms  or  terriers.  Their  number  grew  constantly,  far  beyond 
100,000.  They  paid  rents  varying  from  ^^  to  }i  of  the  product  in  money  or  in 
kind.  These  farms  were  fiefs,  sub-fiefs,  &c.,  according  to  the  value  and  extent 
of  the  domains,  many  of  them  only  containing  a  few  acres.  But  these  farmers 
had  rights  of  jurisdiction  in  some  degree  over  the  dwellers  on  the  soil;  there  were 
four  grades.  The  oppression  of  the  agricultural  population  under  all  these  petty 
tyrants  will  be  understood.  Monteil  says  that  there  were  once  in  France  160,000 
judges,  where  today  4000  tribunals,  including  justices  of  the  peace,  suffice. 


Reaction  of  Agricultural  Revolution.  817 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

REACTION  OF  THE  AGRICULTURAL  REVOLUTION  ON  INDUSTRY. 
CREATION  OF  THE  HOME  MARKET  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  CAPI- 
TAL. 

The  expropriation  and  expulsion  of  the  agricultural  popula- 
tion, intermittent  but  renewed  again  and  again,  supplied,  as 
we  saw,  tlie  town  industries  with  a  mass  of  proletarians,  en- 
tirely unconnected  with  the  corporate  guilds  and  unfettered 
by  them ;  a  fortunate  circumstance  that  makes  old  A.  Ander- 
son (not  to  be  confounded  with  James  Anderson)  in  his  "His- 
tory of  Commerce,"  believe  in  the  direct  intervention  of 
Providence.  We  must  still  pause  a  moment  on  this  element  of 
primitive  accumulation.  The  thinning-out  of  the  independent, 
self-supporting  peasants  not  only  brought  about  the  crowding 
together  of  the  industrial  proletariat,  in  the  way  that  Geoffroy 
Saint  Hilaire  explained  the  condensation  of  cosmical  matter  at 
one  place,  by  its  rarefaction  at  another.^  In  spite  of  the 
smaller  numbers  of  its  cultivators,  the  soil  brought  forth  as 
much  or  more  produce,  after  as  before,  because  the  revolution 
in  the  conditions  of  landed  property  was  accompanied  by  im- 
proved methods  of  culture,  greater  co-operation,  concentration 
of  the  means  of  production,  &c.,  and  because  not  only  were 
the  agricultural  wage-labourers  put  on  the  strain  more  in- 
tensely,^ but  the  field  of  production  on  which  they  worked  for 
themselves,  became  more  and  more  contracted.  With  the  set- 
ting free  of  a  part  of  the  agricultural  population,  therefore, 
their  former  means  of  nourishment  were  also  set  free.  They 
were  now  transformed  into  material  elements  of  variable  capi- 
tal. The  peasant,  expropriated  and  cast  adrift,  must  buy 
their  value  in  the  form  of  wages,  from  his  new  master,  the  in- 
dustrial capitalist.  That  which  holds  good  of  the  means  of 
subsistence  holds  with  the  raw  materials  of  industry  dependent 

*  In    his    Notions    de    Philosophic    Naturelle.     Paris,     1838. 

*  A  point  that  Sir  James  Stewart  emphasises. 

2Z 


8i8  Capitalist  Production. 

upon  home  agriculture.  Thej  were  transformed  into  an  ele- 
ment of  constant  capital.  Suppose,  e.g.,  a  part  of  the  West- 
phalian  peasants,  who,  at  the  time  of  Frederic  II.,  all  span 
flax,  forcibly  expropriated  and  hunted  from  the  soil;  and  tlie 
ether  part  that  remained,  turned  into  day-labourers  of  large 
farmers.  At  the  same  time  arise  large  establishments  for  flax- 
spinning  and  weaving,  in  which  tlie  men  "set  free"  now  work 
for  wages.  The  flax  looks  exactly  as  before.  Not  a  fibre  of 
it  is  changed,  but  a  new  social  soul  has  popped  into  its  body. 
It  forms  now  a  part  of  the  constant  capital  of  the  master  man- 
ufacturer. Formerly  divided  among  a  number  of  small  pro- 
ducers, who  cultivated  it  themselves  and  with  their  families 
spun  it  in  retail  fashion,  it  is  now  concentrated  in  the  hand  of 
one  capitalist,  who  sets  others  to  spin  and  weave  it  for  him. 
The  extra  labour  expended  in  flax-spinning  realised  itself 
formerly  in  extra  income  to  numerous  peasant  families,  or 
maybe,  in  Frederic  II.'s  time,  in  taxes  pour  le  roi  de  Prusse. 
It  realises  itself  now  in  profit  for  a  few  capitalists.  The  spin- 
dles and  looms,  formerly  scattered  over  the  face  of  the  country, 
are  now  crowded  together  in  a  few  great  labour-barracks,  to- 
gether with  the  labourers  and  the  raw  material.  And  spindles, 
looms,  raw  material,  are  now  transformed,  from  means  of  in- 
dependent existence  for  the  spinners  and  weavers,  into  means 
for  commanding  them  and  sucking  out  of  them  unpaid  labour.^ 
One  does  not  perceive,  when  looking  at  the  large  manufactories 
and  the  large  farms,  that  they  have  originated  from  the  throw- 
ing into  one  of  many  small  centres  of  production,  and  have 
been  built  up  by  the  expropriation  of  many  small  independent 
producers.  Nevertheless,  the  popular  intuition  was  not  at 
fault.  In  the  time  of  Mirabeau,  the  lion  of  the  Revolution, 
the  great  manufactories  were  still  called  manufactures  reunies, 
workshops  thrown  into  one,  as  we  speak  of  fields  thrown  into 
one.  Says  Mirabeau:  "We  are  only  paying  attention  to  the 
grand  manufactories,  in  which  hundreds  of  men  work  under 
a  director  and  which  are  commonly  called  manufactures  re- 

*  "Je  permettrai,"  says  the  capitalist,  "que  vous  ayez  Thonneur  de  me  servir,  k 
condition  que  vous  mc  donnez  le  peu  qui  vous  reste  pour  la  peine  que  je  prends  de 
vous  commander."     (J.   J.   Rousseau:   Discours  sur  I'Economie  Politique.) 


Reaction  of  Agriculiural  Revolution.  819 

unies.  Those  where  a  very  large  number  of  labourers  work, 
each  separately  and  on  his  own  account,  are  hardly  considered ; 
they  are  placed  at  an  infinite  distance  from  the  others.  This 
is  a  great  error,  as  the  latter  alone  make  a  really  important 
object  of  national  prosperity  .  .  .  Tlie  large  workshop  (manu- 
facture reunie)  will  enrich  prodigiously  one  or  two  entrepren- 
eurs, but  the  Ipbourers  will  only  bo  journeymen,  paid  more 
or  less,  and  will  not  have  any  share  in  the  success  of  the  under- 
taking. In  the  discrete  workshop  (manufacture  separee,)  on 
the  contrary,  no  one  will  become  rich,  but  many  labourers  will 
be  comfortable;  the  saving  and  the  industrious  will  be  able 
to  amass  a  little  capital,  to  put  by  a  little  for  a  birth  of  a 
child,  for  an  illness,  for  themselves  or  their  belongings.  The 
number  of  saving  and  industrious  labourers  will  increase,  be- 
cause they  will  see  in  good  conduct,  in  activity,  a  means  of 
essentially  bettering  their  condition,  and  not  of  obtaining  a 
small  rise  of  wages  that  can  never  be  of  any  importance  for  the 
future,  and  whose  sole  result  is  to  place  men  in  the  position  to 
live  a  little  better,  but  only  from  day  to  day  .  .  .  The  large 
workshops,  undertakings  of  certain  private  persons  who  pay 
labourers  from  day  to  day  to  work  for  their  gain,  may  be  able 
to  put  these  private  individuals  at  their  ease,  but  they  will 
never  be  an  object  worth  the  attention  of  governments.  Dis- 
crete workshops,  for  the  most  part  combined  with  cultivation 
of  small  holdings,  are  the  only  free  ones."^  The  expropriation 
and  eviction  of  a  part  of  the  agricultural  population  not 
only  set  free  for  industrial  capital,  the  labourers,  their  means 
of  subsistence,  and  material  for  labour;  it  also  created  the 
home  market. 

In  fact,  the  events  that  transformed  the  small  peasants  into 
wage-labourers,  and  their  means  of  subsistence  and  of  labour 
into  material  elements  of  capital,  created,  at  the  same  time,  a 
home-market  for  the  latter.  Formerly,  the  peasant  family 
produced  the  means  of  subsistence  and  the  raw  materials,  which 
they  themselves,  for  the  most  part,  consumed.     These   raw 

1  Mirabeau,  1.  c.  t.  Ill,  pp.  20-109  passim.  That  Mirabeau  considers  the  separate 
workshops  more  economic  and  productive  than  the  "combined,"  and  sees  in  the 
latter  merely  artificial  exotics  under  government  cultivation,  is  explained  by  the 
position  at  that  time  of  a  great  part  of  the  continental  manufactures. 


820  Capitalist  Production. 

materials  and  means  of  subsistence  have  now  become  com- 
modities; the  large  farmer  sells  them,  he  finds  his  market  in 
manufactures.  Yarn,  linen,  coarse  woollen  stuffs — ^things 
whose  raw  materials  had  been  within  the  reach  of  every 
peasant  family,  had  been  spun  and  woven  by  it  for  its  own 
use— were  now  transformed  into  articles  of  manufacture,  to 
which  the  country  districts  at  once  served  for  markets.  The 
many  scattered  customers,  whom  stray  artizans  until  now  had 
found  in  the  numerous  small  producers  working  on  their  own 
account,  concentrate  themselves  now  into  one  great  market 
provided  for  by  industrial  capital.^  Thus,  hand  in  hand  with 
the  expropriation  of  the  self-supporting  peasants,  with  their 
separation  from  their  means  of  production,  goes  the  destruc- 
tion of  rural  domestic  industry,  the  process  of  separation  be- 
tween manufacture  and  agriculture.  And  only  the  destruc- 
tion of  rural  domestic  industry  can  give  the  internal  market 
of  a  country  that  extension  and  consistence  which  the  capitalist 
mode  of  production  requires.  Still  the  manufacturing  period, 
properly  so-called,  does  not  succeed  in  carrying  out  this  trans- 
formation radically  and  completely.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  manufacture,  properly  so-called,  conquers  but  partially 
the  domain  of  national  production,  and  always  rests  on  the 
handicrafts  of  the  town  and  the  domestic  industry  of  the  rural 
districts  as  its  ultimate  basis.  If  it  destroys  these  in  one  form, 
in  particular  branches,  at  certain  points,  it  calls  them  up  again 
elsewhere,  because  it  needs  them  for  the  preparation  of  raw 
material  up  to  a  certain  point.  It  produces,  therefore,  a  new 
class  of  small  villagers  who,  while  following  the  cultivation  of 
the  soil  as  an  accessory  calling,  find  their  chief  occupation  in 
industrial  labour,  the  products  of  which  they  sell  to  the  manu- 
facturers directly,  or  through  the  medium  of  merchants.  This 
is  one,  though  not  the  chief,  cause  of  a  phenomenon  which,  at 

*  "Twenty  pounds  of  wool  converted  unobtrusively  into  the  yearly  clothing  of  a 
labourer's  family  by  its  own  industry  in  the  intervals  of  other  work — this  makes  no 
show;  but  bring  it  to  market,  send  it  to  the  factory,  thence  to  the  broker,  thence  to 
the  dealer,  and  you  will  have  great  commercial  operations,  and  nominal  capital  en- 
gaged to  the  amount  of  twenty  times  its  value.  .  .  .  The  working  class  is  thus 
emerced  to  support  a  wretched  factory  population,  a  parasitical  shop-keeping  class, 
and  a  fictitious  commercial,  monetary,  and  financial  system.  (David  Urquhart,  I.  c, 
p.  120.) 


Reaction  of  Agricultural  Revolution.  821 

first,  puzzles  the  student  of  English,  history.  From  the  last 
third  of  the  15th  century  he  finds  continually  complaints,  only 
interrupted  at  certain  invervals,  about  the  encroachment  of 
capitalist  farming  in  the  country  districts,  and  the  progressive 
destruction  of  the  peasantry.  On  the  other  hand,  he  always 
finds  this  peasantry  turning  up  again,  although  in  diminished 
number,  and  always  under  worse  conditions.^  The  chief  rea- 
son is :  England  is  at  one  time  chiefly  a  cultivator  of  com,  at 
another  chiefly  a  breeder  of  cattle,  in  alternate  periods,  and 
with  these  the  extent  of  peasant  cultivation  fluctuates.  Mod- 
ern Industry  alone,  and  finally,  supplies,  in  machinery,  the 
lasting  basis  of  capitalistic  agriculture,  expropriates  radically 
the  enormous  'majority  of  the  agricultural  population,  and 
completes  the  separation  between  agriculture  and  rural  domes- 
tic industry,  whose  roots; — spinning  and  weaving — ^it  tears 
up.^  It  therefore  also,  for  the  first  time,  conquers  for  indus- 
trial capital  the  entire  home  market.^ 

*  Cromwell's  time  forms  an  exception.  So  long  as  the  Republic  lasted,  the  mass 
of  the  English  people  of  all  grades  rose  from  the  degradation  into  which  they  had 
sunk  under  the  Tudors. 

*  Tuckett  is  aware  that  the  modern  woollen  industry  has  sprung,  with  the  intro- 
duction of  machinery,  from  manufacture  proper  and  from  the  destruction  of  rural 
and  domestic  industries.  "The  plough,  the  yoke,  were  'the  invention  of  gods,  and 
the  occupation  of  heroes;'  are  the  loom,  the  spindle,  the  distaff,  of  less  noble  parent- 
age. You  sever  the  distaff  and  the  plough,  the  spindle  and  the  yoke,  and  you  get 
factories  and  poorhouses,  credit  and  panics,  two  hostile  nations,  agricultural  and 
commercial."  (David  Urquhart,  1.  c,  p.  122.)  But  now  comes  Carey,  and  cries 
out  upon  England,  surely  not  with  unreason,  that  it  is  trying  to  turn  every  other 
country  into  a  mere  agricultural  nation,  whose  manufacturer  is  to  be  England.  He 
pretends  that  in  this  way  Turkey  has  been  ruined,  because  "the  owners  and  occu- 
pants of  land  have  never  been  permitted  by  England  to  strengthen  themselves  by 
the  formation  of  that  natural  alliance  between  the  plough  and  the  loom,  the  ham- 
mer and  the  harrow."  (The  Slave  Trade,  p.  125.)  According  to  him,  Urquhart 
himself  is  one  of  the  chief  agents  in  the  ruin  of  Turkey,  where  he  had  made  free 
trade  propaganda  in  the  English  interest.  The  best  of  it  is  that  Carey,  a  great 
Russophile  by  the  way,  wants  to  prevent  the  process  of  separation  by  that  very 
system    of   protection    which   accelerates   it. 

^  Philanthropic  English  economists,  like  Mill,  Rogers,  Goldwin,  Smith,  Fawcett, 
&c.,  and  liberal  manufacturers  like  John  Bright  &  Co.,  ask  the  English  landed 
proprietors,  as  God  asked  Cain  after  Abel,  Where  are  our  thousands  of  freeholders 
gone?  But  where  do  you  come  from,  then?  From  the  destruction  of  those  free- 
holders. Why  don't  you  ask  further,  where  are  the  independent  weavers,  spinners, 
and  djrtizans  ^one? 


822  Capiialist  Production^ 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

GENESW    OP    THE    INDUSTRIAL,    CAPITALIST. 

The  genesis  of  the  industrial^  capitalist  did  not  proceed  in 
such  a  gradual  way  as  that  of  the  farmer.  Doubtless  many 
small  guild-masters,  and  yet  more  independent  small  artisans, 
or  even  wage-labourers,  transformed  themselves  into  small 
capitalists,  and  (by  gradually  extending  exploitation  of  wage- 
labour  and  corresponding  accumulation)  into  full-blown  capi- 
talists. In  the  infancy  of  capitalist  production,  things  often 
happened  as  in  the  infancy  of  mediaeval  towns,  where  the 
question,  which  of  the  escaped  serfs  should  be  master  and 
which  servant,  was  in  great  part  decided  by  the  earlier  or  later 
date  of  their  flight.  The  snail's-pace  of  this  method  corre- 
sponded in  no  wise  with  the  commercial  requirements  of  the 
new  world-market  that  the  great  discoveries  of  the  end  of  the 
15th  century  created.  But  the  middle  age  had  handed  down 
two  distinct  forms  of  capital,  which  mature  in  the  most  differ- 
ent economic  social  formations,  and  which,  before  the  era  of 
the  capitalist  mode  of  production,  are  considered  as  capital 
quand  meme — usurer's  capital  and  merchant's  capital. 

"At  present,  all  the  wealth  of  society  goes  first  into  the  pos- 
session of  the  capitalist  ....  he  pays  the  landowner  his  rent, 
the  labourer  his  wages,  the  tax  and  tithe  gatherer  their  claims, 
and  keeps  a  large,  indeed  the  largest,  and  a  continually  aug- 
menting share,  of  the  annual  produce  of  labour  for  himself. 
The  capitalist  may  now  be  said  to  be  the  first  owner  of  all  the 
wealth  of  the  community,  though  no  law  has  conferred  on  him 
the  right  to  this  property  ....  this  change  has  been  effected 
by  the  taking  of  interest  on  capital  ....  and  it  is  not  a  little 
curious  that  all  the  lawgivers  of  Europe  endeavoured  to  pre- 
vent this  by  statutes,  viz.,  statutes  against  usury The 

power  of  the  capitalist  over  all  the  wealth  of  the  country  is  a 

^  Industrial  here  in  contradistinction  to  agricultural.     In  the  "categoric"  sense  the 
farmer  is  an   industrial  capitalist  as  much  as  the  manufacturer. 


Genesis  of  the  Industrial  Capitalist.  823 

complete  change  in  the  right  of  property,  and  by  what  law,  or 
series  of  laws,  was  it  effected  ?  "•  ^  The  author  should  have  re- 
membered that  revolutions  are  not  made  by  laws. 

The  money  capital  formed  by  means  of  usuiy  and  commerce 
was  prevented  from  turning  into  industrial  capital,  in  the 
country  by  the  feudal  constitution,  in  the  towns  by  the  guild 
organization.^  These  fetters  vanished  with  the  dissolution  of 
feudal  society,  with  the  expropriation  and  partial  eviction  of 
the  country  population.  The  new  manufacturers  were  estab- 
lished at  sea-ports,  or  in  inland  points  beyond  the  control  of 
the  old  municipalities  and  their  guilds.  Hence  in  England  an 
embittered  struggle  of  the  corporate  towns  against  these  new 
industrial  nurseries. 

The  discovery  of  gold  and  silver  in  America,  the  extirpa- 
tion, enslavement  and  entombment  in  mines  of  the  aboriginal 
population,  the  beginning  of  the  conquest  and  looting  of  the 
East  Indies,  the  turning  of  Africa  into  a  warren  for  the  com- 
mercial hunting  of  black-skins,  signalised  the  rosy  dawn  of 
the  era  of  capitalist  production.  These  idyllic  proceedings 
are  the  chief  momenta  of  primitive  accumulation.  On  their 
heels  treads  the  commercial  war  of  the  European  nations, 
with  the  globe  for  a  theatre.  It  begins  with  the  revolt  of 
the  ISTetherlands  from  Spain,  assumes  giant  dimensions  in  Eng- 
land's anti-jacobin  war,  and  is  still  going  on  in  the  opium  wars 
against  China,  &c. 

The  different  momenta  of  primitive  accumulation  distribute 
themselves  now,  more  or  less  in  chronological  order,  partic- 
ularly over  Spain,  Portugal,  Holland,  France,  and  England. 
In  England  at  the  end  of  the  I7th  century,  they  arrive  at  a 
systematical  combination,  embracing  the  colonies,  the  national 
debt,  the  modem  mode  of  taxation,  and  the  protectionist  sys- 
tem. These  methods  depend  in  part  on  brute  force,  e.g.,  the 
colonial  system.  But  they  all  employ  the  power  of  the  State, 
the  concentrated   and  organised  force  of  society,   to  hasten, 

*  "The  Natural  and  Artificial  Rights  of  Property  Contrasted."  Lond.,  1832,  pp. 
98-99.     Author    of    the    anonymous    work:     "Th.    Hodgskin." 

*  Even  as  late  as  1794,  the  small  cloth-makers  of  Leeds  sent  a  deputation  to  Par- 
liament, with  a  petition  for  a  law  to  forbid  any  merchant  from  becoming  a  manu- 
facturer.    (Dr.   Aikin,   1.   c.) 


824  Capitalist  Production. 

hothouse  fashion,  the  process  of  transformation  of  the  feudal 
mode  of  production  into  the  capitalist  mode,  and  to  shorten  the 
transition.  Force  is  the  midwife  of  every  old  society  pregnant 
with  a  new  one.     It  is  itself  an  economic  power. 

Of  the  Christian  colonial  system,  W.  Howitt,  a  man  who 
makes  a  specialty  of  Christianity,  says :  "The  barbarities  and 
desperate  outrages  of  the  so-called  Christian  race,  throughout 
every  region  of  the  world,  and  upon  every  people  they  have 
been  able  to  subdue,  are  not  to  be  paralleled  by  those  of  any 
other  race,  however  fierce,  however  untaught,  and  however 
reckless  of  mercy  and  of  shame,  in  any  age  of  the  earth."  ^ 
The  history  of  the  colonial  administration  of  Holland — and 
Holland  was  the  head  capitalistic  nation. of  the  17th  century 
— "is  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  relations  of  treachery, 
bribery,  massacre,  and  meanness."  ^  Nothing  is  more  charac- 
teristic than  their  system  of  stealing  men,  to  get  slaves  for 
Java.  The  men  stealers  were  trained  for  this  purpose.  The 
thief,  the  interpreter,  and  the  seller,  were  the  chief  agents  in 
this  trade,  native  princes  the  chief  sellers.  The  young  people 
stolen,  were  thrown  into  the  secret  dungeons  of  Celebes,  until 
they  were  ready  for  sending  to  the  slave-ships.  An  official  re- 
port says :  "This  one  town  of  Macassar,  e.g.,  is  full  of  secret 
prisons,  one  more  horrible  than  the  other,  crammed  with  un- 
fortunates, victims  of  greed  and  tyranny  fettered  in  chains, 
forcibly  torn  from  their  families."  To  secure  Malacca,  the 
Dutch  corrupted  the  Portuguese  governor.  He  let  them  into 
the  town  in  1641.  They  hurried  at  once  to  his  house  and 
assassinated  him,  to  "abstain"  from  the  payment  of  £21,875, 
the  price  of  his  treason.  Wherever  they  set  foot,  devastation 
and  depopulation  followed.  Banjuwangi,  a  province  of  Java, 
in  1750  numbered  over  80,000  inhabitants,  in  1811  only  18,- 
000.     Sweet  commerce! 

'William  Howitt:  "Colonisation  and  Christianity:  A  Popular  History  of  the 
Treatment  of  the  Natives  by  the  Europeans  in  all  their  Colonies."  London,  1838, 
p.  9.  On  the  treatment  of  the  slaves  there  is  a  good  compilation  in  Charles  Comte, 
Traite  de  la  Legislation.  3me  ed.  Bruxelles,  1837.  This  subject  one  must  study 
in  detail,  to  see  what  the  bourgeoisie  makes  of  itself  and  of  the  labourer,  wherever 
it  can,   without  restraint,   model   the  world  after  its  own   image. 

'Thomas  Stamford  Raffles,  late  Lieut.-Gov.  of  that  island:  "History  of  Java 
and   its  dependencies."     Lond.,   1817. 


Genesis  of  the  Industrial  Capitalist.  825 

The  English  East  India  Company,  as  is  well  known,  ob- 
tained, besides  the  political  rule  in  India,  the  exclusive  monop- 
oly of  the  tea-trade,  as  well  as  of  the  Chinese  trade  in  general, 
and  of  the  transport  of  goods  to  and  from  Europe:  But  the 
coasting  trade  of  India  and  between  the  islands,  as  well  as  the 
internal  trade  of  India,  were  the  monopoly  of  the  higher  em- 
ployes of  the  company.  The  monopolies  of  salt,  opium,  betel 
and  other  commodities,  were  inexhaustible  mines  of  wealth. 
The  employes  themselves  fixed  the  price  and  plu«ndered  at  will 
the  unhappy  Hindus.  The  Governor-General  took  part  in  this 
private  traffic.  His  favourites  received  contracts  under  con- 
ditions whereby  they,  cleverer  than  the  alchemists,  made  gold 
out  of  nothing.  Great  fortunes  sprang  up  like  mushrooms  in 
a  day;  primitive  accumulation  went  on  without  the  advance 
of  a  shilling.  The  trial  of  Warren  Hastings  swarms  with  such 
cases.  Here  is  an  instance.  A  contract  for  opium  was  given 
to  a  certain  Sullivan  at  the  moment  of  his  departure  on  an 
oflBcial  mission  to  a  part  of  India  far  removed  from  the  opium 
district.  Sullivan  sold  his  contract  to  one  Binn  for  £40,000* 
Binn  sold  it  the  same  day  for  £60,000,  and  the  ultimate  pur- 
chaser who  carried  out  the  contract  declared  that  after  all  he 
realised  an  enormous  gain.  According  to  one  of  the  lists  laid 
before  Parliament,  the  Company  and  its  employes  from  175Y- 
1766  got  £6,000,000  from  the  Indians  as  gifts.  Between  1769 
and  1770,  the  English  manufactured  a  famine  by  buying  up 
all  the  rice  and  refusing  to  sell  it  again,  except  at  fabulous 
prices.^ 

The  treatment  of  the  aborigines  was,  naturally,  most  fright- 
ful in  plantation-colonies  destined  for  export  trade  only,  such 
as  the  West  Indies,  and  in  rich  and  well-populated  countries, 
such  as  Mexico  and  India,  that  were  given  over  to  plunder. 
But  even  in  the  colonies  properly  so-called,  the  Christian 
character  of  primitive  accumulation  did  not  belie  itself.  Those 
sober  virtuosi  of  Protestantism,  the  Puritans  of  New  England, 
in  1703,  by  decrees  of  their  assembly  set  a  premium  of  £40  on 

*  In  the  year  1866  more  than  a  million  Hindus  died  of  hunger  in  the  province  of 
Orissa  alone.  Nevertheless,  the  attempt  was  made  to  enrich  the  Indian  treasury  by 
the  price  at  which  the  necessaries  of  life  were  sold  to  the  starving  people. 


826  Capitalist  Production. 

every  Indian  scalp  and  every  captured  red-skin :  in  1Y20  a 
premium  of  £100  on  every  scalp;  in  1744,  after  Massachusetts- 
Bay  had  pr9claimed  a  certain  tribe  as  rebels,  the  following 
prices:  for  a  male  scalp  of  12  years  and  upwards  £100  (new 
currency),  for  a  male  prisoner  £105,  for  women  and  children 
prisoners  £50,  for  scalps  of  women  and  children  £50.  Some 
decades  later,  the  colonial  system  took  its  revenge  on  the  de- 
scendants of  the  pious  pilgrim  fathers,  who  had  grown  sedi- 
tious in  the  meantime.  At  English  instigation  and  for  Eng- 
lish pay  they  were  tomahawked  by  red-skins.  The  British 
Parliament,  proclaimed  blood-hounds  and  scalping  as  "mean? 
that  God  and  Nature  had  given  into  its  hand." 

The  colonial  system  ripened,  like  a  hot-house,  trade  and 
navigation.  The  "societies  Monopolia"  of  Luther  were  power- 
ful levers  for  concentration  of  capital.  The  colonies  secured  a 
market  for  the  budding  manufactures,  and,  through  the  mo- 
nopoly of  the  market,  an  increased  accumulation.  The  treas- 
ures captured  outside  Europe  by  undisguised  looting,  enslave- 
ment, and  murder,  floated  back  to  the  mother-country  and 
were  there  turned  into  capital.  Holland,  which  first  fully 
developed  the  colonial  system,  in  1648  stood  already  in  the 
acme  of  its  commercial  greatness.  It  was  "in  almost  exclu- 
sive possession  of  the  East  Indian  trade  and  the  commerce  be- 
tween the  south-east  and  north-west  of  Europe.  Its  fisheries, 
marine,  manufactures,  surpassed  those  of  any  other  country. 
The  total  capital  of  the  Republic  was  probably  more  important 
than  that  of  all  the  rest  of  Europe  put  together."  Giilich  for- 
gets to  add  that  by  1648,  the  people  of  Holland  were  more 
overworked,  poorer  and  more  brutally  oppressed  than  those  of 
all  the  rest  of  Europe  put  together. 

To-day  industrial  supremacy  implies  commercial  supremacy, 
In  the  period  of  manufacture  properly  so-called,  it  is,  on  the 
other  hand,  tlie  commercial  supremacy  that  gives  industrial 
predominance.  Hence  the  preponderant  role  that  the  colonial 
system  plays  at  that  time.  It  was  "the  strange  God"  who 
perched  himself  on  the  altar  cheek  by  jowl  with  the  old  Gods 
of  Europe,  and  one  fine  day  with  a  shove  and  a  kick  chucked 


Genesis  of  the  Industrial  Capitalist.  827 

them  all  of  a  heap.     It  proclaimed  surplus-value  making  as 
the  sole  end  and  aim  of  humanity. 

The  system  of  public  credit,  i.e.  of  national  debts,  whose 
origin  we  discover  in  Genoa  and  Venice  as  early  as  the  middle 
ages,  took  possession  of  Europe  generally  during  the  manu- 
facturing period.  The  colonial  system  with  its  maritime  trade 
and  commercial  wars  served  as  a  forcing-house  for  it.  Thus  it 
first  took  root  in  Holland.  National  debts,  i.e.,  the  alienation 
of  the  state — whether  despotic,  constitutional  or  republican — 
marked  with  its  stamp  the  capitalistic  era.  The  only  part  of 
the  so-called  national  wealth  that  actually  enters  into  the  col- 
lective possessions  of  modem  peoples  is — their  national  debt.* 
Hence,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  the  modem  doctrine  that  a 
nation  becomes  the  richer  the  more  deeply  it  is  in  debt. 
Public  credit  becomes  the  credo  of  capital.  And  with  the 
rise  of  national  debt-making,  want  of  faith  in  the  national 
debt  takes  the  place  of  the  blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Ghost, 
which  may  not  be  forgiven. 

The  public  debt  becomes  one  of  the  most  powerful  levers  of 
primitive  accumulation.  As  with  the  stroke  of  an  enchanter's 
wand,  it  endows  barren  money  with  the  power  of  breeding  and 
thus  turns  it  into  capital,  without  the  necessity  of  its  exposing 
itself  to  the  troubles  and  risks  inseparable  from  its  employ- 
ment in  industry  or  even  in  usury.  The  state-creditors  actu- 
ally give  nothing  away,  for  the  sum  lent  is  transformed  into 
public  bonds,  easily  negotiable,  which  go  on  functioning  in 
their  hands  just  as  so  much  hard  cash  would.  But  further, 
apart  from  the  class  of  lazy  annuitants  thus  created,  and  from 
the  improvised  wealth  of  the  financiers,  middlemen  between 
the  government  and  the  nation — as  also  apart  from  the  tax- 
farmers,  merchants,  private  manufacturers,  to  whom  a  good 
part  of  every  national  loan  renders  the  service  of  a  capital 
fallen  from  heaven — the  national  debt  has  given  rise  to  joint- 
stock  companies,  to  dealings  in  negotiable  effects  of  all  kinds, 
and  to  agiotage,  in  a  word  to  stock-exchange  gambling  and  the 
modern  bankocracy. 

1  William   Cobbett   remarks   that  in   England  all  public  institutions  are  designated 
"royal;"  as  compensation   for  this,  however,   there  is  the   "national"  debt. 


828  Capitalist  Production. 

At  their  birth  the  great  banks,  decorated  with  national 
titles,  were  only  associations  of  private  speculators,  who  placed 
themselves  by  the  side  of  governments,  and,  thanks  to  the 
privileges  they  received,  were  in  a  position  to  advance  money 
to  the  state.  Hence  the  accumulation  of  the  national  debt  has 
no  more  infallible  measure  than  the  successive  rise  in  the  stock 
of  these  banks,  whose  full  development  dates  from  the  found- 
ing of  the  Bank  of  England  in  1694.  The  Bank  of  England 
began  with  lending  its  money  to  the  Government  at  8%  ;  at 
the  same  time  it  was  empowered  by  Parliament  to  coin  money 
out  of  the  same  capital,  by  lending  it  again  to  the  public  in 
the  form  of  bank-notes.  It  was  allowed  to  use  these  notes  for 
discounting  bills,  making  advances  on  commodities,  and  for 
buying  the  precious  metals.  It  was  not  long  ere  this  credit- 
money,  made  by  the  bank  itself,  became  the  coin  in  which  the 
Bank  of  England  made  its  loans  to  the  state,  and  paid,  on  ac- 
count of  the  state,  the  interest  on  the  public  debt.  It  was  not 
enough  that  the  bank  gave  with  one  hand  and  took  back  more 
■with  the  other ;  it  remained,  even  whilst  receiving,  the  eternal 
creditor  of  the  nation  down  to  the  last  shilling  advanced. 
Gradually  it  became  inevitably  the  receptacle  of  the  metallic 
hoard  of  the  country,  and  the  centre  of  gravity  of  all  com- 
mercial credit.  What  effect  was  produced  on  their  contem- 
poraries by  the  sudden  uprising  of  this  brood  of  bankocrats, 
financiers,  rentiers,  brokers,  stock-jobbers,  &c.,  is  proved  by  the 
writings  of  that  time,  e.g.,  by  Bolingbroke's.^ 

With  the  national  debt  arose  an  international  credit  system, 
which  often  conceals  one  of  the  sources  of  primitive  accumula- 
tion in  this  or  that  people.  Thus  the  villanies  of  the  Venetian 
thieving  system  formed  one  of  the  secret  bases  of  the  capital- 
wealth  of  Holland  to  whom  Venice  in  her  decadence  lent  large 
sums  of  money.  So  also  was  it  with  Holland  and  England. 
By  the  beginning  of  the  18th  centui-y  the  Dutch  manufac- 
tures were  far  outstripped.  Holland  had  ceased  to  be  the 
nation  preponderant  in  commerce  and  industry.     One  of  its 

*  "Si  les  Tartares  inondaient  I'Europe  aujourd'hui,  il  faudrait  bien  des  afFaires 
pour  Icur  faire  entendre  ce  que  c'est  qu'un  financier  parmi  nous."  Montesquieu 
Esprit  des  lois,  t.  iv.  p.  33,  ed.  Londres,  1769. 


Genesis  of  the  Industrial  Capitalist.  829 

main  lines  of  business,  therefore,  from  1701-1776,  is  the  lend- 
ing out  of  enormous  amounts  of  capital,  especially  to  its  great 
rival  England.  The  same  thing  is  going  on  to-day  between 
England  and  the  United  States.  A  great  deal  of  capital, 
which  appears  to-day  in  the  United  States  without  any  certi- 
ficate of  birth,  was  yesterday,  in  England,  the  capitalised  blood 
of  children. 

As  the  national  debt  finds  its  support  in  the  public  revenue, 
which  must  cover  the  yearly  payments  for  interest,  &c.,  the 
modern  system  of  taxation  was  the  necessary  complement  of 
the  system  of  national  loans.  The  loans  enable  the  govern- 
ment to  meet  extraordinary  expenses,  without  the  tax-payers 
feeling  it  immediately,  but  they  necessitate,  as  a  consequence, 
increased  taxes.  On  the  other  hand,  the  raising  of  taxation 
caused  by  the  accumulation  of  debts  contracted  one  after  an- 
other, compels  the  government  always  to  have  recourse  to  new 
loans  for  new  extraordinary  expenses.  Modfern  fiscality,  whose 
pivot  is  formed  by  taxes  on  the  most  necessary  means  of  sul>- 
sistence  (thereby  increasing  their  price),  thus  contains  within 
itself  the  germ  of  automatic  progression.  Over-taxation  is  not 
an  incident,  but  rather  a  principle.  In  Holland,  therefore, 
where  this  system  was  first  inaugurated,  the  great  patriot,  De 
Witt,  has  in  his  "Maxims"  extolled  it  as  the  best  system  for 
making  the  wage-labourer  submissive,  frugal,  industrious,  and 
overburdened  with  labour.  The  destructive  influence  that  it 
exercises  on  the  condition  of  the  wage-labourer  concerns  us 
less  however,  here,  than  the  forcible  expropriation,  resulting 
from  it,  of  peasants,  artisans,  and  in  a  word,  all  elements  of 
the  lower  middle-class.  On  this  there  are  not  two  opinions, 
even  among  the  bourgeois  economists.  Its  expropriating  effi- 
cacy is  still  further  heightened  by  the  system  of  protection, 
which  forms  one  of  its  integral  parts. 

The  great  part  that  the  public  debt,  and  the  fiscal  system 
corresponding  with  it,  has  played  in  the  capitalisation  of 
wealth  and  the  expropriation  of  the  masses,  has  led  many 
writers,  like  Cobbett,  Doubleday  and  others,  to  seek  in  this, 
incorrectly,  the  fundamental  cause  of  the  misery  of  the  modern 
peoples. 


830  Capitalist  Production. 

The  system  of  protection  was  an  artificial  means  of  manufac- 
turing manufacturers,  of  expropriating  independent  labourers, 
of  capitalising  the  national  means  of  production  and  subsist- 
ence, of  forcibly  abbreviating  the  transition  from  the  mediaeval 
to  the  modern  mode  of  production.  The  European  states  tore 
one  another  to  pieces  about  the  patent  of  this  invention,  and, 
once  entered  into  the  service  of  the  surplus-value  makers,  did 
not  merely  lay  under  contribution  in  the  pursuit  of  this  pur- 
pose their  ovm  people,  indirectly  through  protective  duties,  di- 
rectly through  export  premiums.  They  also  forcibly  rooted 
out,  in  their  dependent  countries,  all  industry,  as,  e.g.,  England 
did  with  the  Irish  woollen  manufacture.  On  the  continent  of 
Europe,  after  Colbert's  example,  the  process  was  much  simpli- 
fied. The  primitive  industrial  capital,  here,  came  in  part 
directly  out  of  the  state  treasury.  "Why,"  cries  Mirabeau, 
"why  go  so  far  to  seek  the  cause  of  the  manufacturing  glory  of 
Saxony  before  the  war  ?  180,000,000  of  debts  contracted  by 
the  sovereigns  !"^ 

Colonial  system,  public  debts,  heavy  taxes,  protection,  com- 
mercial wars,  &c.,  these  children  of  the  true  manufacturing 
period,  increase  gigantically  during  the  infancy  of  Modern 
Industry.  The  birth  of  the  latter  is  heralded  by  a  great 
slaughter  of  the  innocents.  Like  the  royal  navy,  the  factories 
were  recruited  by  means  of  the  press-gang.  Blase  as  Sir  E. 
M.  Eden  is  as  to  the  horrors  of  the  expropriation  of  the  agricul- 
tural population  from  the  soil,  from  the  last  third  of  the  15th 
century  to  his  own  time;  with  all  the  self-satisfaction  with 
which  he  rejoices  in  this  process,  "essential"  for  establishing 
capitalistic  agriculture  and  "the  due  proportion  between  arable 
and  pasture  land" — ^he  does  not  show,  however,  the  same  eco- 
nomic insight  in  respect  to  the  necessity  of  child-stealing  and 
child-slavery  for  the  transformation  of  manufacturing  exploi- 
tation into  factory  exploitation,  and  the  establishment  of  the 
"true  relation"  between  capital  and  la]x>ur-power.  He  says: 
"It  may,  perhaps,  be  worthy  the  attention  of  the  public  to 
consider,  whether  any  manufacture,  which,  in  order  to  be 
carried  on  successfully,  requires  that  cottages  and  workliouses 

*  Mirabeau,   1.   c,    t.    vi.,    p.    101. 


Genesis  of  the  Industrial  Capitalist.  831 

should  be  ransacked  for  poor  children;  that  they  should  be 
employed  by  turns  during  the  greater  part  of  the  night  and 
robbed  of  that  rest  which,  though  indispensable  to  all,  is  most 
required  by  the  young;  and  that  numbers  of  both  sexes,  of 
different  ages  and  dispositions,  should  be  collected  together  in 
such  a  manner  that  the  contagion  of  example  cannot  but  lead 
to  profligacy  and  debauchery ;  will  add  to  the  sum  of  individ- 
ual or  national  felicity  ?"^ 

"In  the  counties  of  Derbyshire,  Nottinghamshire,  and  more 
particularly  in  Lancashire,"  says  Fielden,  "the  newly-invented 
machinery  was  used  in  large  factories  built  on  the  sides  of 
streams  capable  of  turning  the  water-wheel.  Thousands  of 
hands  were  suddenly  required  in  these  places,  remote  from 
towns;  and  Lancashire,  in  particular,  being,  till  then,  com- 
paratively thinly  populated  and  barren,  a  population  was  all 
that  she  now  wanted.  The  small  and  nimble  fingers  of  little 
children  being  by  very  far  the  most  in  request,  the  custom 
instantly  sprang  up  of  procuring  apprentices  from  the  different 
parish  workhouses  of  London,  Birmingham,  and  elsewhere. 
Many,  many  thousands  of  these  little,  hapless  creatures  were 
sent  down  into  the  north,  being  from  the  age  of  7  to  the  age  of 
13  or  14  years  old.  The  custom  was  for  the  master  to  clothe 
his  apprentices  and  to  feed  and  lodge  them  in  an  "appren- 
tice house"  near  the  factory ;  overseers  were  appointed  to  see 
to  the  works,  whose  interest  it  was  to  work  the  children  to 
the  utmost,  because  their  pay  was  in  proportion  to  the  quantity 
of  work  that  they  could  exact.  Cruelty  was,  of  course,  the 
consequence.  .  .  In  many  of  the  manufacturing  districts,  but 
particularly,  I  am  afraid,  in  the  guilty  county  to  which  I 
belong  [Lancashire],  cruelties  the  most  heart-rending  were 
practised  upon  the  unoffending  and  friendless  creatures  who 
were  thus  consigned  to  the  charge  of  master  manufacturers ; 
they  were  harassed  to  the  brink  of  death  by  excess  of  labour 
.  .  .  were  flogged,  fettered  and  tortured  in  the  most  exquisite 
refinement  of  cruelty ;  .  .  .  they  were  in  many  cases  starved 
to  the  bone  while  flogged  to  their  work  and  ....  even  in 
some  instances  .  .  .  were  driven  to  commit  suicede  .  .  .  The 

1  Eden,  1.  c,  Vol.  I.,  Book  II.,  Ch.  I.,  p.  421. 


832  Capitalist  Production. 

beautiful  and  romantic  valleys  of  Derbyshire,  Nottingbam- 
shire  and  Lancashire,  secluded  from  the  public  eye,  became  the 
dismal  solitudes  of  torture,  and  of  many  a  murder.  The 
profits  of  manufactures  were  enormous ;  but  this  only  whetted 
the  appetite  that  it  should  have  satisfied,  and  therefore  the 
manufacturers  had  recourse  to  an  expedient  that  seemed  to 
secure  to  tliem  those  profits  without  any  possibility  of  limit; 
they  began  the  practice  of  what  is  termed  "night-working," 
that  is,  having  tired  one  set  of  hands,  by  working  them 
throughout  tlie  day,  they  had  another  set  ready  to  go  on 
working  throughout  the  night;  the  day-set  getting  into  the 
beds  that  the  night-set  had  just  quitted,  and  in  their  turn 
again,  the  night-set  getting  into  the  beds  that  the  day-set 
quitted  in  the  morning.  It  is  a  common  tradition  in  Lanca- 
shire, that  the  beds  never  get  cold."^ 

With  the  development  of  capitalist  production  during  the 
manufacturing  period,  the  public  opinion  of  Europe  had  lost 
the  last  remnant  of  shame  and  conscience.  The  nations 
bragged  cynically  of  every  infamy  that  served  them  as  a  means 
to  capitalistic  accumulation.  Eead,  e.g.,  the  naive  Annals  of 
Commerce  of  the  worthy  A.  Anderson.  Here  it  is  trumpetted 
forth  as  a  triumph  of  English  statecraft  that  at  the  Peace  of 
Utrecht,  England  extorted  from  the  Spaniards  by  the  Asiento 
Treaty  the  privilege  of  being  allowed  to  ply  the  negro-trade, 
until  then  only  carried  on  between  Africa  and  the  English 

*John  Fielden,  1.  c.  pp.  5,  6.  On  the  earlier  infamies  of  the  factory  system,  cf. 
Dr.  Aikin  (1795)  1.  c.  p.  219,  and  Gisborne:  Enquiry  into  the  Duties  of  Men,  1795, 
Vol.  II.  When  the  steam-engine  transplanted  the  factories  from  the  country  water- 
falls to  the  middle  of  towns,  the  "abstemious"  surplus-value  maker  found  the  child- 
material  ready  to  his  hand,  without  being  forced  to  seek  slaves  from  the  workhouses. 
When  Sir  R.  Peel,  (father  of  the  "minister  of  plausibility"),  brought  in  his  bill  for 
the  protection  of  children,  in  1815,  Francis  Horner,  lumen  of  the  Bullion  Committee 
and  intimate  friend  of  Ricardo,  said  in  the  House  of  Commons:  "It  is  notorious; 
that  with  a  bankrupt's  effects,  a  gang,  if  he  might  use  the  word,  of  these  children 
had  been  put  up  to  sale,  and  were  advertised  publicly  as  part  of  the  property.  A 
most  atrocious  instance  had  been  brought  before  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  two 
years  before,  in  which  a  number  of  these  boys,  apprenticed  by  a  parish  in  London 
to  one  manufacturer,  had  been  transferred  to  another,  and  had  been  found  by  some 
benevolent  persons  in  a  state  of  absolute  famine.  Another  case  more  horrible  had 
come  to  his  knowledge  while  on  a  [Parliamentary]  Committee  .  .  .  that  not 
many  years  ago,  an  agreement  had  been  made  between  a  London  parish  and  a 
Lancashire  manufacturer,  by  which  it  was  stipulated,  that  with  every  20  sound  chil- 
dren  one  idiot  should  be   taken." 


Genesis  of  the  Industrial  Capitalist.  833 

West  Indies,  between  Africa  and  Spanish  x\merica  as  well. 
England  thereby  acquired  the  right  of  supplying  Spanish 
America  until  1743  with  4800  negroes  yearly.  This  threw,  at 
the  same  time,  an  official  cloak  over  British  smuggling. 
Liverpool  waxed  fat  on  the  slave-trade.  This  was  its  method 
of  primitive  accumulation.  And,  even  to  the  present  day, 
Liverpool  "respectability"  is  the  Pindar  of  the  slave-trade 
which — compare  the  work  of  Aikin  [1795]  already  quoted — ■ 
"has  coincided  with  that  spirit  of  bold  adventure  which  has 
characterised  the  trade  of  Liverpool  and  rapidly  carried  it  to  its 
present  state  of  prosperity;  has  occasioned  vast  employment 
for  shipping  and  sailors,  and  greatly  augmented  the  demand 
for  the  manufactures  of  the  country"  (p.  339).  Liverpool  em- 
ployed in  the  slave  trade,  in  1730,  15  ships;  in  1751,  53;  in 
1760,  74;  in  1770,  96;  and  in  1792,  132. 

Whilst  the  cotton  industry  introduced  child-slavery  in 
England,  it  gave  in  the  United  States  a  stimulus  to  the  trans- 
formation of  the  earlier,  more  or  less  patriarchal  slavery,  into  a 
system  of  commercial  exploitation.  In  fact,  the  veiled  slavery 
of  the  wage-earners  in  Europe  needed,  for  its  pedestal,  slavery 
pure  and  simple  in  the  new  world.  ^ 

Tantge  molis  erat,  to  establish  the  "eternal  laws  of 
Nature"  of  the  capitalist  mode  of  production,  to  complete 
the  process  of  separation  between  labourers  and  conditions 
of  labour,  to  transform,  at  one  pole,  the  social  means  of 
production  and  subsistence  into  capital,  at  the  opposite  pole, 
the  mass  of  the  population  into  wage-labourers,  into  "free 
labouring  poor,"  that  artificial  product  of  modem  society.^     If 

*  In  1790,  there  were  in  the  English  West  Indies  ten  slaves  for  one  free  man,  in 
the  French  fourteen  for  one,  in  the  Dutch  twenty-three  for  one.  (Henry  Brougham: 
An  Inquiry  into  the  Colonial  Policy  of  the  European  Powers.  Edin.  1803,  vol.  II. 
p.  74.) 

*  The  phrase,  "labouring  poor,"  is  found  in  English  legislation  from  the  moment 
when  the  class  of  wage-labourers  becomes  noticeable.  This  term  is  used  in  oppo- 
sition, on  the  one  hand,  to  the  "idle  poor,"  beggars,  etc.,  on  the  other  to  those 
labourers,  who,  pigeons  not  yet  plucked,  are  still  possessors  of  their  own  means  of 
labour.  From  the  Statute  Book  it  passed  into  political  economy,  and  was  handed 
down  by  Culpeper,  J.  Child,  etc.,  to  Adam  Smith  and  Eden.  After  this,  one 
can  judge  of  the  good  faith  of  the  "execrable  political  cant-monger,"  Edmund  Burke, 
when  he  called  the  expression,  "labouring  poor," — "execrable  political  cant."  This 
sycophant  who,  in  the  pay  of  the  English  oligarchy,  played  the  romantic  laudator 
temporis  acti  against  the  French  Revolution,  just  as,  in  the  pay  of  the  North  Ameri- 

3A 


834  Capitalist  Production. 

money,  according  to  Augier/  "comes  into  the  world  with  a 
congenital  blood-stain  on  one  cheek,"  capital  comes  dripping 
from  head  to  foot,  from  every  pore,  with  blood  and  dirt.^ 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

HISTORICAL   TENDENCY  OF   CAPITALIST   ACCXTMITLATION. 

What  does  the  primitive  accumulation  of  capital,  i.e.,  its  his- 
torical genesis,  resolve  itself  into  ?  In  so  far  as  it  is  not  im- 
mediate transformation  of  slaves  and  serfs  into  wage-labourers, 
and  therefore  a  mere  change  of  form,  it  only  means  the  expro- 
priation of  the  immediate  producers,  i.e.,  the  dissolution  of 
private  property  based  on  the  labour  of  its  owner.  Private 
property,  as  the  antithesis  to  social,  collective  property,  exists 
only  where  the  means  of  labour  and  the  external  conditions  of 
labour  belong  to  private  individuals.  But  according  as  these 
private  individuals  are  labourers  or  not  labourers,  private 
property  has  a  different  character.  The  numberless  shades, 
that  it  at  first  sight  presents,  coiTespond  to  the  intermediate 
stages  lying  between  these  two  extremes.  The  private  prop- 
can  Colonies,  at  the  beginning  of  the  American  troubles,  he  had  played  the  Liberal 
against  the  English  oligarchy,  was  an  out  and  out  vulgar  bourgeois.  "The  laws  of 
commerce  are  the  laws  of  Nature,  and  therefore  the  laws  of  God."  (E.  Burke, 
1.  c,  pp.  31,  32.)  No  wonder  that,  true  to  the  laws  of  God  and  of  Nature,  he 
always  sold  himself  in  the  best  market.  A  very  good  portrait  of  this  Edmund  Burke, 
during  his  liberal  time,  is  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Tucker. 
Tucker  was  a  parson  and  a  Tory,  but,  for  the  rest,  an  honourable  man  and  a  com- 
petent political  economist.  In  face  of  the  infamous  cowardice  of  character  that 
reigns  to-day,  and  believes  most  devoutly  in  "the  laws  of  commerce,"  it  is  our 
bounden  duty  again  and  again  to  brand  the  Burkes,  who  only  differ  from  their  suc- 
cessors  in   one   thing — talent. 

'Marie  Augier:     Du  Credit  Public.     Paris,   1842. 

*  "Capital  is  said  by  a  Quarterly  Reviewer  to  fly  turbulence  and  strife,  and  to 
be  timid,  which  is  very  true;  but  this  is  very  incompletely  stating  the  question. 
Capital  eschews  no  profit,  or  very  small  profit,  just  as  Nature  was  formerly  said  to 
abhor  a  vacuum.  With  adequate  profit,  capital  is  very  bold.  A  certain  10  per  cent, 
will  ensure  its  employment  anywhere;  20  per  cent,  certain  will  produce  eagerness; 
50  per  cent.,  positive  audacity;  100  per  cent,  will  make  it  ready  to  trample  on  all 
human  laws;  300  per  cent.,  and  there  is  not  a  crime  at  which  it  will  scruple,  nor  a 
risk  it  will  not  run,  even  to  the  chance  of  its  owner  being  hanged.  If  turbulence 
and  strife  will  bring  a  profit,  it  will  freely  encourage  both.  Smuggling  and  th- 
slave-trade  have  amply  pre  'ed  all  that  is  here  stated."     (P.  J.  Dunning,  1.  c,  p.  35.) 


Historical  Tendency  of  Accumulation.  835 

erty  of  the  labourer  in  his  means  of  production  is  the  founda- 
tion of  petty  industry,  whether  agricultural,  manufacturing 
or  both ;  petty  industry,  again,  is  an  essential  condition  for  the 
development  of  social  production  and  of  the  free  individuality 
of  the  labourer  himself.  Of  course,  this  petty  mode  of  pro- 
duction exists  also  under  slavery,  serfdom,  and  other  states 
of  dependence.  But  it  flourishes,  it  lets  loose  its  whole  energy, 
it  attains  its  adequate  classical  form,  only  where  the  labourer 
is  the  private  owner  of  his  own  means  of  labour  set  in  action 
by  himself:  the  peasant  of  the  land  which  he  cultivates,  the 
artizan  of  the  tool  which  he  handles  as  a  virtuoso.  This  mode 
of  production  pre-supposes  parcelling  of  the  soil,  and  scatter- 
ing of  the  other  means  of  production.  As  it  excludes  the  con- 
centration of  these  means  of  production,  so  also  it  excludes  co- 
operation, division  of  labour  within  each  separate  process  of 
production,  the  control  over,  and  the  productive  application 
of  the  forces  of  Xature  by  society,  and  the  free  development 
of  the  social  productive  powers.  It  is  compatible  only  with 
a  system  of  production,  and  a  society,  moving  within  narrow 
and  more  or  less  primitive  bounds.  To  perpetuate  it  would 
be,  as  Pecqueur  rightly  says,  "to  decree  universal  mediocrity." 
At  a  certain  stage  of  development  it  brings  forth  the  material 
agencies  for  its  own  dissolution.  From  that  moment  new  forces 
and  new  passions  spring  up  in  the  bosom  of  society ;  but  the 
old  social  organization  fetters  them  and  keeps  them  down.  It 
must  be  annihilated ;  it  is  annihilated.  Its  annihilation,  the 
transformation  of  the  individualised  and  scattered  means  of 
production  into  socially  concentrated  ones,  of  the  pigmy  prop- 
erty of  the  many  into  the  huge  property  of  the  few,  the  ex- 
propriation of  the  great  mass  of  the  people  from  the  soil, 
from  the  means  of  subsistence,  and  from  the  means  of  labour, 
this  fearful  and  painful  expropriation  of  the  mass  of  the  peo- 
ple forms  the  prelude  to  the  history  of  capital.  It  comprises 
a  series  of  forcible  methods,  of  which  we  have  passed  in  re- 
view only  those  that  have  been  epoch-making  as  methods  of 
the  primitive  accumulation  of  capital.  The  expropriation  of 
the  immediate  producers  was  accomplished  with  merciless  Van- 
dalism, and  under  the  stimulus  of  passions  the  most  infamous, 


836  Capitalist  Production. 

the  most  sordid,  the  pettiest,  the  most  meanly  odious.  Self- 
earned  private  property,  that  is  based,  so  to  say,  on  the  fusing 
together  of  the  isolated,  independent  labouring-individual  with 
the  conditions  of  his  labour,  is  supplanted  by  capitalistic  pri- 
vate property,  which  rests  on  exploitation  of  the  nominally 
free  labour  of  others,  i.e.,  on  wages-labour.^ 

As  soon  as  this  process  of  transformation  has  sufficiently  de- 
composed the  old  society  from  top  to  bottom,  as  soon  as 
the  labourers  are  turned  into  proletarians,  their  means  of 
labour  into  capital,  as  soon  as  the  capitalist  mode  of  produc- 
tion stands  on  its  own  feet,  then  the  further  socialisation  of 
labour  and  furtlier  transformation  of  the  land  and  other  means 
of  production  into  socially  exploited  and,  therefore,  common 
means  of  production,  as  well  as  the  further  expropriation  of 
private  proprietors,  takes  a  new  form.  That  which  is  now 
to  be  expropriated  is  no  longer  the  labourer  working  for  him- 
self, but  the  capitalist  exploiting  many  labourers.  This  ex- 
propriation is  accomplished  by  the  action  of  the  immanent  laws 
of  capitalistic  production  itself,  by  the  centralisation  of  capi- 
tal. One  capitalist  always  kills  many.  Hand  in  hand  with 
this  centralisation,  or  this  expropriation  of  many  capitalists 
by  few,  develop,  on  an  ever  extending  scale,  the  co-operative 
form  of  the  labour-process,  the  conscious  technical  application 
of  science,  the  methodical  cultivation  of  the  soil,  the  trans- 
formation of  the  instruments  of  labour  into  instruments  of 
labour  only  usable  in  common,  the  economising  of  all  means 
of  production  by  their  use  as  the  means  of  production  of  com- 
bined, socialised  labour,  the  entanglement  of  all  peoples  in  the 
net  of  the  world-market,  and  this,  the  international  character 
of  the  capitalistic  regime.  Along  with  the  constantly  dimin- 
ishing number  of  the  magnates  of  capital,  who  usurp  and 
monopolise  all  advantages  of  this  process  of  transformation, 
grows  the  mass  of  misery,  oppression,  slavery,  degradation,  ex- 
ploitation ;  but  with  this  too  grows  the  revolt  of  the  working- 
class,  a  class  always  increasing  in  numbers,  and  disciplined, 

*  "Nous  sommes  dans  une  condition  tout-4-fait  nouvelle  de  la  societe  .  .  .  nous 
tendons  a  scparer  toute  espece  de  propriete  d'avec  toute  espece  de  travail."  CSis- 
mondi:     Nouveaux  Principes  de  I'Econ.   Polit.   t.   II.,   p.  434.) 


Historical  Tendency  of  Accumulation.  837 

united,  organised  by  the  very  mechanism  of  the  process  of 
capitalist  production  itself.  The  monopoly  of  capital  becomes 
a  fetter  upon  tlie  mode  of  production,  which  has  sprung  up 
and  flourished  along  with,  and  under  it.  Centralisation  of  the 
means  of  production  and  socialisation  of  labour  at  last  reach 
a  point  where-  they  become  incompatible  with  their  capitalist 
integument.  This  integument  is  burst  asunder.  The  knell 
of  capitalist  private  property  sounds.  The  expropriators  are 
expropriated. 

The  capitalist  mode  of  appropriation,  the  result  of  the  capi- 
talist mode  of  production,  produces  capitalist  private  property. 
This  is  the  first  negation  of  individual  private  property,  as 
founded  on  the  labour  of  the  proprietor.  But  capitalist  pro- 
duction begets,  with  the  inexorability  of  a  law  of  Nature,  its 
own  negation.  It  is  the  negation  of  negation.  This  does  not 
re-establish  private  property  for  the  producer,  but  gives  him 
individual  property  based  on  the  acquisitions  of  the  capitalist 
era :  i.e.,  on  co-operation  and  the  possession  in  common  of  the 
land  and  of  the  means  of  production. 

The  transformation  of  scattered  private  property,  arising 
from  individual  labour,  into  capitalist  private  property  is, 
naturally,  a  process,  incomparably  more  protracted,  violent, 
and  difficult,  than  the  transformation  of  capitalistic  private 
property,  already  practically  resting  on  socialised  production, 
into  socialised  property.  In  the  former  case,  we  had  the  ex- 
propriation of  the  mass  of  the  people  by  a  few  usurpers ;  in 
the  latter,  we  have  tlie  expropriation  of  a  few  usurpers  by  the 
mass  of  the  people.^ 

'  The  advance  of  industry,  whose  involuntary  promoter  is  the  bourgeoisie,  replaces 
the  isolation  of  the  labourers,  due  to  competition,  by  their  revolutionary  combina- 
tion, due  to  association.  The  development  of  Modern  Industry,  therefore,  cuts  from 
under  its  feet,  the  very  foundation  on  which  the  bourgeoisie  produces  and  appropri- 
ates products.  What  the  bourgeoisie  therefore,  produces,  above  all,  are  its  own 
fjrave-diggers.  Its  fall  and  the  victory  of  the  proletariat  are  equally  inevitable. 
.  .  .  Of  all  the  classes,  that  stand  face  to  face  with  the  bourgeoisie  to-day,  the 
proletariat  alone  is  a  really  revolutionary  class.  The  other  classes  perish  and  dis- 
appear in  the  face  of  Modern  Industry,  the  proletariat  is  its  special  and  essential 
product.  .  .  .  The  lower  middle-classes,  the  small  manufacturers,  the  shop  keep- 
ers, the  artisan,  the  peasant,  all  these  fight  against  the  bourgeoisie,  to  save  from 
extinction  their  existence  as  fractions  of  the  middle-class  .  .  .  they  are  reac- 
tionary, for  they  try  to  roll  back  the  wheel  of  history.  "Karl  Marx  and  Frederick 
Engels,  Manifest  der  Kommunistischen  Partei,"   London,  1847,  pp.   911. 


838  Capitalist  Production. 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

THE  MODEEN   THEOKY  OF  COLONISATION.* 

Political,  economy  confuses  on  principle  two  very  different 
kinds  of  private  property,  of  which  one  rests  on  the  producers' 
own  labour,  the  other  on  the  employment  of  the  labour  of 
others.  It  forgets  that  the  latter  not  only  is  the  direct  anti- 
thesis of  the  former,  but  absolutely  grows  on  its  tomb  only. 
In  Western  Europe,  the  home  of  political  economy,  the  process 
of  primitive  accumulation  is  more  or  less  accomplished.  Here 
the  capitalist  regime  has  either  directly  conquered  the  whole 
domain  of  national  production,  or,  where  economic  conditions 
are  less  developed,  it,  as  least,  indirectly  controls  those  strata  of 
society  which,  though  belonging  to  the  antiquated  mode  of  pro- 
duction, continue  to  exist  side  by  side  with  it  in  gradual  decay. 
To  this  ready-made  world  of  capital,  the  political  economist 
applies  the  notions  of  law  and  of  property  inherited  from  a  pre- 
capitalistic  world  with  all  the  more  anxious  zeal  and  all  the 
greater  unction,  the  more  loudly  the  facts  cry  out  in  the  face 
of  his  idealogy.  It  is  otherwise  in  the  colonies.  There  the 
capitalist  regime  everywhere  comes  into  collision  with  the 
resistance  of  the  producer,  who,  as  owner  of  his  own  condi- 
tions of  labour,  employs  that  labour  to  enrich  himself,  instead 
of  the  capitalist.  The  contradiction  of  these  two  diametrically 
opposed  economic  systems,  manifests  itself  here  practically  in 
a  struggle  l)etween  them.  Wliere  the  capitalist  has  at  his  back 
the  power  of  the  mother-country,  he  tries  to  clear  out  of  his 
wny  by  force,  the  modes  of  production  and  appropriation, 
based  on  his  independent  labour  of  the  producer.  The  same 
interest  which  compels  the  sycophant  of  capital,  the  political 
economist,  in  the  mother-country,  to  proclaim  the  theoretical 

*  We  treat  here  of  real  Colonies,  virgin  soils,  colonised  by  free  immigrants.  The 
United  States  are,  speaking  economically,  still  only  a  Colony  of  Europe.  Besides, 
to  this  category  belong  also  such  old  plantations  as  those  in  which  the  abolition  of 
slavery  has  completely  altered  the  earlier  conditions. 


The  Modern  Theory  of  Colonisation.  839 

identity  of  the  capitalist  mode  of  production  with  its  con- 
trary, that  same  interest  compels  him  in  the  colonies  to  make  a 
clean  breast  of  it,  and  to  proclaim  aloud  the  antagonism  of 
the  two  modes  of  production.  To  this  end  he  proves  how  the 
development  of  the  social  productive  power  of  labour,  co- 
operation, division  of  labour,  use  of  machinery  on  a  large 
scale,  &c.,  are  impossible  without  the  expropriation  of  the 
labourers,  and  the  corresponding  transformation  of  their  means 
of  production  into  capital.  In  the  interest  of  the  so-called 
national  wealth,  lie  seeks  for  artificial  means  to  ensure  the 
poverty  of  the  people.  Here  his  apologetic  armour  crumbles 
off,  bit  by  bit,  like  rotten  touchwood.  It  is  the  great  merit 
of  E.  G.  Wakefield  to  have  discovered,  not  anything  new 
about  the  Colonies,^  but  to  have  discovered  in  the  Colonies  tlie 
truth  as  to  the  conditions  of  capitalist  production  in  the  mother- 
country.  As  the  system  of  protection  at  its  origin^  attempted 
to  manufacture  capitalists  artificially  in  the  mother-country, 
so  Wakefield's  colonisation  theory,  which  England  tried  for  a 
time  to  enforce  by  Acts  of  Parliament,  attempted  to  effect  the 
manufacture  of  wage-workers  in  the  Colonies.  This  he  calls 
"systematic  colonisation." 

First  of  all,  Wakefield  discovered  that  in  the  Colonies  prop- 
erty in  money,  means  of  subsistence,  machines  and  other  means 
of  production,  does  not  as  yet  stamp  a  man  as  a  capitalist  if 
there  be  wanting  the  correlative — the  wage-worker,  the  other 
man  who  is  compelled  to  sell  himself  of  his  own  free-will. 
He  discovered  tliat  capital  is  not  a  thing,  but  a  social  relation 
between  persons,  established  by  the  instrumentality  of  things.^ 
Mr.  Peel,  he  moans,  took  with  him  from  England  to  Swan 
River,  West  Australia,  means  of  subsistence  and  of  produc- 

^  Wakefield's  few  glimpses  on  the  subject  of  Modern  Colonisation  are  fully  antici- 
pated by  Mirabeau  Pere,  tlie  physiocrat,  and  even  much  earlier  by  English  econo- 
mists. 

-  Later,  it  became  a  temporary  necessity  in  the  international  competitive  struggle. 
But,    whatever   its   motive,  the   consequences  remain   the  same. 

^  A  negro  is  a  negro.  In  certain  circumstances  he  becomes  a  slave.  A  mule  is  a 
machine  for  spinning  cotton.  Only  under  certain  circumstances  does  it  become 
capital.  Outside  these  circumstances,  it  is  no  more  capital  than  gold  is  intrinsically 
money,  or  sugar  is  the  price  of  sugar.  .  .  .  Capital  is  a  social  relation  of  pro- 
duction. It  is  a  historical  relation  of  production.  (Karl  Marx,  "Lohnarbeit  und 
Kapital."     N.    Rh.    Z.     No.   266,   April   7,   1849.) 


840  Capitalist  Production. 

tion  to  the  amount  of  £50,000.  Mr.  Peel  had  the  foresight  to 
bring  with  him,  besides,  3000  persons  of  the  working-class, 
men,  women,  and  children.  Once  arrived  at  his  destination, 
"Mr.  Peel  was  left  without  a  servant  to  make  his  bed  or  fetch 
him  water  from  the  river."^  Unhappy  Mr.  Peel  who  pro- 
vided for  everything  except  the  export  of  English  modes  of 
production  to  Swan  River!  , 

Por  the  understanding  of  the  following  discoveries  of  Wake- 
field, two  preliminary  remarks:  We  know  that  the  means  of 
production  and  subsistence,  while  they  remain  the  property  of 
the  immediate  producer,  are  not  capital.  They  become  capi- 
tal, only  under  circumstances  in  which  they  serve  at  the  same 
time  as  means  of  exploitation  and  subjection  of  the  labourer. 
But  this  capitalist  soul  of  theirs  is  so  intimately  wedded,  in 
the  head  of  the  political  economist,  to  their  material  substance, 
that  he  christens  them  capital  under  all  circumstances,  even 
when  they  are  its  exact  opposite.  Thus  is  it  with  Wakefield. 
Further :  the  splitting  up  of  the  means  of  production  into  the 
individual  property  of  many  independent  labourers,  working 
on  their  own  account,  he  calls  equal  division  of  capital.  It  is 
with  the  political  economist  as  with  the  feudal  jurist.  The 
latter  stuck  on  to  pure  monetary  relations  the  labels  supplied 
by  feudal  law. 

"If,"  says  Wakefield,  "all  the  members  of  the  society  are 
supposed  to  possess  equal  portions  of  capital  ...  no  man 
would  have  a  motive  for  accumulating  more  capital  than  he 
could  use  with  his  own  hands.  This  is  to  some  extent  the 
case  in  new  American  settlements,  where  a  passion  for  owning 
land  prevents  the  existence  of  a  class  of  labourers  for  hire."^ 
So  long,  therefore,  as  the  labourer  can  accumulate  for  him- 
self— and  this  he  can  do  so  long  as  he  remains  possessor  of 
his  means  of  production — capitalist  accumulation  and  the  cap- 
italistic mode  of  production  are  impossible.  The  class  of 
wage-labourers,  essential  to  these,  is  wanting.  How,  then,  in 
old  Europe,  was  the  expropriation  of  the  labourer  from  his 
conditions  of  labour,  i.e.,  the  co-existence  of  capital  and  wage- 

^  E.   G.  Wakefield :     England  and  America,  vol.   ii.,  p.  33. 
»L  c.  p.  17. 


The  Modern  Theory  of  Colonisation.  841 

labour,  brought  about?  By  a  social  contract  of  a  quite  orig- 
inal kind.  "Mankind  have  adopted  a  .  .  .  simple  con- 
trivance for  promoting  the  accumulation  of  capital,"  which,  of 
course,  since  the  time  of  Adam,  floated  in  their  imagination  as 
the  sole  and  final  end  of  their  existence:  "they  have  divided 
themselves  into  owners  of  capital  and  owners  of  labour. 
.  .  .  This  division  was  the  result  of  concert  and  combina- 
tion."^ In  one  word:  the  mass  of  mankind  expropriated  it- 
self in  honour  of  the  "accumulation  of  capital."  Now,  one 
would  think,  that  this  instinct  of  self-denying  fanaticism 
would  give  itself  full  flingv  especially  in  the  Colonies,  where 
alone  exist  the  men  and  conditions  that  could  turn  a  social 
contract  from  a  dream  to  a  reality.  But  why,  then,  should 
"systematic  colonisation"  be  called  in  to  replace  its  opposite, 
spontaneous,  unregulated  colonisation  ?  But: — ^but — "In  the 
Northern  States  of  the  American  Union,  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  so  many  as  a  tenth  of  the  people  would  fall  under  the 
description  of  hired  labourers.  .  .  .  In  England  . 
the  labouring  class  compose  the  bulk  of  the  people."^  Nay, 
the  impulse  to  self-expropriation,  on  the  part  of  labouring 
humanity,  for  the  glory  of  capital,  exists  so  little,  that  slavery, 
according  to  Wakefield  himself,  is  the  sole  natural  basis  of 
Colonial  wealth.  His  systematic  colonisation  is  a  mere  pis 
oiler,  since  he  unfortunately  has  to  do  with  free  men,  not 
with  slaves.  "The  first  Spanish  settlers  in  Saint  Domingo  did 
not  obtain  labourers  from'  Spain.  But,  without  labourers, 
their  capital  must  have  perished,  or,  at  least,  must  soon  have 
been  diminished  to  that  small  amount  which  each  individual 
could  employ  with  his  own  hands.  This  has  actually  occurred 
in  the  last  Colony  founded  by  Englishmen — ^the  Swan  River 
Settlement — where  a  great  mass  of  capital,  of  seeds,  imple- 
ments, and  cattle,  has  perished  for  want  of  labourers  to  use  it, 
and  where  no  settler  has  p.reserved  much  more  capital  than  he 
can  employ  with  his  own  hands."^ 

We  have  seen  that  the  expropriation  of  the  mass  of  the  peo- 
ple froi'ft  the  soil  forms  the  basis  of  the  capitalist  mode  of  pro- 
duction.    The  essence  of  a  free  colony,  on  the  contrary,  con- 

*1.    c,   vol.   i.,   p.   18.  *1.   c,   pp.   42,   43,    44.  » 1.   c,   vol.   ii.,  p.   6. 


842  Capitalist  Production. 

gists  in  this  —  that  the  bulk  of  the  soil  is  still  public  property, 
and  every  settler  on  it  therefore  can  turn  part  of  it  into  his 
private  property  and  individual  means  of  production,  without 
hindering  the  later  settlers  in  the  same  operation.^  This  is 
the  secret  both  of  the  prosperity  of  tlie  colonies  and  of  their 
inveterate  vice — opposition  to  the  establishment  of  capital. 
"Where  land  is  very  cheap  and  all  men  are  free,  where  one 
who  so  pleases  can  easily  obtain  a  piece  of  land  for  himself, 
not  only  is  labour  very  dear,  as  respects  the  labourer's  share 
of  the  produce,  but  the  difficulty  is  to  obtain  combined  labour 
at  any  price."^ 

As  in  the  colonies  the  separation  of  the  labourer  from  the 
conditions  of  labour  and  their  root,  the  soil,  does  not  yet  exist, 
or  only  sporadically,  or  on  too  limited  a  scale,  so  neither  does 
the  separation  of  agriculture  from  industry  exist,  nor  the  de- 
struction of  the  household  industry  of  the  peasantry.  Whence 
then  is  to  come  the  internal  market  for  capital  ?  "No  part  of 
the  population  of  America  is  exclusively  agricultural,  except- 
ing slaves  and  their  employers  who  combine  capital  and  labour 
in  particular  works.  Free  Americans,  who  cultivate  the  soil, 
follow  many  other  occupations.  Some  portion  of  the  furniture 
and  tools  which  they  use  is  commonly  made  by  themselves. 
They  frequently  build  their  own  houses,  and  carry  to  market, 
at  whatever  distance,  the  produce  of  their  own  industry. 
They  are  spinners  and  weavers;  they  make  soap  and  candles, 
as  well  as,  in  many  cases,  shoes  and  clothes  for  their  own  use. 
In  America  the  cultivation  of  land  is  often  the  secondary  pur- 
suit of  a  blacksmith,  a  miller  or  a  shopkeeper."^  With  such 
queer  people  as  these,  where  is  the  "field  of  abstinence"  for 
the  capitalists  ? 

The  great  beauty  of  capitalist  production  consists  in  this — 
that  it  not  only  constantly  reproduces  the  wage-worker  as 
wage-worker,  but  produces  always,  in  proportion  to  the  ac- 
cumulation of  capital,  a  relative  surplus  population  of  wage- 
workers.     Thus  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  of  labour  is 

*  "Land,  to  be  an  element  of  colonization,  must  not  only  be  waste,  but  it  must  be 
public  property,  liable  to  be  converted  into  private  property."     (1.  c.  Vol.  II.,  p.  126.) 
*1.  c.  Vol.  I.  p.  24V  M.  c.  pp.  21,  22. 


The  Modern  Theory  of  Colonisation.  843 

kept  in  the  right  rut,  tlie  oscillation  of  wages  is  penned  witliin 
limits  satisfactory  to  capitalist  exploitation,  and  lastly,  the  so- 
cial dependence  of  the  labourer  on  the  capitalist,  that  indis- 
pensable requisite,  is  secured ;  an  unmistakeable  relation  of 
dependence,  which  the  smug  political  economist,  at  home,  in 
the  mother  country,  can  transmogrify  into  one  of  free  contract 
between  buyer  and  seller,  between  equally  independent  o-wii- 
ers  of  commodities,  the  owner  of  the  commodity  capital  and 
the  owner  of  the  commodity  labour.  But  in  the  colonies  this 
pretty  fancy  is  torn  asunder.  The  absolute  population  here 
increases  much  more  quickly  than  in  the  mother-country,  be- 
cause many  labourers  enter  this  world  as  ready-made  adults, 
and  yet  the  labour  market  is  always  understocked.  The  law 
of  the  supply  and  demand  of  labour  falls  to  pieces.  On  the 
one  hand,  the  old  world  constantly  throws  in  capital,  thirst- 
ing after  exploitation  and  "abstinence ;"  on  the  other,  the 
regular  reproduction  of  the  wage-labourer  as  wage-labourer 
comes  into  collision  witli  impediments  the  most  impertinent 
and  in  part  invincible.  What  becomes  of  the  production  of 
\yage^labourers,  supernumerary  in  proportion  to  the  accumula- 
tion of  capital  ?  The  wage-worker  of  to-day  is  to-morrow  an 
inde}:)endent  peasant,  or  artisan,  working  for  himself.  He 
vanishes  from  the  labour-market,  but  not  into  the  workhouse. 
This  constant  transformation  of  the  wage-labourers  into  inde- 
pendent producers,  who  work  for  themselves  instead  of  for 
capital,  and  enrich  themselves  instead  of  the  capitalist  gentry, 
reacts  in  its  turn  very  pei'versely  on  the  conditions  of  the  la- 
bour-market. N^ot  only  does  the  degree  of  exploitation  of  the 
wage-labourer  remain  indecently  low.  The  wage-labourer 
loses  into  the  bargain,  along  with  the  relation  of  dependence, 
also  the  sentiment  of  dependence  on  the  abstemious  capitalist. 
Hence  all  the  inconveniences  that  our  E.  G.  Wakefield  pic- 
tures so  doughtily,  so  eloquently,  so  pathetically. 

The  supply  of  wage-labour,  he  complains,  is  neither  con- 
stant, nor  regular,  nor  sufficient.  "The  supply  of  labour  is 
always,  not  only  small,  but  uncertain."^  "Though  the  produce 
divided  between  the  capitalist 'and  the  labourer  be  large  the 

M.    c,    Vol.    II.,    p.    116. 


844  Capitalist  Production. 

labourer  takes  so  great  a  share  that  he  soon  becomes  a  capital- 
ist. .  .  .  Few,  even  of  those  whose  lives  are  unusually 
long,  can  accumulate  great  masses  of  wealth."^  The  labourers 
most  distinctly  declines  to  allow  the  capitalist  to  abstain  from 
the  payment  of  the  greater  part  of  their  labour.  It  avails  him 
nothing  if  he  is  so  cunning  as  to  import  from  Europe,  with 
his  oviTi  capital,  his  own  wage-workers.  They  soon  "cease 
.  .  .  to  be  labourers  for  hire;  they  .  .  .  become  in- 
dependent landowners,  if  not  competitors  with  their  former 
masters  in  the  labour  market."-  Think  of  the  horror!  The 
excellent  capitalist  has  imported  bodily  from  Europe,  with  his 
own  good  money,  his  own  competitors !  The  end  of  the  world 
has  come!  No  wonder  Wakefield  laments  the  absence  of  all 
dependence  and  of  all  sentiment  of  dependence  on  the  part 
of  the  wage-workers  in  the  colonies.  On  account  of  the  high 
wages,  says  his  disciple,  Merivale,  there  is  in  the  colonies  "the 
urgent  desire  for  cheaper  and  more  subservient  labourers — 
for  a  class  to  whom  the  capitalist  might  dictate  terms,  in- 
stead of  being  dictated  to  by  them.  ...  In  ancient  civi- 
lized countries  the  labourer,  though  free,  is  by  law  of  nature 
dependent  on  capitalists ;  in  colonies  this  dependence  must  bo 
created  by  artificial  means."^ 

What  is  now,  according  to  Wakefield,  the  consequence  of 

M.   c.   Vol.   I.,  p.   131  M.   c.   Vol.  II.,  p.   5. 

'  Merivale,  1.  c.  Vol.  II.,  pp.  235-314  passim.  Even  the  mild,  free-trade,  vulgar 
economist,  Molinari,  says:  "Dans  les  colonies  ou  I'esclavage  a  ete  aboli  sans  que  le 
travail  force  se  trouvait  remplace  par  une  quantite  equivalente  de  travail  libre,  on  a 
vu  s'operer  la  contre-partie  du  fait  qui  se  realise  tous  les  jours  sous  nos  yeux.  On  a 
vu  les  simples  travailleurs  exploiter  a  leur  tour  les  entrepreneurs  d'industrie,  exiger 
d'eux  des  salaires  hors  de  toute  proportion  avec  la  part  legitime  qui  leur  revenait  dans 
le  produit.  Les  planteurs,  ne  pouvant  obtenir  de  leurs  sucres  un  prix  suffisant  pour 
couvrir  la  hausse  de  salaire,  ont  ete  obliges  de  fournir  I'excedant,  d'abord  sur  leurs 
profits,  ensuite  sur  leurs  capitaux  memes.  Une  foule  de  planteurs  ont  ete  ruines  de  la 
sorte,  d'autres  ont  ferme  leurs  ateliers  pour  echapper  a  une  ruine  imminente.  .  .  . 
Sans  doute,  il  vaut  mieux  voir  perir  des  accumulations  de  capitaux  que  des  genera- 
tions d'hommes  [how  generous  of  Mr.  Molinari!]:  mais  ne  vaudrait-il  pas  mieux  que 
iii  les  uns  ni  les  autres  perissent?"  (Molinari  1.  c.  pp.  51,  52.)  Mr.  Molinari,  Mr. 
Molinari  1  What  then  becomes  of  the  ten  commandments,  of  Moses  and  the  prophets, 
of  the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  if  in  Europe  the  "entrepreneur"  can  cut  down 
the  labourer's  legitimate  part,  and  in  the  West  Indies,  the  labourer  can  cut  down 
the  entrepreneur's?  And  what,  if  you  please,  is  this  "legitimate  part,"  which  on 
your  own  showing  the  capitalist  in  Europe  daily  neglects  to  pay?  Over  yonder,  in 
the  colonies  where  the  labourers  are  so  "simple"  as  to  "exploit"  the  capitalist,  Mr. 
Molinari  feels  a  strong  itching  to  set  the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  that  works 
elsewhere  automatically,  on  the  right  road  by  means  of  the  police. 


The  Modern  Theory  of  Colonisation.  845 

this  unfortunate  state  of  things  in  the  colonies  ?  A  "barbaris- 
ing  tendency  of  dispersion"  of  producers  and  national  wealth.^ 
The  parcelling-out  of  the  means  of  production  among  in- 
numerable owners,  working  on  their  own  account,  annihilates, 
along  with  the  centralisation  of  capital,  all  the  foundations  of 
combined  labour.  Every  long-winded  undertaking,  extend- 
ing over  several  years  and  demanding  outlay  of  fixed  capital, 
is  prevented  from  being  carried  out.  In  Europe,  capital 
invests  without  hesitating  a  moment,  for  the  working-class 
constitutes  its  living  appurtenance,  always  in  excess,  always 
at  disposal.  But  in  the  colonies !  Wakefield  tells  an  ex- 
tremely doleful  anecdote.  He  was  talking  with  some  capital- 
ists of  Canada  and  the  state  of  New  York,  where  the  immi- 
grant wave  often  becomes  stagnant  and  deposits  a  sediment  of 
"supernumerary"  labourers.  "Our  capital,"  says  one  of  the 
characters  in  the  melodrama,  "was  ready  for  many  operations 
which  require  a  considerable  period  of  time  for  their  com- 
pletion; but  we  could  not  begin  such  operations  with  labour 
which,  we  knew,  would  soon  leave  us.  If  wq  had  been  sure  of 
retaining  the  labour  of  such  emigrants,  we  should  have  been 
glad  to  have  engaged  it  at  once,  and  for  a  high  price :  and 
we  should  have  engaged  it,  even  though  we  had  been  sure  it 
would  leave  us,  provided  we  had  been  sure  of  a  fresh  supply 
whenever  we  might  need  it."^ 

After  Wakefield  has  contrasted  the  English  capitalist  agri- 
culture and  its  "combined"  labour  with  the  scattered  cultiva- 
tion of  American  peasants,  he  unwittingly  gives  us  a  glimpse 
at  the  reverse  of  the  medal.  He  depicts  the  mass  of  the 
American  people  as  well-to-do,  independent,  enterprising  and 
comparatively  cultured,  whilst  "the  English  agricultural  la- 
bourer is  a  miserable  wretch,  a  pauper.  ...  In  what 
country,  except  North  America  and  some  new  colonies,  do  the 
wages  of  free  labour  employed  in  agriculture,  much  exceed  a 
bare  subsistence  for  tlie  labourer  ?  .  .  .  Undoubtedly, 
farm-horses  in  England,  being  a  valuable  property,  are  better 
fed    than    English    peasants."^     But,    never    mind,    national 

1  Wakefield,  1.  c,  Vol.  II.,  p.  52.  »L  c.  pp.  191,  192. 

M.  c,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  47,  246. 


846  Capitalist  Production. 

wealth  is,  once  again,  by  its  very  nature,  identical  with  misery 
of  the  people. 

How,  then,  to  heal  the  anti-capitalistic  cancer  of  the  colon- 
ies? If  men  were  willing,  at  a  blow,  to  turn  all  the  soil 
from  public  into  private  property,  they  would  destroy  cer- 
tainly the  root  of  the  evil,  but  also — the  colonies.  The  trick 
is  how  to  kill  two  birds  with  one  stone.  Let  the  Government 
put  upon  the  virgin  soil  an  artificial  price,  independent  of  the 
law  of  supply  and  demand,  a  price  that  compels  the  immigrant 
to  work  a  long  time  for  wages  before  he  can  earn  enough 
money  to  buy  land,  and  turn  himself  into  an  independent 
peasant.^  The  funds  resulting  from  the  sale  of  land  at  a  price 
relatively  prohibitory  for  the  wage-workers,  this  fund  of 
money  extorted  from  the  wages  of  labour  by  violation  of  the 
sacred  law  of  supply  and  demand,  the  Government  is  to  em- 
ploy, on  the  other  hand,  in  proportion  as  it  grows,  to  import 
have-nothings  from  Europe  into  the  colonies,  and  thus  keep 
the  wage-labour  market  full  for  the  capitalists.  Under  these 
circumstances,  tout  sera  pour  le  mieux  dans  le  meilleur  des 
mondes  possibles.  This  is  the  great  secret  of  "systematic  col- 
onisation." By  this  plan,  Wakefield  cries  in  triumph,  "the 
supply  of  labour  must  be  constant  and  regular,  because,  first, 
as  no  labourer  would  be  able  to  procure  land  until  he  had 
worked  for  money,  all  immigrant  labourers,  working  for  a  time 
for  wages  and  in  combination,  would  produce  capital  for  the 
employment  of  more  labourers ;  secondly,  because  every  lab- 
ourer who  left  off  working  for  wages  and  became  a  landowner, 
would,  by  purchasing  land,  provide  a  fund  for  bringing  fresh 
labour  to  the  colony."^  The  price  of  the  soil  imposed  by  the 
State  must,  of  course,  be  a  "sufficient  price" — i.e.,  so  high  "as 
to  prevent  the  labourers  from  becoming  independent  landown- 

*  "C'est,  ajoutez-vous,  grace  a  I'appropriation  du  sol  et  des  capitaux  que  I'homme, 
qui  n'  a  que  ses  bras,  trouve  de  I'occupation,  et  se  fait  un  revenu  .  .  .  c'est  au 
contraire,  grace  a  I'appropriation  individuelle  du  sol  qu'il  se  trouve  des  hommes 
n'ayant  que  Icurs  bras.  .  .  .  Quand  vous  mettez  un  homme  dans  le  vide,  vous 
vous  emparez  de  ratmosphere.  Ainsi  faites-vous,  quand  vous  vous  emparez  du  sol. 
.  .  .  C'est  le  mettre  dans  le  vide  de  richesses,  pour  ne  le  laisser  vivre  qu'a  votre 
volonte."     (Colins,   1.   c,  t.    III.,   pp.   268-271,    passim.) 

« Wakefield.   1.   c,   Vol.   II.,  p.   192. 


The  Modern  Theory  of  Colonisation.  847 

ers  until  others  had  followed  to  take  their  place." ^  This  "suffi- 
cient price  for  the  land"  is  nothing  but  a  euphemistic  circum- 
locution for  the  ransom  which  the  labourer  pays  to  the 
capitalist  for  leave  to  retire  from  tlie  wage-labour  market  to 
the  land.  First,  he  must  create  for  the  capitalist  "capital," 
with  which  the  latter  may  be  able  to  exploit  more  labourers ; 
then  he  must  place,  at  his  own  expense,  a  locum  tenens  on  the 
labour  market,  whom  the  Government  forwards  across  the  sea 
for  the  benefit  of  his  old  master,  the  capitalist. 

It  is  very  characteristic  that  the  English  Government  for 
years  practised  tliis  method  of  "primitive  accumulation,"  pre- 
scribed by  Mr.  Wakefield  expressly  for  the  use  of  the  colonies. 
The  fiasco  was,  of  course,  as  complete  as  that  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel's  Bank  Act.  The  stream  of  emigration  was  only  diverted 
from  the  English  colonies  to  the  United  States.  Meanwhile, 
the  advance  of  capitalistic  production  in  Europe,  accompanied 
by  increasing  Government  pressure,  has  rendered  Wakefield's 
recipe  superfluous.  On  the  one  hand,  the  enormous  and  cease- 
less stream  of  men,  year  after  year  driven  upon  America, 
leaves  behind  a  stationary  sediment  in  the  east  of  the  United 
States,  the  wave  of  immigration  from  Europe  throwing  men 
on  the  labour  market  there  more  rapidly  than  the  wave  of  emi- 
gration westwards  can  wash  them  away.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  American  Civil  War  brought  in  its  train  a  colossal  national 
debt,  and,  with  it,  pressure  of  taxes,  the  rise  of  the  vilest 
financial  aristocracy,  the  squandering  of  a  huge  part  of  the 
public  land  on  speculative  companies  for  the  exploitiition  of 
railways,  mines,  &c.,  in  brief,  the  most  rapid  centralisation  of 
capital.  The  great  republic  has,  therefore,  ceased  to  be  the 
promised  land  for  emigrant  labourers.  Capitalistic  produc- 
tion advances  there  with  giant  strides,  even  though  the  low- 
ering of  wages  and  the  dependence  of  the  wage-worker  are 
yet  far  from  being  brought  down  to  the  normal  European  level. 
The  shameless  lavishing  of  uncultivated  colonial  land  on  aristi- 
erats  and  capitalists  by  the  Government,  so  loudly  denounced 
even  by  Wakefield,  has  produced,  especially  in  Australia,^  in 

>  I.  c,   p.   45. 

"  As    soon    as    Australia    became    her    own    law-giver,    she   passed,    of   course,    law§ 


848  Capitalist  Production. 

conjunction  with  the  stream  of  men  that  the  gold-diggings  at- 
tract, and  with  the  competition  that  the  importation  of  Eng- 
lish commodities  causes  even  to  the  smallest  artisan,  an  ample 
"relative  surplus  labouring  population,"  so  that  almost  every 
mail  brings  the  Job's  news  of  a  "glut  of  the  Australian  labour- 
market,"  and  prostitution  in  some  places  there  flourishes  as 
wantonly  as  in  the  London  Haymarket. 

However,  we  are  not  concerned  here  with  the  condition  of 
the  colonies.  The  only  thing  that  interests  us  is  the  secret 
discovered  in  the  new  world  by  the  political  economy  of  the 
old  world,  and  proclaimed  on  the  house-tops :  that  the  capitalist 
mode  of  production  and  accumulation,  and  therefore  capitalist 
private  property,  have  for  their  fundamental  condition  the 
annihilation  of  self-earned  private  property;  in  other  words, 
the  expropriation  of  the  labourer. 

favourable  to  the  settlers,  but  the  squandering  of  the  land,  already  accomplished  by 
the  English  Government,  stands  in  the  way.  "The  first  and  main  object  at  which 
the  new  Land  Act  of  1862  aims  is  to  give  increased  facilities  for  the  settlement  of 
the  people."  (The  Land  Law  of  Victoria,  by  the  Hon.  O.  G.  Duffy,  Minister  of 
Public   Lands.     Lond.   1862.) 


SB 


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Babbon,  Nicolas . .  A  Discourse  on  coining  the  new 
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Barton,  John ....  Observations  on  the  circumstances 
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Sellers,  John Essays  about  the  Poor.  Manufactur- 


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Bengal      Hubkabu.      {See      under 
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Bentham,  Jeremy. Th<k)rie  des  peines  et  des  recom- 
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Berkeley,   George.The  Querist London,  1750. 

BiDAUT,  J.  N Du  Monopole  qui  s'6tablit  dans  les 

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BiESE,   F Die  Philosophic   des  Aristoteles ....  Berlin,   1842. 

Blakey,    Robert. . .  The  History  of  Political  Literature 

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Blanqui,   J.  A... Des    Classes    Ouvri&res    en    France 
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BoiSGXJiLLEBEBT  ..Dissertation  sur  la  nature  des  rich- 
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BoxHORN    Institutiones  politicae Leyden,  1663. 

BoYLEAu,  Etienne.Livres   des  metiers.     (Collection  de 

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Broadhuest,   J. .  .Political  Economy London,  1842. 

Beougham,  Henry.An  Inquiry  into  the  Colonial  Policy 

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Brucknee,    Th6orie  du  systSme  animal Leyden,  1767. 

Buchanan,  David. Inquiry  into  the  Taxation  and  Com- 
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BuCHEZ  et  Roux.  .Histoire  Parlementaire  de  la  Revo- 
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BuRKE,  Edmund.  .Thoughts  and  details  on  Scarcity. .  .London,  1800. 
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BuTLEB Hudibras.  (?) 

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Cairnes,  J.  E The  Slave  Power London,  1862. 

Campbell,   Greorge. Modern    India London,  1852. 

Cantillon,  Philip.Essai   sur   la  nature  du   Commerce 

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Cazenove,   John. . .  Notes  in  his  edition  of  Malthus'  De- 
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Census.      (See    Parliamentary  ,  Pa- 
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Chalmers,  Th On  Political  Economy Glasgow,  1832. 

Chamberlain,  Jos.  Speech   at    Sanitary   Congress,   Bir- 
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Chebbuliez,  a.  E.Riche  ou  pauvre Paris,   1841. 

CoBBETT,   William. A  History  of  the  Protestant  Refor- 
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CoLlNS,  H L'ficonomie    Politique Paris,  1857. 

"  Combination   (On)  of  Trades.     (See 

Anon. )     London,  1834. 

Commissions.     (Children's  Employ- 
ment,    on     Railways,     etc.      (See 

Pari.   Papers) 

Congress.      ( International      Statis- 
tic ) .     Compte  rendu Paris. 

CoNDlLLAC Le  Commerce  et  le  Gouvernement.  .Paris,  1776. 

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Melanges  de   1'   fieonomie  Politique. 

(Ed.  Daire  et  Molinari) Paris,   1847. 

Considerations    concerning    taking 
off   the  Bounty  on   Corn  exported. 

(See   Anonymous) London,  1753. 

Corbet.  Th An    Inquiry    into    the    Causes    and 

Modes  of  the  Wealth  of  Individuals .  London,  1841. 

Corbon,  C.  a De  I'enseignement  prof essionnel ....  Paris,   1858. 

CouBCELLE    -    SEN-Trait6  th6orique  et  pratique  des  en- 

euil,   J.   G treprises   industrielles Paris,   1857. 

Currency      Question,      The.       (See 

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CuviEE,  J.  L.  C . . .  Discours    sur    les    Revolutions    du 

Globe.      (Ed.  Hoefer) Paris,   1863. 

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Darwin,  Charles. .Origin  of  Species London,  1859. 

Defence,    A,    of    the    landlords    and 
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Descartes,  Ren6.  .Discours  de  la  Mgthode Paris,  1668. 

Deutsch  -  Franzosische        Jahu- 
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DiODOBUS  SlCtrLUS.Bibliotheca  Historica 

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854  Capitalist  Production. 

Author.  Work.  Date. 

DiscouBSE  on   the  necessity  of   en- 
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Ddnning,  T.  J. . .  .Trades'   Unions  and  Strikes London,  1860. 

DuPONT,  Pierre . .  .Chansons Paris,  1846. 

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Economy,      Public,       Concentrated, 

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Economist  (see under  Newspapers)  . 

Eden,  F.  M The  State  of  the  Poor London,  1797. 

Empibicus,  Sextus.Opera     

Engels,  Friedrich .  Lage  der  arbeitenden  Klasse  in  Eng- 
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'*  Umrisse    zu    einer    Kritik    der    Na- 

tionalcekonomie       ( Deutsch-FranzS- 

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"  Die  Englische  Zehn  -  Stunden  -  Bill 

(Neue    Rheinische    Zeitung    April 

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Engexs,  F.  &  MarXjManifest  der  Kommunistischen  Par- 

K.  tei     London,  1847. 

Enquiry     into,     etc.      (see     under 

Anonymous )     

Essay,  etc.  (see  under  Anonymous.) 
Ensob,  Gteorge An  Inquiry  concerning  the  Popula- 
tion of  Nations London,  1818. 

F. 

Factory  Acts,  Reports  of  Inspec- 
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Farmer,  A Enquiry    into   the   Connection,    etc., 

(see  Enquiry  under  Anonymous)  .  .London,  1773. 
Farms,    Capital,    etc.,     (see    under 
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Fawcett,  Henry.. The  Economic  Position  of  the  Brit- 
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Ferguson,   A A  History  of  Civil  Society,  Reprinted.London,  1850, 

Febband    Speech  in  House  of  Commons.     ( see 

Hansard )    

Febrieb,  F.  L.  a.  .Le  gouvernement  consid6r6  dans  ges 

rapports  avec  le  commerce Paris,  1822. 

Fielden,  J The  Curse  of  the  Factory  System.  .London,  1836. 

FLEETwooD.Bishop.Chronicon  pretiosum London,  1707. 

FoNTEROL,  A.  L...Hygi6ne     physique     et     morale     de 

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FoRBONNAis,  V.  de.El6ments    du    Commerce,    Nouvelle 

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FoBSTER,  Rev.  Na-An  enquiry  into  the  Causes  of  the 
thaniel    present  high  price  of  Provisions ..  London,  1773. 

Franklin,     Benja- 
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FuLLAKTON,   John. Regulation  of  Currencies London,  1844. 

G. 

Galiani,  F Delia  Moneta,    (Custodi  Ed.) Milano,  1803. 

Ganilh,   Charles ..  Des  systSmes  de    I'economie  politique.Paris,   1821, 
Garnieb,  G Abr6g6  ^l^mentaire  des  principes  de 

I'economie      politique       (published 

anonymously )     Paris,   1796. 

Gaskell,    P The    Manufacturing    Population    of 

England    London,  1833. 

Gentleman,  A  Suf- Letter  to  Sir  J.  C.  Banbury  on  the 

folk     high  price  of  provisions London,  1795. 

Genovesi,  a Lezioni  di  Economia  civile   (Custodi 

Ed.)     .Milano,  1803. 

Gisbourne Enquiry  into  the  Duties  of  Man. .  .London,  1795, 

Gladstone,  W.  E. See    Hansard 

Greqoib,  H Les  Typographes  devant  le  Tribunal 

Correctionnel  de  Bruxelles Bruxelles,   1865. 

Greg,   R.   H The  Factory  question  and  the  Ten 

Hours'  Bill London,  1837, 

Grove,  W.  R On     the     Correlation     of     Physical 

Forces    London,  1846. 

H. 

Halleb,  C.  L.  Von.Restauration  der  Staatswissenschaf- 

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1834. 

Hamm,   W Die    Landwirthschaftlichen    G«rathe 

und  Maschinen  Englands Braunschweig,1856. 

Hansabd    Parliamentary    Debates.     Speech    of 

Mr.  Ferrand,  April  27th,  1863 London,  1863. 

**  Parliamentary  Debates.  Speech  of 
Mr.  Gladstone  on  the  Budget,  Feb. 
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Hansabd   Parliamentary    Debates.     Speech    of 

Mr.     Gladstone     on     the     Budget, 

April    16th,    1863 London,  1863. 

•'  Parliamentary    Debates.     Speech    of  *■ 

Mr.  Gladstone,  April  7th,  1864.       London,  1864. 

Harris,  JameSjEarl 
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published   in    "  Three    Treatises," 
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Hassalij,  Dr.  H.  H.Adulterations    detected London,  1857. 

Hegel,  G.  W.  F.  .  .Werke    Berlin,   1832-40. 

HiLAiRE,Geoff  roiSt.Notions  de  Philosophic  Naturelle Paris,   1838. 

HoBBES,    Th Leviathan.       (Works) London,   1839-44. 

HoDGSKiN,  Th Labour    Defended    against    Capital. 

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856  Capitalist  Production. 

Author.  Work.  Date. 

HoDGSKiN,  Th. ..  .Natural  and  Artificial  Rights,  The, 
of  Property  Contrasted.  (Anony- 
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HoLX,lNSHED    Description  of  England 

JIoiiEB    Iliad  and  Odyssey 

Hopkins,  Th On  Rent  of  LJand London,  1828. 

HoBNE,  Greo A  Letter  to  Adam  Smith,  LL.D.,  On 

the  Life,  Death  and  Philosophy  of 

his  Friend,  David  Hume Oxford,  1784. 

doBNEB,  Leonard.  .A  Letter  to  Mr.  Senior,  etc .London,  1837. 

Houghton,  John ..  Husbandry  and  Trade  Improved ...  London,  1727. 

HowiTT,  William. .  Colonization  and  Christianity London,  1838. 

HuTTON,   C Course   of   Mathematics Reprint,      London, 

1841-43. 
I. 

Industby  of  Nations.  (See  Anony- 
mous)     London,  1856. 

Inquiby.   ( See  Enquiry  under  Anon. ) 

Intebnational    Statistic    Congress, 

Compte  rendu Paris. 

Isocbates    Orationes  et  Epistolae 

J. 

Jones,   Richard ...  An    Essay    on    the    Distribution    of 

Wealth.     Part  I.,  On  Rent London,  1831. 

**  An  Introductory  Lecture  on  Polit- 
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"  Text  Book  of  Lectures  on  the  Po- 
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**  JouBNAL  of  the  Society  of  Arts. 
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K 

Kbankheiten,  Die  welche  versehie- 
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L. 

Labobde,  a.  de . . .  Dp  I'esprit  de  I'association  dans  tous 

les  inter^ts  de  la  communaut^ ....  Paris,   1818. 
Laboub  defended.     ( See  Hodgskin ) . 
Laboubebs,    (Agricultural)    Ireland. 

( See  Parliamentary  Papers ) 

Laing,  S National  Distress,  etc London,  1844. 

Lanceixotti,   Abb.Farfalloni  de  gli  Antichi  Historici. .  Venetia,   1636. 
Lassaixe,   Ferdin.Die  Philosophie  des  Herakleitos ...  Berlin,   1858. 
Lavebgne,    L€onee 

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XjAW,  J Considerations  sur  le  numeraire  et 

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Work.  Date. 

Lettee,  a,  to  Sir  J.  C.  Banbury, 
etc.  By  a  Suffolk  gentleman. 
(See   Anonymous) Ipswich,  1795. 

Le   Trosne De  rint6r6t  Social.      (Ed.  Daire )..  Paris,   1846. 

Levi,    Leone Lecture  before  the  Society  of  Arts, 

April,    1866.      (See  Newspapers)  .  .London,  1866. 

LiEBiG,  J.  von. . .  .Die  Chemie  in  ihrer  Anwendung  auf 

Agrikultur    Braunschweig,1862 

"  Ueber    Theorie    und    Praxis    in    der 

Landwirthschaft    Braunschweig,18^6 

LiNGUET,  N Th6orie  des  loix  civiles Londres,  1767. 

Locke,  John Some  Considerations  on  the  Conse- 
quences of  the  Lowering  of  Inter- 
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Lords  (House  of)  Committee  on 
Bank  Acts.  {See  Parliamentary 
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LUCBETIUS   De  Rerum  Natura 

LuTiiEB,  Martin. ..An      die      Pfarherrn,      wider      den 

Wucher  zu  predigen Wittenberg,    1540. 

M. 

MACAULAT,Thios.B. History  of  England.     10th  Edit. .  .  .London,  1854. 

Maclaben,  James .  History  of  the   Currency London,  1858. 

MACLEOD,  H.  D...  Theory  and  Practice  of  Banking ...  London,  1855. 
M'CuLLOCH,  J.  R.  .A  Dictionary,  Practical,  &c.,  of  Com- 
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"  The  Literature  of  Political  Economy .  London,  1845. 

"  Principles  of  Political  Economy London,  1830. 

Malthus,  T.  R  . .  .  Definitions  in  Political  Economy . . .  London,  1827, 
"                      Inquiry  into  the  Nature  and  Prog- 
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MalthtjS,  T.  R.  .  .Principles  of  Political   Economy ...  London,  1836. 

Mandeville,  B.  de.Fable  of  the  Bees London,  1728, 

Martineau,     Har- 
riet    The  Manchester  Strike (?)    1842. 

Marx,    Karl,    and 

Engels,    F Manifest  der  Kommunistischen  Par- 

tei    London,  1847 

Marx,    Karl,    and 

Ruge,   A Deutsch-franzosische  Jahrbiicher. .  ..Paris,  1844. 

ikLujx,    Karl Lohnarbeit     und     Kapital.       (Neue 

Rheinische   Zeitung,    7th  April. )  . .  Koln,  1849. 
•*  Misere   de   la   philosophie:    R^ponse 

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Proudhon    Paris,   1847. 

**  Zur    Kritik   der    Politischen    (Ekon- 

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Massey,  J An  Essay  on  the  Governing  Causes 

of   the    Natural   Rate   of   Interest. 

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Master  Spinners  and  Manufactur- 

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Mauser    Geschichte   der   Fronhofe Erlangen,  1862 


858  Capitalist  Production. 

Author.  Work.  Date. 

Maueb  Einleitung  zur  Gcachichte  der  Mark- 

verfassung    Mtinchen,  1854. 

Meecieb  de  la  Ri- 
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Merchant,  A ....  A  l)iscourse  on  the  (Jeneral  Notions 
of  Money,  etc.  {See  under  Anony- 
mous)     London,  1695. 

Mebivale,  H Lectures  on  Colonization  and  Colo- 
nies     London,  1841. 

MnXi,  James Article    "Colony,"     Supplement    of 

•     Encyclopaedia    Britannica Edinburgh,    1831. 

"  Elements  of  Political  Economy London,  1821. 

Mill,  John  Stuart.Essays  on  some  Unsettled  Questions 

of  Political   Economy London,  1844. 

"  Principles  of  Political  Economy. ..  .London,  1848. 

MiBABEAu    De  la  Monarchie  Prassienne Lond-es,  1788. 

MoLiNAM,  G.  de.  .Etudes    ficonomiques Paris,   1846. 

MoMMSEN,  Th Romische  Gteschichte Berlin,   1856. 

Money   and    its   Vicissitudes.      {See 

S.   Bailey.     Pub.   Anon.) London,  1837. 

MoNTEiL,  Alexis. .  .Histoire  des  Mat§riaux  manuscripts, 

&c Paris,   1835. 

Montesquieu Esprit  des  Lois.     (Euvres Londres,  1767. 

MoBE,  Thomas ....  Utopia    

Mobning  Stab.     {See  under  News- 
papers )    

MoBTON,  J.  C Article  Labourer  in  Cyclopaedia  of 

Agriculture    

Paper    read    before    the    Society    of 

Arts  Jan.   1861    

MoBNiNG  Stab.      {See  under  News- 
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MuN,  Th England's      Treasure      by     Foreign 

Trade    London,  1669. 

MuBPHY   Ireland,    Industrial,    Political,    and 

Social    London,  1870. 

MuBBAT,  Hugh,      Historic  and  descriptive  account  of 
Wilson,  etc British   India Edinburgh,    1832. 

N. 

Nasmtth  Speech  at  Trades'  Union  Commis- 
sion,   1851 London,  1851. 

Newman,  S.  P Elements  of  Political  Economy ....  New  York,  1835. 

Newman,  W.  F... Lectures  on  Political  Economy London,  1851. 

Newnham,  G.  B.  .a  Review  of  the  Evidence  before  the 
Committee  of  the  two  Houses  of 
Parliament  on  the  Corn  Laws ....  London,  1815. 

Newspapers  Newspapebs  and  journals,  etc. 

Bengal  Hurkabu.    Bi-monthly  Over- 
land Summary  of  news.  July  22nd . .  Calcutta   ( ? )   1861. 

Daily  Telegbaph,  Jan.  7th London,  1860. 

Economist,  July  19th  London,  1859. 

"  Janr.,   21st London,  1860. 

"  June,  2nd London,  1866. 


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Author.  Work.  Date. 

JouBi>iAL  of  the  Society  of  Arts ....  London. 

"         January,   18Ul 

"         January,  1872 

"         April,  ISGC,  etc! 

MoBNiNG   Star,  April    17tli London 

"  "        June  23rd London 

Observer,  April  24th London 

Eevolutions  de  Paris Paris,  1 

Reynolds'  Newspaper,  Jan London 

Feb  London 

"        "      Jan.  20th.. London 

Spectatob,  June London 

Standard  London 

Oct.  26th London 

Times,  Nov.  5th London 

Nov.    26th London 

"        Nov.  29th London 

"        March    24tn London 

"        Sept.    9th London 

Workman's  Advocate,  Jan.  1866 ...  London 
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NiEBUHB,  G.   B. 

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1865 

1861. 

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1862. 

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1863. 

1873. 

1866. 
1853. 

169L 


(?) 


Olmsted,  F. 
Opdyke,  G  . . 
Ortes,  G.,  .. 


Otwat,  J.  H. 

Owen,  Robert. 


Pagnini,  L.  A . . 

Parliamentaet 
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Observations  on  certain  verbal  dis- 
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Observer.      ( See  Newspapers ) . 

.Sea  board  Slave  States New  York,  1856. 

.A  treatise  on  Political  Economy. . .  .New  York,  185L 

.Delia  Economia  libri  sei    (Ed.  Cus- 
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•  Judgment  of    T.   H.   Otway,  Hilary 
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.Observations   on   the   Effects  of  the 
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P. 

.  Saggio  sopra  il  giusto  pregio  delle 

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Agbicultubal  Labourers,   (Ireland) 

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Census   for  Great  Britain,  Ireland 

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Children's  Employment  Commission 

Factory  Regulation  Acts,  1859.... 
House     of     Commons     Committee, 

1826. 
House     of     Lords     Committee    on 

Bank   Acts,    1848 

Reports  on  Bank  Acts,  1857 

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1868    


86o  Capitalist  Production.- 

Author.  Work.  Date. 

Reports    of    Select    Committee    on 

Mines,   1866 

Reports  of  Commissioners  of  H.  M.'s 
Inland  Revenue.    ( Fourth  &  Tenth ) . 
Reports  of  Commissioners  relating 
to  Transportation  and  Penal  Servi- 
tude.     ( 18G3 

Reports   of  Foreign  Office.     (How- 
ard de  VVelden ) 

Reports  of  Ispectors  of  Factories . . 
Reports  of  Royal  Commission  on 
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Reports  from  the  Poor  Law  Inspec- 
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Reports  on  Public  Health 

Reports  of  the  Registrar  General . . 
Reports    of    H.    M.    Secretaries    of 
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Statistics.      {See     under     Parlia- 
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Statutes,    General,    of    Massachu- 
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INDEX. 


Abstinence,  two  kinds  of,  650. 

Absurdities  of  vulgar  economy,  180,  205 
note,  241  note,  249,  352,  489,  653,  654, 
655,  666,  669,  701,  839,  841. 

Accumulation  of  capital,  its  concept,  634; 
not  identical  with  hoarding,  645;  at  a 
faster  rate  than  increase  of  population 
increases  wages,  673 ;  means  increase  of 
proletariat,  674 ;  means  concentration  of 
capital  and  labourers,  685;  causes  a 
relative  overpopulation  (industrial  re- 
serve army),  691;  its  absolute  general 
law,  707;  its  general  laV  illustrated, 
711-717;  degrades  the  labourer,  727- 
733;  primitive,  its  secret,  784;  promoted 
by  public  debt,  827;  see  also  Capitalist 
Accumulation. 

Additionsto  the  text  of  the  fourth  Ger- 
man edition  of  "Capital,"  32. 

Adulteration  of  commodities,  194,  274, 
277. 

Agricultural  laborers'  misery  in  England, 
719,  739-773,   779. 

Agricultural  revolution  in  England,  778, 
788-805;  its  reaction  on  inciustry,   817. 

American  Civil  War  centralised  capital, 
847;  stimulated  improvements  in  cotton 
machinery,   473. 

Animals  and  plants  transformed  by  a  con- 
tinuous process  of  labor,   202. 

Antagonism  between  capitalists  and  labor- 
ers, 363. 

Aristotle   lacked   a  concept   of   value,    69. 

B. 

Barter,  direct,  its  development,  100. 
Bentham's   dogma  of  a  fixed  wage   fund, 

668. 
Burke's    observation    of    comoensation    of 

differences  in  co-operative  labor,  354. 

c. 

"Capital,"  the  Bible  of  the  working  class, 
30. 

Capital,  first  money-capital,  163;  its  cir- 
culation without  limits,  170;  contradic- 
tions in  its  general  formula,  173;  mer- 
chant's   and     monev-lender's    does    not 


breast,  651;  not  interested  in  value,  but 
in  surplus-value,  351;  in  the  labor-proc- 
ess, 205. 

Capitalist,  industrial,  his  genesis,  822;  a 
lover  of  force,  824,  826. 

Capitalist  Accumulation,  its  phases  re- 
viewed, 640;  its  historical  tendencies. 
834-837. 

Capitalist  Argument,  to  conceal  true  na- 
ture of  labor  process,  213;  against  ten 
hours'  day,  240. 

Capitalist  Co-operation  differs  from  an- 
tique co-operation,  367. 

Capitalist  Era,   its  beginning,  787. 

Capitalist  View  of  production  of  com- 
modities individualistic,  643. 

Capitalist  Production,'  a  production  of 
surplus-value,  558;  based  on  man's  do- 
minion over  nature,  563;  begets  class- 
struggle,  633;  means  anarchy  in  social 
division  of  labor  and  despotism  in  the 
workshop,  391. 

Capitalists,  denouncing  one  another,  601; 
preventing  one  another  from  obeying 
laws,   537. 

Centralisation,  its  difference  from  con- 
centration,  686. 

Changes  in  the  original  plan  of  "Capital," 
7,  8. 

Child  Labor  in  England,  268,  884-289, 
5]0,   511. 

Circulation,  sweating  money,  127;  not  a 
source  of  surplus-value,  177. 

Classic  Economy  never  understood  the 
process  of  reproduction,  665,  note;  see 
also  Political  Economy. 

Oass-Stru^gles  between  creditors  and 
debtors  in  antiquity,  162. 

Coin  as  money,   140. 

Colonisation,  its  modern  theory,  838;  in- 
dependent labor  its  obstacle,  840;  on  a 
capitalist  basis  impossible  without  wage- 
labor,  843;  uncovers  secret  of  capitalist 
accumulation,  848. 

Commodities,  defined,  41 ;  their  fetishism, 
81;  their  exchange,  96;  explaining  their 
own  nature,  95;  their  relation  to  their 
owners,  97;  their  circulation,  106;  their 
metamorphosis,  116;  differentiated  from 
gold,  117;  in  love  with  money,  121; 
their  complete   metamorphosis,    125. 


create  any  new  value,  183;  problem  of  Condition  of  Political  Economy  in  1848, 
its   production   posed,    184;    its  creation         17—19. 

Constant  Capital,  see  Capital. 

Co-operation,  based  on  division  of  labor 
typical   of    manufacturing    period,    309; 


accomplished,  217;  constant,  232;  varia- 
ble, 233 ;  dead  labor  sucking  living  la- 
bor, 257;  squanders  labor-power,  581; 
means  command  over  unpaid  labor,  585; 
not  increased  by  non-consumption,  646; 
its  technical  and  organic  composition, 
672;  see  also  Value. 
Capitalist,  creates  no  surplus-value,  638; 
his  individual  consumption  robs  accu- 
mulation,  649;    Faustian  conflict '  in   his 


865 


implies  concentration  of  labor  and  capi- 
tal, 362;  in  antiquity,  366;  of  machin- 
ery, 414;  under  capitalism  develops  des- 
potism, 364. 

Co-operative  _  Labor  different  in  effect 
from  individual  labor,  357. 

Corvee,  abuse  of,  261. 


866 


Index. 


Cost- Price,   689. 

Cotton  Industry,  promoted  slave  breeding 
industry,  485. 

Credit-System,  helps  centralisation,  687; 
grows  with  national   debt,   828. 

Crises,  cycle  of,  31;  see  also  Over-Popu- 
lation, Accumulation,  Mone^,  Machin- 
ery,  Stock   Exchange  Gambling. 

Crusoe,  Robinson,  in  political  economy, 
88. 

D. 

Death  from  over-work,  280. 

Death  Rate  increased  by  capitalist  pro- 
duction,  282,    434,    435,    510. 

Debt.  Public,  a  lever  of  primitive  accu- 
mulation, 827. 

Degeneration  of  laborer,  270. 

Degradation  of  laborer  by  capitalism,  727, 
729,    731,   733,    736,   737,   832. 

Difference  between  English  and  American 
edition  of  "Capital,      9. 

Diseases  caused  by  capitalist  exploitation, 
270,   510,   511,   721,  727,   729,  731. 

Division  of  Labor,  necessary  for  produc- 
tion of  commodities,  49 ;_  not  based  on 
production  of  commodities,  49;  under 
manufacture  explained,  371 ;  in  manu- 
facture and  society  compared,  385;  fatal 
to  free  citizenship,  389;  in  guilds,  394; 
its  stupefying  effect  on  the  laborer, 
397;  increases  capitalist  authority,  391; 
in  Indian  communities,  393;  makes 
automaton  of  laborer,  396. 

Domestic  Industry,  Modern,  509;  em- 
ploys women  and  children,  510,^  511; 
cause  of  overcrowding,  512;  an  indus- 
trial reserve  force,  624. 


Factory  System,  ruining  handicrafts  and 
manufacture,  492-493;  its  effect  on 
English  cotton  industry,  497-501;  its 
enormous  power  of  expansion,  495;  its 
reaction  on  handicrafts,  manufacture, 
and  domestic   industries,   502-505. 

Family,  its  transformation  under  capitalist 
production,   511—514. 

Farmer,   Capitalist,   his  genesis,  814. 

Force,  an  element  in  primitive  accumula- 
tion, 809;  the  midwife  of  social  revolu- 
tion,  824. 

Forecast  of  events  by  averages,  227. 

Freedom,    Equality,   and   Bentham,    196. 

French  revolution  abolished  laborer's  rigkt 
of  association,  813. 

a. 

Gladstone,   his  contradictory  speech,   716. 

Gold  and  Silver,  natural  money,  102; 
differences  in  mining,  160  note;  their 
different  weight  as  a  standard  of  price 
and  medium  of  circulation,  141;  sec 
also  Metal. 

Guilds,  medieval,  tried  to  prevent  trade 
masters  from  becoming  capitalists,  837. 


Handicraft,  skill  an  obstacle  to  capitalist 
discipline,  403;  revolutionised  by  mod- 
ern  industry,  see  Machinery. 

Hegel's  dialectics  inverted  by  Marx,  25, 
26;  law  of  transformation  of  quantity 
into  quality,  338. 

Hoarding,  see  Money. 

Home-Market,  conquered  by  modem  in- 
dustry, 821. 


Economy  in  constant  capital  through  co- 
operative  labor,   356. 

Emigration  of  laborers  meets  opposition 
of  masters,  629. 

Engels,  his  additional  work  on  "Capital," 
32;   his   ridicule  of  Malthus,   696. 

Epochs,  Economic,  distinguished  by  tools, 
200. 

Equivalent,  see  Value. 

Exchange,  illustrated,  118;  a  double  proc- 
ess, 122. 

Exchange  Value  defined  and  explained, 
43;   see  also   Production   and  Value. 

Excrements  of  production,  663. 

Experiments,  made  to  intensify  labor,  449; 
in  labor  legislation  made  at  the  expense 
of  the  laborers,  539. 

Exports  refute   wage  fund  theory,  670. 

Extinction  of  English  handloom  weavers, 
471. 

P. 

Factory,  modern,  described,  467—466. 

Factory  Acts,  hasten  industrial  revolu- 
tion, 514.  519,  521,  522;  circumvented, 
265;  a  curb  on  the  greed  for  surplus- 
labor,  263;  their  effect  on  sanitation 
and  education  in  England,  526;  re- 
garded as  an  interference  with  the 
rights  of  capital,  535;  hasten  concen- 
tration of  capital,  552. 

Factory  Acts  Extension  Acts,  sphere  em- 
braced by  them,  540;  spoil  Factory 
Acts,  641. 


Ideas  reflexes  of  the  real  world.  91. 

Industrial  Reserve  Army,  caused  by  accu- 
mulation of  capital,  691;  a  necessary 
condition  of  capitalist  production,  693; 
a  regulator  of  wages,  699;  a  check  upon 
the  emancipation  of  labor,   701. 

Industry,  Modern,  revolutionises  agricul- 
ture, 553,  778,  788-805;  revolutionises 
handicrafts  and  manufacture,  see  Ma- 
chinery and  Accumulation;  annihilates 
peasant,  554;  breaks  power  of  resist- 
ance of  agricultural  laborer,  555;  in- 
creases  public   debts  and  taxation,   830. 

Interest,  not  analyzed  in  volume  I;  see 
volume   III. 

International  spread  of  "Capital,"   30._ 

Internationalism  of  capitalist  production, 
see   World   Market. 

Invention  causes  more  invention,  419. 

Inventions  of  handicraft  period,  382. 

J. 

June  Insurrection  in  France,  its  effect  on 
ruling  class, of  England,  313. 

Justice  of  capitalism  illustrated,  725. 

Justification  of  the  phrase  "value  of  la- 
bor,"  592. 


Labor,  the  common  property  of  commodi- 
ties, 44;  its  twofold  character,  48;  sim- 
ple average  labor  in  the  abstract,  51 ; 
skilled,  reduced  to  simple  average  labor. 


Index. 


867 


51,  52;  the  cause  of  the  fetishism  of 
commodities,  S3;  its  social  character. 
Si;  homogeneous,  the  secret  of  social 
production,  85;  in  free  communities,  90; 
Its  property  transformed  into  capitalist 
property,  140;  skilled  and  unskilled, 
their  difference  in  value,  220;  neces- 
sary, 240;  has  no  value,  588;  separated 
from  property,  G40;  co-operative,  see 
Co-Operation ;  surplus,  see  Surplus-La- 
bor. 

Labor    Fund,    its   relation   to   capital,    622. 

Labor  Laws  in  England,  from  the  14th  to 
the  17th  century,  290-304;  from  1833- 
1864,  304-330. 

Labor-Power,  general  property  of  labor- 
process,  57;  bought  and  sold,  185;  a 
commodity,  186;  its  value  determined, 
189;  minimum  limit  of  its  value,  192; 
advanced  to  the  capitalist,  193;  pro- 
duces more  value  than  it  has  itself, 
216;  its  value  determined  by  average 
necessities  of  life,  568;  three  laws  of 
determining  its  value,  569. 

Labor-Process,  explained,  203;  a  produc- 
tive process,   557. 

Labor  Time,  a  standard  measure  of  value, 
45 ;  socially  necessary,  40 ;  its  assertion 
as  a  social  law,  86;  regulated  by  com- 
petition, 379. 

Laborer,  the  free,  187;  his  demand  for  a 
normal  use  of  his  labor-power,  258;  a 
specialised  implement  in  division  of  la- 
bor, 372 ;  the  collective,  383 ;  feeds  him- 
self and  the  capitalist,  621;  his  pro- 
ductive and  individual  consumption, 
626-628. 

Land,  first  used  as  money  in  the  17th 
century,   101. 

Law,  concerning  issue  of  paper  money, 
143;  of  population  explained,  681;  of 
value  in  its  international  application, 
612;   of  value  in  general,  see  Value. 

Legislation  against  expropriated  in  Eng- 
land, 805-808,  810-814;  in  France, 
808,  813. 

Leisure,  nature's  gift  to  primitive  man, 
565. 

Limits  of  Compensation  of  rate  and  mass 
of  surplus-value,  333;  see  also  Surplus- 
Value. 

M. 

Machine,  collective,  415 ;  a  product  of 
modern  industry,  418. 

Machinery,  its  difference  from  tools,  405; 
not  a  means  of  shortening  labor  time 
under  capitalism,  405;  uses  more  tools 
than  man,  408;  the  starting  point  of 
industrial  revolution,  410;  more  exact 
than  skilled  labor,  420;  its  giant  power, 
421;  differences  in  its  wear  and  tear, 
423;  its  capacity  for  speed,  425;  its 
productivity,  427;  substituted  for  half- 
time  laborers,  429;  increases  female 
and  child  labor,  431 ;  develops  slave 
trade  in  white  children,  432;  increases 
death  rate  among  laborers,  434;  under- 
mines morality,  435,  436;  prevents  edu- 
cation of  children,  437-439;  prolongs 
working  day,  440;  its  twofold  wear  and 
tear,  441 ;  its  moral  depreciation,  442 
increases  relative  surplus-value,  443 
reduces  variable  capital  relatively,  444 
intensifies    contradictions    of    capitalist 


production,  445;  in  antiquity  lightened 
labor,  446;  intensifies  exploitation,  447; 
fought  by  laborers,  467;  its  use  for- 
bidden by  law,  467—468;  increases 
profits,  476;  does  not  compensate  work- 
ing people  for  loss  of  employment,  479, 
481 ;  lowers  consumption  of  commodi- 
ties, 480;  under  capitalism  and  in  a 
free  society  compared,  482;  in  one  in- 
dustry increases  production  in  another, 
484;  animate  and  inanimate,  631. 

Malthus,  his  queer  division  of  labor  be- 
tween accumulating  and  spending  ex- 
ploiters, 654;  his  "  Essay  on  Popula- 
tion," 675;  his  "Principles  of  Political 
Economy,"  696. 

Malthusianism  exploded,  676,  note. 

Mandeville's  Fable  of  the   Bees,  674. 

Manufacture,  its  twofold  rise,  369,  370; 
its  two  fundamental  forms,  375;  its 
narrow  technical  basis,  404;  modern, 
in  operation,  506-509;  ruined  by  ma- 
chinery, see  Machinery. 

Mass,  of  profit,  see  Profit;  of  surplus- 
value,   see   Surplus-Value. 

Market,  see  Home-Market  and  World- 
Market. 

Marx's  method  explained  by  himself,  12, 
15,  21,  22,  24,  25;  method  of  quotation, 
30,  33;  quotation  from  Gladstone  vin- 
dicated,  34-39. 

Materialist  Conception   of  History,   15,  22. 

Means  of  Production,  necessary  for  re- 
production, 620;  see  also  Constant  Cap- 
ital. 

Mercantilists  and  Free  Traders,  their  mis- 
conception of  value,  70. 

Metal,  its  weight  in  silver  and  copper 
arbitrarily  fixed  by  law,  142;  see  also 
Gold,    Silver,  and   Money. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  his  superiority  over  the 
mercantilists,  566;  his  misinterpretation 
of  profits,  567;  his  excessive  generalisa- 
tions, 567;  an  apologist  of  the  wage 
fund  theory,   669. 

Mind,  Human,  operating  on  materials 
after  the  fact,  87. 

Mines'  Inspection  Act,  a  dead  letter,  542; 
farce  of  questioning  witnesses,  543-561. 

Misery  of  British  industrial  proletariat, 
718. 

Modern  Industry,  see  Industry,  Machin- 
ery, and  Accumulation. 

Money,  the  universal  equivalent,  99;  its 
magic,  105;  a  measure  of  value,  106; 
wild  theories  of,  108;  its  two  functions 
as  a  measure  of  value  and  a  standard 
of  price,  109;  historical  origin  of  its 
names,  112;  its  currency,  128;  keeps  up 
the  continuity  of  circulation,  130;  its 
change  of  place  in  simple  circulation, 
131;  effect  of  its  rise  or  fall  on  the 
prices  of  commodities,  132;  its  quantity 
in  circulation  determined  by  volume  of 
production,  134;  its  currency  a  reflex 
of  circulation  of  commodities,  132;  its 
quantity  determined  by  sum  of  prices 
and  velocity  of  exchange,  137;  mutual 
compensation  of  factors  in  its  currency, 
138;  erroneous  opinion  concerning  de- 
termination of  its  quantity  in  circula- 
tion, 139;  paper,  symbolising  gold  and 
silver,  144;  replaced  by  tokens,  145; 
hoarding  of,  146;  buried  by  Hindoos, 
147;  its  power,  148;  bounds  of  its  effi- 
cacy,   149;    a  means    of    payment,    151; 


868 


Index. 


development  of  special  institutions  for 
its  payment,  154;  its  contradictory 
character  expressed  through  crises,  155; 
its  rise  as  a  means  of  credit,  156;  uni- 
versal, 159;  reserve,  161;  its  trans- 
formation into  capital,  163;  the  be- 
ginning and  end  of  value,  172:  its  in- 
ternational value,  613;  probable  form 
of  its  primitive  accumulation,   623. 

Moore,  Samuel,  and  Aveling,  Edward, 
translators  of  the  first  volume  of  "Cap- 
ital,"  27,  28. 

Morality,  of  capitalism  illustrated,  265, 
273,  274,  278,  279,  287,  292,  294,  302, 
311,  319,  321,  389,  396,  446,  725; 
of  working  people  destroyed  by  capi- 
talism, 283,  432,  433,  435,  436,  501,  607, 
608. 

Mysteries  of  trades,  532. 

N. 

National  Debt,  see  Debt. 

Natural   forces  cost   capital   nothing,   422. 

Nature,    the    basis    of    the    labor-process, 

199,    201,    227,    230;    its    two    economic 

classes,    562;    and    labor-power    primary 

wealth   creators,   662. 
Night   Work   opposed  by   laborers,   877. 
Nomad    Races    the    first    to    develop    the 

money  form,  101. 

o. 

Original  Plan  of  "Capital,"  7. 

Over-Crowding  of  laborer  by  capitalism, 
728,   729,   731. 

Over-Population,  Relative,  caused  ^  ac- 
cumulation of  capital,  691;  its  different 
forms,   703. 

Over-Production,  see  Over-Population, 
Accumulation,  Industrial  Reserve  Army, 
and  Machinery. 

Over-Time'  paid  extra,  598. 

Over-Work  shortening  life,  270,  272,  275, 
279. 

P. 

Pauperism  a  form  of  relative  over-popu- 
lation, 706. 

Physiocrats,  consider  only  agricultural  la- 
bor as  productive,  559;  their  Tableau 
Economique,  647. 

Piece  Wages,  a  converted  form  of  time 
wages,  602;  irrationality  of  their  form, 
604;  their  characteristic  peculiarities, 
605;  a  form  of  the  sweating  system, 
606;  compared  with  time  wages,  607; 
in  vogue  since  the  14th  century,  608; 
the  general  rule  under  the  Factory 
Acts,  609;  lowered  in  proportion  as 
the  number  of  prices  increases,  610; 
see  also  Wages. 

Plato's  Republic  on  division  of  labor,  402. 

Political  Economy,  as  a  science  a  product 
of  manufacturing  period,  400;  in  an- 
tiquity dwells  most  on  use-value  and 
quality,  401:  classic,  could  not  explain 
price  or  value,  589.  590;  stuck  in  its 
bourgeois  skin,  594;  its  condition  in 
1848,  17,   19;  vulgar,  see  Absurdities. 

Precious  Metals,  their  increase  accom- 
panied by  a  fail  in  prices,  133;  see  also 
Metal,    Money,   Gold,  and    Silver. 

Price,    the    money-form    of    commodities, 


107;  its  fluctuations  explained.  111;  the 
money-name  of  labor,  114;  without 
value,  115;  affected  by  changes  in  labor 
time,  120;  of  products  of  handicrafts 
and   machinery  compared,   426. 

Productivity,  its  effect  on  value,  53;  de- 
pends on  proficiency  of  laborer  and 
perfection  of  tools,  374;  declared  to  be 
no  concern   of   the  laborer's,   611. 

Production  and  Reproduction  without 
"abstinence,"  656. 

Production  of  commodities  converted  into 
capitalist  production,  643. 

Production  of  use-value  and  exchange 
value  compared,  218;  see  also  Exchange 
Value  and  Use-Value. 

Profit,  according  to  classic  economy,  625; 
not  analyzed  in  volume  I,  see  volume 
III. 

Property,  its  different  forms,  89. 

Protective  Legislation  for  children  bene- 
fits also  the  adult,   638. 

Protestantism  changed  holidays  into  work- 
ing days,  303  note. 

Public  Auction  of  children.   433. 

Public  Debt,  see  Debt. 

Public  Opinion  a  tool  of  capitalists,  632. 

Purchase,  the  second  metamorphosis  of 
commodities,  123. 

Q. 

Quesnay's  Riddle  for  vulgar  economists, 
351. 

B. 

Railway  System  encourages  short  orders, 
623. 

Rate  of  Profit,  not  analysed  in  volume  I; 
see  volume  III. 

Rate  of  Surplus- Value,  see  Surplus-Value. 

Raw  Materials  supplied  by  nature  are  not 
capital,  661. 

Reception  of  "Capital"  in  Germany,  20. 

Reduction  of  labor  time  under  capitalism 
produces  intensification  of  exploitation, 
456. 

Relay;  System,  282. 

Religion  a  reflex  of  the  real  world,  91. 

Rent,  not  analysed  in  volume  I;  see  vol- 
ume III. 

Reproduction,    see    Capitalist    Production. 

Reserve  Army,  Industrial,  created  by 
modern  industry,  533 ;  see  also  Indus- 
trial Reserve  Army,  Accumulation,  and 
Machinery. 

Revolution,  see  Capitalist  Production,  Ag- 
ricultural Revolution,  Factory  System, 
and    Industry. 

Ricardo,  his  insufficient  analysis  of  value, 
92,  566;  his  three  laws  of  value,  569- 
573;  his  errors,  574. 

Rodbertus,    his    own    detractor,    583. 

Roman  Empire,  its  failure  to  collect  all 
contributions  in  money,  157. 

Roscher's  nursery  economics,  355,  note. 

Rumford's  receipts  for  cheap  living,  659. 

S. 

Sale,    the    first    metamorphosis    of    com* 

modities,  119. 
Schools,    technical    and   agricultural,    534. 
Self-earned  Money  of  capitalists,  637. 
Sentimentality  in  economics,  192. 


Index. 


869 


Silver,  see  Gold,   Metai,  and  Money. 

Slave  Labor  is  unpaid  labor,  591. 

Smith,  Adam,  contended  that  additional 
capital  is  consumed  by  laborer,  646; 
supposed  that  social  capital  was  only 
variable   capital,    647. 

Social  Laws,  mistaken  by  bourgeois  for 
natural  laws,  93,  709;  evolved  by  nat- 
ural processes,   373. 

Soul   of   Capital,   surplus-value,   257. 

Speculation,  sec  Stock  Exchange  Gam- 
bling. 

Stock  Companies  a  means  of  centralisa- 
tion, 68. 

Stock  Exchange  Gambling  promoted  by 
public  debt,  827. 

Sunday  Work,  278;  double  standard  of 
justice  in  regard  to  it,  291,  note. 

Superintendence  creates   no  value,  215. 

Supply  and  Demand  no  explanation  for 
value  or  price,  589;  used  and  abused 
by    capitalists,    702. 

Surplus-Labor,  241;  not  invented  by  capi- 
tal, 259;  its  intermediate  forms,  559; 
its  natural  basis,  561;  appears  as  paid 
labor,  591. 

Surplus-Product,  its  concept,  635;  be- 
comes property  of  capitalist  by  virtue 
of   laws   of  commodity   production,   642. 

Surplus-Value,  absolute,  its  concept,  345, 
559;  its  production,  197;  the  end  of 
capitalist  production,  207;  its  rate,  235: 
calculation  of  its  rate,  242;  produced 
only  by  variable  capital,  237;  its  rate 
and  mass,  331;  its  mass  varies  in  direct 
proportion  to  the  variable  capital,  335; 
relative,  its  concept,  342,  345,  559; 
explained  in  detail,  347;  three  laws  de- 
termining its  magnitude,  569;  its  nature 
concealed  by  capitalist  production,  585; 
converted  into  capital,  636;  divided  into 
capital   and    revenue,    648. 

Survival  of  the  Fittest  among  agricul- 
tural  laborers   of   England,    296. 

Symbols  of  money  and  commodities,  103. 

T. 

Tableau  Economique,  see  Physiocrats. 

Taxation  a  product  of  national  loans, 
829. 

Taxes  payable  in  kind  a  means  of  pre- 
serving  the   old    order,   158. 

Terminology    of    "Capital"   explained,    29. 

Time    Wages,    594;   see   also   Wages. 

Trade  Unions  desire  to  share  benefits  of 
improved   machinery,   611,  note. 

Traffic  in  human  flesh,   294. 

Transition  from  manufacture  to  machine 
production,  its  different   forms,  517. 

u. 

Unemployed,  parade  in  London,  736;  see 
also  Over-Population  and  Machinery. 

Unnroductive  Laborers,  their  increase, 
487. 

Ure.  denouncing  law  for  reduction  of 
.  labor  time  as  a   retrogression,   299. 

Use- Value,     defined    and    explained,    42; 


without  exchange  value,  47,  48;  as 
quality  compared  to  e.xchange-value  as 
quantity,  52,  53;  see  also  value  and 
Production. 

V. 

Value,  its  substance  and  form,  41—96; 
crystallised  human  labor,  45;  by  labor 
time  illustrated,  47;  as  a  relation  and 
an  equivalent,  56;  equivalent  form  illus- 
trated, 58;  relative  and  absolute  com- 
pared, 63;  its  elementary  form,  71; 
Its  expanded  relative  form,  72;  its  par- 
ticular equivalent  form,  73 ;  defects  of 
its  expanded  form,  74;  its  general 
form,  75;  interdependent  development 
of  its  forms,  78;  its  transition  from  the 
general  to  the  money  form,  79;  its 
creation  explained,  208;  how  trans- 
ferred to  the  product  in  production, 
822;  of  constant  capital  transferred  to 
the  product,  234;  represented  by  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  product,  245;  of  com- 
modities in  inverse  ratio  to  produc- 
tivity, 350;  surplus,  see  Surplus-Value; 
in  use,  see  Use-Value;  exchange,  see 
Exchange  Value. 

Variable  Capital,  see   Capital. 

Vulgar  Economy,  see  Absurdities. 

w. 

Wage  Laborer,  his  incessant  reprodtiction 
the  indispensable  condition  of  capitalist 
production,  625. 

Wages,  the  price  of  labor-power,  586; 
nominal  rise  may  be  actual  fall,  579; 
not  equal  to  full  value  of  product, 
587;  their  variations,  595;  lower  with 
longer  working  hours,  599;  compared 
internationally,  614,  615;  do  not  rise 
or  fall  in  proportion  as  productivity 
varies,  616;  their  forcible  reduction  a 
means  of  accumulation,  657;  their  gen- 
eral movement  regulated  by  industrial 
reserve  army,  699;  regulated  by  laws 
of  distribution  of  population,  700;  see 
also  Piece  Wages,  Time  Wages,  and 
Variable   Capital. 

Wage  Fund,  according  to  Bentham,  668; 
according  to  Fawcett,  669. 

Water  and  Wind  as  motive  powers,  411. 

Watt's  genius  shown  by  proclaiming  the 
universality   of  the   steam   engine,    412. 

Wealth,  National,  measured  by  relative 
magnitude  of  surplus  produce,  254;  its 
primary  creators  labor-power  and  land, 
662. 

Work,  unsanitary,  a  source  of  disease, 
271. 

Working  Day,  indeterminate,  256 j  capi- 
talist idea  of,  290;  summary  of  its  two 
historical    stages    in    England,    326-330. 

World-Market,   823-834. 

X. 

Xenophon's  bourgeois  instinct  shown  by 
his  idea  of  division  of  labor,  402. 


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